The North Pacific storms had passed Revelstoke and were well on their way to the southern Alberta Rockies, dumping more than 60cm over three days here. Eager to ski the deep stuff, Georges, Max and I hit Highway Bowl, an area right outside the Revelstoke Mountain Resort, for some exciting ski touring. We were joined by a professional freeskier, Miles Clark. After shredding some super-fast powder and punching through stiff wind lips, we barely made it back in time to the Ripper Chair for an effortless exit

Related: Kokanee Bowl, Radar Bowl: Unreal Lift-Accessed Ski Touring

Report from December 8, 2019

We had a lazy 9:30 AM start. With our energy levels replenished from a solid night’s sleep, the crew transitioned at the top of the Wind Sock, a flat groomed area near the Stoke Chair upper station, perfect for mounting those uni-directional strips of prickly hair we call climbing skins. We took our sweet time while I caught up with Miles, who chased the famed South American powder for a full continuous snow year.

It took a mere 20 minutes to reach the top of Highway Bowl, a large north-facing bowl filled with dreamy powder only a kilometer from the Revelstoke Mountain Resort. We scoped out the terrain below, watching out for the precarious cornices surrounding the cirque’s rim. After discussing the avalanche hazard and testing the snow’s stability, we switched to ski mode, ready for an epic descent.

And epic, it was. The run delivered… hard. We raced down an open face with limited tree cover, into a small chute and back out into the tail end of the bowl littered with snow-covered boulders. The powder was feather-light, blazingly fast and boot-deep. I suspected the strong northerly winds blowing up the bowl had sucked any remaining moisture from the snow. It lay on top of a hollow-sounding wind crust, an interface to watch out for in the future. While the crew skied hard and fast, my run was cut short by a dramatic face plant after accidentally launching off a wind lip. The visibility was so poor that I wasn’t even aware I caught some air!

Yew! Even in my mishap, the stoke was at an all-time high. This run was the first big mountain backcountry skiing line for both Miles and Max in Revelstoke of this winter. We looked back at the mountain in utter silence.

After snapping a few shots, we proceeded downslope through the now knee-deep powder, jumping off anything with a lip. The downhill fun had to end eventually as we stumbled across an old Selkirk Tangiers helicopter landing zone. This was the landmark where we would begin our long uptrack. I was dreading this moment.

I’ll cut the tedious part out and give you the short version. Backcountry skiing in Revelstoke means dealing with trees and powder, lots of it. We were now 500 meters below the exit path, which meant we had to carve a path uphill through 500 vertical meters of knee-deep powder, alder bushes, and fallen logs. We put a rather spicy uptrack through the old-growth rainforest lining the NE shoulder of Mt Mackenzie. After 2 hours and 45 minutes of billy goating with little to no break, we ducked the rope, this time into the safety of the Revelstoke Mountain Resort – we had escaped Highway Bowl. We barely made it back in time to the Ripper Chair with a warm welcome from a mob of eager patrollers in training.

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