Humble Pie: Rogers North
Have you ever been dished a healthy serving of humble pie? Doing what we do requires us to be modest and observant of our surroundings and thought processes, but we’re all fallible and make mistakes. Through these experiences we can grow and help our community by sharing our errors, learnings, and blindspots... or at the very least, entertain you with a little schadenfreude.
In the spirit of constant improvement, Humble Pie is a new series by Friends of WNDR on all forms of mistakes and growth opportunities in the mountains.
Words by Mark Herbison, FOW
The north side of Mount Rogers. Rogers Pass, BC. Photo: Douglas Sproul (@douglas.sproul)
For those that have had the opportunity to venture into the backcountry of Rogers Pass, British Columbia, you know it’s a uniquely special place. Situated in the heart of the Canadian Selkirk Mountains, nearly equidistant between the ragged-ass town of Golden and the hipster haven of Revelstoke, it boasts a settled seasonal average snowpack of 4m and hosts adventures to last a lifetime. The combination of access, snowfall, and terrain is unrivaled.
The South Face bootpack. Rogers Pass, BC. Photo: Mark Herbison (@markherbison)
Mount Rogers is the namesake of the region for good reason. It towers over the valley floor with a vertical relief of ~1800m. Accessing the summit in the winter months is no gimme, and one must ascend a wide and dauntingly steep south face to gain the ridgeline, which rewards the adventure seeker with a narrow shuffle along a steep and exposed snow arete to the summit block. From here the vast majority of folks tear hide, buckle up and trace their ascent track back down, reaping the steep and deep turns across the south face, onto the glacier, down the Lizard’s Tail and back into the forest below.
But from this point, peering down the steep, frosted and rarely visited north side, is where the true adventure begins.
I choose my partners thoughtfully for committing lines such as this, and on the day of our mission, the other two members were highly skill mountain technicians of their trade. From valley bottom, leaving the Hermit parking lot, travel was fast on the frozen Spring snow to ~2100m where we encountered the first bit of soft spring powder. The east winds - not common for this area - were gusting strong along the ridge tops sending plums of snow into the atmosphere and swirling about on the Swiss Glacier. From this sight, I was doubtful of reasonable ski conditions on the North side and was actually ready to call it a day and take a nap in the morning sun. Alas, we decided to continue a bit higher to assess conditions, because 'you don't know until you go'. Thankfully we did, as we found boot top pow, bucket steps ascending the untouched South Face of Mt. Rogers as the East winds seemed to taper off, gusts becoming less frequent and fierce.
Standing on the top of Mount Rogers and peering down the north side, I couldn't help but feel the excitement bubbling. We were actually going to make this happen, and conditions were good!
The North Face. Rogers Pass, BC. Photo: Mark Herbison (@markherbison)
We skied mid-boot, soft, wind pressed snow down the steep North side, weaving through the bergschrund, crevasses, and ice bulges to the basin below in two pitches. The crew was stoked! My sluff triggered an inconsequential size 1 wind slab near the bottom on the run next to a convex roll, 20cm deep, 5m wide and running 100m into the basin.
Ready to ascend, we were faced with steep terrain and two serac ice falls to negotiate. We opted to tackle the weakness between the two ice falls, through broken bulges of ice, taking note of the down flow winds regularly transporting available snow over its rolls. We transitioned between skinning and boot-packing several times to navigate the terrain. We probed over 3m+ on the glacier with 20cm of ski penetration. I was setting the track in 30+ degree, broken terrain with open crevasses and one of the ice falls below. We were in high consequence terrain with little room for error.
Rogers Pass, BC. Photo: Mark Herbison (@markherbison)
In terrain like this, you must weigh the consequences carefully. Are you more likely to trigger an avalanche or fall into a crevasse? On this day, because of the down flow wind transporting snow, our chances of triggering a small avalanche were higher than falling into a crevasse, and for this reason we removed the rope, to ideally prevent everyone in the group from being involved.
Roped travel decision-making matrix.
Unroped and spaced out, I was about to stop and regroup on a small bench before setting the track across a steep open slope below an ice bulge.
…When all of a sudden, I found myself moving, sliding, facing downhill, blocks of snow breaking up at my skis, and looking down at an open crevasse 15m below. I spun, pancaked myself onto the blocky slab and dug my claws into the bed surface below with the hopes of not finding out what the bottom of that crevasse looked like.
Rogers Pass, BC. Photo: Mark Herbison (@markherbison)
The slab was 5-30cm deep, 20m wide and ran ~70m - a small avalanche in the grand scheme of things. The main debris flow aired over the ice fall (10-15m in height) below. My side of the debris disappeared into the crevasse below. I remained on the bed surface, gripped. The remainder of the crew was not involved only because we had removed the rope. If we had left the rope on, both of them would have been caught in the debris flow and likely been pulled over the ice bulge below, with my carcass in fast pursuit, or potentially wedge neatly into the crevasse.
I was shaken, but not stirred. One of my partners took over, leading us the rest of the way through the convoluted terrain, choosing the line carefully, protecting cruxy areas with ice screws and slings when needed.
Debrief
This experience served as a good reminder that even in periods of low avalanche hazard and great spring skiing conditions, even a small avalanche could have serious consequences in the 'right' terrain feature. We anticipated pockets of slab to be forming from the winds transporting snow down the well filled in glacier and for this reason we remained unroped. By entering high consequence, technical terrain features like this, one assumes a higher level of risk than normal, the likelihood of an incident increases, and the room for error narrows. You rely on your experience, judgement, and partners to move quickly and safely through the hazards. By nothing more than luck I was only on the edge of the debris flow and not in its center, where I intended to go next.
Choose your partners appropriately, get the necessary training and experience, carry the right equipment, check weather and avalanche conditions regularly and do not be afraid to turn around, the line, almost certainly, will be there next time.
Enjoy the remainder of the ski season. Tread light and charge hard.
- Mark Herbison, FOW
Parks Canada Mountain Rescue and Avalanche Forecaster for Glacier National Park
IFMGA / ACMG Mtn Guide