Good judgement is the
result of experience and experience the result of bad judgement.
Mark Twain
We spent the night
#vanlife'ing it in the Joffre Lakes parking lot. It was not until a
day later that I noticed the mostly buried sign in the parking lot
saying "No ..." something indecipherable buried by snow,
but, probably "no camping." Is sleeping in a van camping?
It does not feel like camping; by camping standards #vanlife, if you
are a mid-50's dirtbag, feels pretty damn comfortable.
Skiing of Tszil Mountain
Until the last of the
tourists left it was a strange night. I've never quite experienced
anything like it. The trail is, of course, snowbound, the lakes, all
three of them, are snow covered and frozen. This area, back in 2002
when we last skied into the big alpine basin behind Upper Joffre
Lake, used to be the sole domain of backcountry skiers until well
into June. Backcountry skiers are now very firmly in the minority.
The 'grammers own Joffre Lakes.
A lonely skier among a sea of 'grammers
The grammers descend, like
black flies in June, in droves, and could be every bit as annoying.
Age, gender, ethnicity, none of these are a barrier to the endless
selfie taking. Girls in shorts so short they are barely underwear
posed on dirty piles of snow pushed back by the snow plows, they
jumped, and laughed, flipped their hair about and flung chunks of
refrozen snow around their heads. The males are somewhat more
demure, but they too were shooting selfies, strutting importantly
about the parking lot, or screeching out of the parking lot with
tires smoking at warp speed. The fact that all this was played out
in the parking lot seemed to deter no-one, although, anyone with a
modicum of sense would have to admit that this is bizarre behavior.
Two Goat Ridge from Tszil Mountain
But, early morning, the
parking lot is empty except for us, cooking up bacon, eggs and black
coffee, the ultimate breakfast for a day of spring ski touring.
Three young blokes arrived and left before us, heading, apparently
for the Aussie coulior on Mount Joffre. They had packs festooned
with various bits of equipment, helmets, jackets, stuff sacks.
Obviously, they had never heard that packs are for packing.
Upper Joffre Lake and the north side of Slalok,
beyond the 'grammer zone
There was no hope of
skiing up the track so we strapped our skis to our packs and started
walking. It was a tad unpleasant, the track was pretty frozen and
slippery where it was steeper. I am perplexed at how many people
manage to make it to Middle Joffre Lake in their generally inadequate
footwear. In a couple of places someone had strung out a length of
Canadian Tire nylon cord as some kind of dubious safety line,
anchored to goodness knows what as there was nothing looped around
any trees. Perhaps it was some dodgy abalakov anchor in the packed
snow of the foot pad.
I managed to ski the last
bit to Middle Lake using ski crampons, but Doug went all the way on
foot. I felt nostalgic for the days when you could actually ski this
trail. Just before Middle Lake a group of 5 strapping young lads
blasted past on the way to climb Matier, their speed and ease of
travel reminding me of how much older and slower we were.
Crossing Joffre Lake
Deadfall or poor route
finding meant we had to take our skis off to clamber over a log to
reach Upper Joffre Lake, but once there we were beyond the reach of
'grammers and into the alpine. On the steep slopes below the
Stonecrop Glacier we could see the 5 youth already far up the
mountain side aiming for a series of ramps that lead onto the Matier
Glacier. The 3 lads were no where to be seen.
Taylor from Tszil with Cassiope behind
From the lake, we turned
southwest and skinned up an open valley that, if followed to its
terminus leads to the Taylor-Tszil col where we had skied 17 years
ago. Today, however, we followed the valley for a couple of
kilometres before turning south and working our way up benches and
ramps towards the Tszil-Slalok col.
Easy travel above Joffre Lake
On the other side of the
easy valley we saw the 3 youth arduously making their way up a steep
medial moraine, alternately skiing and boot-packing where it was too
steep to ski. "Where are they going, what are they doing?"
I wondered aloud, to which Doug replied cryptically "gaining
experience."
The last slope up to the top of Tszil Mountain,
Slalok behind
From the Tszil-Slalok col,
we skied easily around to the north side of the snow covered summit
and up to the top. After our rather dismal series of failures, it
was nice to be successful on something. The view was impressive.
The views from summits in Canada are always impressive. It's hard to
describe standing on a mountain top with jagged summits and
intertwined ridges snaking off in all directions. It is both
dazzling and daunting.
Skiing up to the Slalok Tszil col
We had settled down to tea
and lunch on the summit, when the three lads suddenly arrived. I'm
not sure who was more surprised, us or them. They certainly looked
more chagrined at finding a couple of old farts who they had last
seen indulging in a triple bypass breakfast in the parking lot
sitting comfortably atop a mountain. That's the thing with old
people, we aren't fast but we can keep going.
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