Click to hear me sing
Snow Dome (2nd Try)
Elevation:
Height Gain:
Location:
 11,322 ft (3451m)
4,810 feet (1466M)
Columbia Icefields
Note for 11 May 04: Part of a week-long trip with Dan Ronsky and Jim Everard. SnowDome and Kitchener are peaks that could be done under GPS, so we saved it for a snowy day. Unfortunately, the entire week was snowy, so we went up this one on our first day. Click here for a detailed trip report
  Date Ascent Time Descent Time
1st Time 29 Apr 01 incomplete incomplete
2nd Time 11 May 04 2:15 from camp 2:30 to Kitchener


This trip was part of a week-long trip, where we tried Columbia for my fifth time, but we bagged SnowDome and Kitchener instead.

When we started out, the weather was iffy, but it showed a lot of promise. Here we are gathered by the SnoCoachs. If you get there before the SnoCoach tours start, you can often drive up past the climber's parking lot to drop off your stuff. Of course, you have to hurry and circle back to park back where you normally would. That's me under the shelter and Jim playing with his pack.



Once we got geared up, we started the hike up the ice road. I suppose you could ski up this part, but I've just always walked it. I broke out to an early lead on this road, but Jim and Dan quickly caught up to me. I've never been very good at setting pace.



When we arrived at camp, the sun actually came out, and we had hope that the next day would be clear. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Here we see our only view of Snow Dome. Our route (more or less) went up the left edge of the picture.



So here we are, the next day, going up. Jim was in the middle, with me in the back. Dan was up front breaking trail. In this picture, we're taking a break. If you look closely, you can see one of my wands behind me. Navigating in a whiteout via GPS requires you to take frequent breaks to check your position, get a compass bearing, etc. Believe it or not, it's hard to walk a straight line in a whiteout. While Dan's job was to break trail and to watch for crevasses, it was Jim's job to more or less keep Dan straight. Dan typically curves to the right, so Jim kept having to yell up, "a little to the left". My job was to place wands, take waypoints, and make sure we were still on the right side of the mountain.



Here's another picture of us taking a break. Jim's getting water, while I'm checking the map and GPS.



Here we are on the summit. Dan found a crevasse right at the summit, so we stayed spread out. We then just circled each other up and over the summit so that we each reached the top. From the summit of SnowDome, we descended toward the NW to go up Kitchener.