Icefall Lodge

ICEFALL PEAK, IS THIS REAL?!?!?

We had been throwing around the idea of spending a week at one of the backcountry ski touring lodges in British Columbia for a couple years. Last winter, when the skiing was still awful in the Wasatch, we booked a week at Icefall Lodge for March 2019. 

The local conditions have been at all-time level so far this season. We got up to Canada and it was minus 35 degrees and hadn't snowed in about a month (very race for Icefall, as their terrain gets consistent and abundant snowfall). 

I could go on for a while but I'll just post some notes from my "journal" that I took during the week and then lots of photos.

A different week than I expected... but really fun and a great overall experience.

Food was the best I have ever eaten. Interesting options for every single meal.

The terrain was complex and just beautiful. I've never been anywhere like this.

The other guys who we shared the lodge with were a lot of fun and very welcoming to us. Lots of laughs. They all pushed themselves hard. Couldn't have gotten luckier with randomly spending the week with this group.

Snow was just OK. We had some good turning but also some very bad turning. Of course it snowed another 4 feet in the Wasatch while we were here. You take big chances on conditions when booking a trip a year in advance. We knew that going in... but didn't expect no snow for a full month before we got here. We barely got to scratch the surface of the cool terrain to ski here given the rough conditions in many areas. Still, the scenery that we did get to explore was unlike what we see at home. 

Weather was cold but for the most part good, we got 4 sunny and clear days which allowed us to enjoy the big views. A little bit of snow at the end of the week really improved conditions for the last two days. On the last day we skinned through the Diamond Glacier near Icefall Peak and skied a 5000' run to the valley floor. That was quite a cap to the week!

Overall I'm very glad we did this, mainly due to the awesome scenery and great people to share it with.

On the way back to Calgary we stopped in Lake Louise (below) and Canmore (better town than Banff, in my humble opinion).