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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
15 Apr 06 |
incomplete |
incomplete |
This is Bow Peak from the Dolomite parking lot. We tried to access the peak from this spot, but when we arrived at the
Bow River, we discovered that the river wasn't frozen, and it wasn't crossable without getting pretty darn wet. So, we
circled back to the truck and went to the Crowfoot Hanging Glacier parking lot, where we would cross on the southern end
of Bow Lake.
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Crossing the southern end of Bow Lake was much easier in the sense that the lake was frozen, but it added quite a bit
of distance to the trip. Bow Peak is barely visable in the middle of the photo, past the treed bump.
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After endless traversing along the base of Crowfoot Mtn (roughly at the same elevation as Bow Lake), we found a gully
that took us up to the saddle between Bow Peak and Crowfoot Mtn. At the end of the day, this gully would be a nice ski run.
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As we reached the top of the gully and got into the saddle, Blair remotely triggered a couple of avalanches.
This is one he triggered in front of him. This slab actually continued around the corner, where the runout was a bit longer.
One nice thing about our conservative terrain selection was that if a slab released, the terrain wouldn't let it go far.
In the background on the left is Bow Peak.
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So, with the avalanche over and done with, it was time to check out what was above. This is me getting on top of this bump.
What I found was a lot bigger slopes. With the limited visibility from the clouds and fog, and given the ease of this slab
release, Blair and I decided to turn around and yo-yo the gully seen above.
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This is me getting to the top of this bump.
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Here is the second slab that Blair remotely released. What's interesting about this slab is that it ran through
the cornice. Notice how the cornice is layered.
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Yep, this is me standing under the big cornice. :-) Actually, it's not as bad as it looks.
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Here I am (6'2") standing at the crown. It was a pretty big slab. Fortunately, the terrain wouldn't allow it to go anywhere.
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So, once we were done playing and investigating the slides, we returned to the gully. On the right edge of the picture,
you can see some of our turns. The skiing was so good, we had to come back up for another couple of runs.
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The top of the gully wasn't very steep, but it still provided some great turns. Above the gully, we had some
steep couloirs that fed into the gully. Those were fun.
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The gully ends at the Bow River. So, after a few runs, we headed back to the truck. Despite the picture, we
were actually able to cross the river here. We then headed back to the highway and skied the shoulder of the
highway to the truck. We got some funny looks from the tourists driving down the park way.
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