Sarah and I left Vancouver later afternoon on Wednesday after she got out of work and started driving towards Lake Louise. We made our goal of Revelstoke by about 10:30 and climbed into the back of “Chateau Eric” for the night.
Thursday morning we grabbed a quick breakfast in Revelstoke and headed up Rogers Pass where we had the first of our sunny ski days. We skinned up Grizzly Shoulder into the alpine and had a long powder run back to the car just before dark. Lots of other skiers had the same idea. After changing out of our boots we drove into Golden and found a motel for the night.
Friday morning we woke up early and headed into Lake Louise. We parked at the Fairmont Chateau and skinned across the lake toward the Victoria Glacier. We didn’t get any fantastic skiing but it was a nice long tour with pretty awesome scenery. That night we headed out the Bow Parkway and scoped out Cirque Peak, our target for the next day. We had a cold dinner of spaghetti cooked next to the car and crawled in for a really chilly night.
Luckily, after breakfast, the sun came up and thawed us out a little. We packed up and headed out to Cirque Peak. It was not a long distance to cover but the sun was baking and we were feeling the altitude. The final 600 meters of the peak were a loose scree scramble so we had to take our skis off and climb in crampons. We had lots of time to take a million pictures and eat some lunch. The ski out went reasonably fast and we got back to the car just before dark. We headed into Lake Louise for an awesome dinner and stayed at the Alpine Club of Canada hostel for the night
Sunday we got up and did a short trip, skinning around the lake and managed a quick ski run. We were both pretty tired so were happy to stay close to the car and take pictures. In the afternoon we explored the hotel and relaxed.
Monday morning we slept in and started the Marathon drive back to Vancouver, making it home in incredibly good time.
1921 km – Distance Squamish to Lake Louise and Return
3000m – Elevation of Cirque Peak