Late November called for a break in the non-stop storm cycle. We had a 12-hour window and we took it. After ski touring almost every day of the month, I knew the snowpack very well. I was ready for something spicier than just a walk in the park. Talking with Phil “Gimli” Gibney, I daringly suggested skiing the Southeast Couloir of Ross Peak in Rogers Pass, BC. This 45-degree wicked “little” chute as Douglas Sproul, author of the Rogers Pass bible, puts it, is one hell of a line: 500 meters straight down through three narrow chokes, a frozen waterfall, and a ton of exposure. The access, especially at this time of the year, is quite the challenge. It boils down to crossing multiple creeks (I counted seven), jumping over two canyons, wrestling with alders, and booting up a 500-meter couloir, all that while exposed to avalanches and rockfall from the overhead southerly flanks of Ross Peak. Just a walk in the park!

Related: Afton Southeast Couloir, Rogers Pass: High Exposure

Report from November 26, 2020

Our day started at the Loop Brook parking lot on a moody day. Thin bands of clouds were swirling around the mountain tops, which made us doubt our decisions to go for the Ross Peak Southeast Couloir. Good visibility was imperative to assess the avalanche hazard from the ridge looming above the couloir. We would be spending hours trenching up the narrow chute, right in the slide’s crosshairs. There was no room for error.

We walked along the Loop Brook, carving a path through deadfall, old avalanche debris, and towering snow pillows, crossing several slidepaths on the Abbott Ridge to the east. As we proceeded up the valley, we scrutinized the east face of Ross Peak, looker’s right of the creek (where the Ross Pillows are located). We were searching for two things:

• An easy way to cross the gentle river without getting our feet wet.
• A workable path through the dense alders on the steep bank.

As our hope waned, we finally found an adequate creek crossing that would put us on the western bank, at the base of a manageable slope, although covered with pesky alders. Phil H., half-man, half-machine, forged a rather “technical” path through the alders as he climbed the east face of Ross Peak. We then traversed through a band of dense trees, requiring a bushwhack that would test the most patient of men. We emerged out of the trees on a planar slope connecting the east face to its SE counterpart.

The lower S-SE slope was a pain to traverse. Two deep canyons, carved over the years by meltwater, slowed our progress down to a snail’s pace. We manage a crossing on a high bench after a series of dicey alder-acrobatics, courtesy of Phil H. Finally, we could freely ascend the rest of the slope to the base of our objective, the Southeast Couloir of Ross Peak.

After breaking an exhausting trail through steep and deep powder, we stumbled across a large bowl from which we could see two of our options.

• Looker’s right: a narrow, straight, couloir with two obvious chokes, a frozen waterfall at the bottom, and a thin snowpack.
• Looker’s left: a wider, S-shaped, couloir with little to no chokes and a seemingly deeper snowpack.

We choose the looker’s right line since mother nature had already done the avalanche control work for us. It had already slid from top to bottom, most likely the day prior. While I was still worried about reactive wind slabs on the climber’s left of the couloir as well as solar warming if the sun was to poke out, most of the residual avalanche hazard had been dealt with naturally. On top of that, the firm bed surface that carpeted the chute would make breaking-trail on foot much easier. Just our luck!

As we popped into the lower fan, my jaw-dropped. This was going to be one hell of a ski. We spotted the frozen waterfall that had to be climbed to get past the first quarter of the ascent. Phil H. managed to snake his way through the ice while maintaining a solid foothold on underlying rocks. It turns out, the icefall wasn’t much of a hurdle, either on the up or down.

As we climbed higher, the bootpack was getting more and more demanding. the firm snow first encountered morphed into thigh-deep snow, just soft enough to punch through to the ground. The overhead avalanche hazard was always in the back of my mind, chipping away at my confidence. It would have been so easy to turn around, but we didn’t – we pressed on. At one point, we were trenching through tits-deep snow. That didn’t stop Phil H. from steamrolling up the 45-degree incline. This man has always downplayed his achievements, but really he’s a bootpack beast.

Finally, as we approached the upper quarter, the clouds parted revealing the couloir’s terminus. So close! At one point, the snow was simply too deep to progress. If it wasn’t hard enough already, we were punching through a stiff winds slab on our left. Phil H. was literally trying to swim uphill. Snowshoes or ascent plates would have been a must in this case.

After debating for a few minutes, we decided on dropping from here, maybe 30 meters from the top. Hell! We were close to our turn around time of 3 PM, the avalanche hazard was increasing as we went up and dense clouds had started to roll in the valley bottom. In retrospect, it was the right decision. As the bottom of the chute vanished in the clouds, we clipped into our bindings. 3-2-1-dropping!

The snow was excellent. Tossed-up powder over a nice firm base, perfect for railing down fast turns. Midway down, the fog moved on revealing the lower, more challenging section. With a boost of confidence, both Phils sent a booter into the lower half of the chute, skipping over a patch of rocks in the process. As we approached the bottom, we maneuvered over the frozen waterfall without trouble and raced past the exit fan. What a run!

I suggested not following our uber-technical uptrack. Instead, we skied down the SE face and joined up with the standard uptrack that winds through the Elephant Trunk, a deep canyon where glacial runoff from the Lily and Bonney Glaciers meet. In other words, we skied down the SE face towards the Loop Brook as if we were heading to the bottom of the Bonney Moraines’ exit. We traversed the creek and followed the mellow slope down towards the Elephant Trunk. From there, we faced the usual early season struggles – running water, alders, exposed rocks and buried pines. Eventually, we crawled back to our vehicles, exhausted from all the bushwhacking. All in all, the day was very much a slog but I was still stoked to have skied the Ross Peak Southeast Couloir, a legendary line.

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