Helena Beat

Participants: Lucas Braun, Kevin McKay, Allen Zhao (In Spirit), Albert Yip (In Spirit), Kevin Lam (In Spirit).

Over Christmas break, Kevin McKay and I returned home to Calgary. Allen, Albert, and Kevin Lam had plans to drive up between Christmas and New Year’s to see what the Rockies had to offer for ski touring. Kevin M. and I were eager to join them. So we planned to ski Helena Ridge, a nice mellow slope just east of Castle Mountain, on the 28th.

Helena Behind Castle. Photo Credit: Lucas Braun

Tragedy befell Allen as they skied in Rogers Pass, however. The toe piece of his binding broke. This was not the first time his bindings improbably snapped clean into two pieces, but we are all praying that it will be the last.

I had already rented my skis for the day and was rearing to at least get some use out of them. So Kevin M. and I decided to go up anyway.

We arrived at the trailhead at around 8:00am. There was another small group of skiers but that was it. We skied up some switchbacks as the sun rose, and Castle Mountain was illuminated before us. We made a pretty good pace, which was very impressive considering that Kevin was rocking up with frame bindings, heavy resort skis, and a hip injury. After I offered him some acetaminophen, he was able to rally to the top of the switchbacks.

Kevin On The Switchbacks. Photo Credit: Lucas Braun

We made it to a point where we were able to get a look at Helena Ridge. The mellow eastern part that most people ski was very bony, and didn’t look like it offered much skiing at all. It also would involve us going off trail to access it. So we decided to keep to the main trail and ski up to Rockbound Lake to see if there’d be a way of gaining the ridge from there.

Rockbound Lake. Photo Credit: Lucas Braun

Our ski took us through some beautiful alpine meadows under the imposing cliffs of Castle Mountain. As we skied around Tower Lake, a nice little tarn nestled in the valley, our trail became very steep. So steep that we eventually gave up trying to skin it and bootpacked up part of the way.

After some huffing and puffing, we arrived at Rockbound Lake. To our chagrin, it was surrounded by some pretty steep unassailable walls. There didn’t seem to be any easy paths up onto the ridge. We had lunch and eyed an enticing gully that went down from the ridge part of the way back towards Tower Lake. We decided that we could probably ski part of the way up to it and drop in. It was steep terrain but was also on the windward side of the ridge. We dug a pit in a slightly crossloaded gully and found that the snowpack was quite supportive.

Looking Up The Gully. Photo Credit: Lucas Braun

The skin up to the gully got pretty steep, but after scrambling onto a boulder to transition, we were ready to enter the gully. The turns were pretty sick, and before we knew it we were at the bottom and taking off our skis to cross a creek. On the other side, while transitioning, I punched through the snow to a nasty surprise. My boot started filling with water. The creek was flowing under the snowpack. I pulled it out to a shriek, but luckily my foot was warming up fast.

Transition Rock. Photo Credit: Lucas Braun.

Our ski back down the skin track was exquisite. The clouds reflected the orange and purple hues of the setting sun, and the alpenglow reminded me why my heart belongs to the Rockies.

Lucas Crossing The Creek. Photo Credit: Kevin McKay

On the drive home, we stopped at the Canmore A&W and met up with Allen, Kevin Lam, and Albert. It was definitely strange reconciling my friends of the coast with the Rocky Mountains. It felt like a strange crossover episode. But it served as a beautiful conclusion to a beautiful ski day.