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Skiing

Skiing Mt. Joffre – Kananaskis Country

By May 18, 20112 Comments
Steve and Rafael working up towards K-Country’s Mt. Joffre.
I’ve heard it said that true wisdom can be be defined as knowing without having to experience. Of course, being typical action-oriented Westerners, most of us place doing and experience above all else. This paradigm is great for getting stuff done, but sometimes you gotta wonder…
Take yesterday for example. Steve H, Raphael S and I decided it would be cool to ski Mt. Joffre in a day. Gery was going to join in on the fun but had to bail at the last minute. In hindsight, Gery’s unanticipated issue ended up like missing a flight that crashes in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows.
We embarked on the 28 km, 1700 meter (classic slog ratio) endeavor at 4:30 am and didn’t get back until about 6 pm that evening. The weather was in and out for most of the day making for some atmospheric photos and careful skiing off the summit.
Oh well, a fun day out and good training for those long spring missions.
One of many rests on the way up.
Good times.
Classic handrail on the way up Joffre’s North Face.
The weather opened up for some of the climb.
Steve’s IPOD was set on the Motivational Playlist that included the following phrase repeated over and over: “You can never quit. Winners never quit, and quitters never win.
It seemed to work well.
The last clearing for a while.
Raf looking for the summit. “Here summit… here boy.”
We were afraid of falling off the mountain so we roped up with 20+ meters of cordalette. This was a classic case of everyone thinking that someone else had the real rope.
Really happy to have made the top.
The brutal reality of the long trip back to the car.
Cool lines on the way to Aster Lake.
The end.

2 Comments

  • Anonymous says:

    That is a super far 1 day trip! Been up there twice, once was a 2 day trip which flet hard with the big pack. Second trip we did it as 4 days, but took the extra time to climb+ski Cordonnier/Warrior. Plenty of great ski lines back there.

  • Anonymous says:

    nice post. thanks.

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