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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
06 Mar 04 |
5:30 |
4:00 |
Our journey started in Canada at the parking lot at the end of Cameron Lake Road. From where the road is closed,
we had to ski 3km to the shores of Cameron Lake. From there, you continue south for another 2.5km to reach the
Montana border. This map shows the "US side" of our trip. The red dotted line shows where we went on this
particular trip. The brown dotted line shows how we plan to reach the summit of
Chapman Peak. Given our estimates, that should be an 18 hour trip. |
We started out by skiing down the Akamina Parkway to reach Cameron Lake. We then skied directly south across
Cameron Lake to the back left corner of the lake (shown here). We needed to get up and over these slopes, which
were prime avalanche slopes, and given the amount of fresh snow, we were a bit stressed. Basically, we hopped from
one group of trees to another until we were at the saddle between Mt. Custer (right) and Summit Knob (left).
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Trailbreaking on this day was horrible. It was usually knee deep. Seen here was one of the "shallow" sections.
Fortunately, Blair id most of the trailbreaking. Here we see myself slowly trying to keep up with Blair.
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Unfortunately for me, right after the previous picture, Blair made me get out in front. So, here I am breaking trail
across the saddle between Summit Knob and Mt. Custer. Look at me go!!
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When you pop over the saddle, you enter a small bowl with some big avalanche slopes from high above (especially from
the Mt. Custer side). The best thing is to hurry up and get through it. We went directly down this slope and up the
next slope. Most of the snow was very heavy, so skiing wasn't as good as you'd think.
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This is looking up the other side of the bowl. Chapman Peak is seen in the faded background. On the other side of the
ridge shown here is Lake Nooney. Dropping down to Lake Nooney is steep and there are a lot of small cliffs in the area.
We found a steep lee gully that we would be able to ski down when we bagged Chapman, but the key would be finding it.
As it turned out, when we did the Chapman trip, we couldn't find the gully, and had to ski all the way around this ridge
to the left.
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This is looking north into Canada. The slope on the left is from Summit Knob. If visibility was more than 1km, you'd
be looking right at Buchannon Ridge.
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We sat up on the ridge above Lake Nooney for a long time waiting to catch a glimpse of Chapman Peak. This picture was
as good as it got.
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This is looking from the second shoulder (the one above Lake Nooney) and looking over at Mt. Custer.
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This is another picture showing the upper part of the ridge from the above picture. The false summit shown here is
very close to the true summit, and I think if Blair and I go back during the summer, we might go up this ridge rather
than the standard ridge from Forum Peak.
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Here we are ready to start heading back. Rather than ski into the bottom of the bowl required to get back up to
Summit col, we decided to coast across the avalanche slopes and same the elevation loss/gain. While risky because
it cuts across some big avalanche slopes, this proved to be a good choice, especially given the amount of trailbreaking
we (Blair) was doing. Actually, Blair made me go across the slopes first.
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Now for the highlight of the day. Getting back down from Summit Col down to Cameron Lake. This is a steep and deep slope.
The snow was very very heavy, so skiing was difficult, but it was still fun. Here we see myself cutting down the slope.
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Of course, coming down through the heavy powder had it's consequences. Here we see me after a big face plant. Nonetheless,
I was in awesome spirits. This was a blast.
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