Is Imitation the Sincerest Form of Flattery?

It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation. Herman Melville.

I am constantly amazed at how many people copy my trips, but would not dream of actually coming on the trip with me. Most recently, I ran a trip for my local club to the summit of Mount Lasca. The trip was officially full at six people, but two of those were Doug and myself, and the four others were close friends. I had no waiting list and no inquiries outside of my friends. Yet, a couple of weeks later, people were asking me for beta and going out and following my exact route.

I can't count how many times over the years this has occurred. Some people have the audacity - at least it seems audacious to me - to do the exact same trip the day after I do it. Or, to say "That trip sounds interesting, I'm going to go out and do it with so and so." Some even sign up for my trip, cancel and then do the trip a day later with their own group.

Should I be flattered that my trips are interesting enough that people want to replicate them? Or annoyed because, despite their interest in the trip, these people wouldn't actually think of coming with me?

Party on the  most recently copied trip

Go Or Don't Go

Do, or do not. There is no "try". Yoda in The Empire Strikes Back

Last weekend we were supposed to start a four day ski trip from Great Northern Mountain to Mount Thompson in the Badshots. We had friends from Vancouver who were finishing the Bonnington Traverse on Thursday, taking Friday as a rest day, and then our plans were to set off on the Great Northern traverse on Saturday and finish on Tuesday.

Our friends had found the Bonnington Traverse harder than expected and had experienced a mixed bag of weather ranging from sleet to snow, with fairly consistent white-outs. Each day was long and tiring for them as they arrived at each cabin and the end of the trip, late in the day.

When Friday rolled around and we checked the weather forecast, it was uniformly bad - two days of periods of rain and two days of showers. Not exactly weather conducive to traveling through the high mountains. The decision to can the traverse and do a couple of day trips around Nelson - where the forecast was much better - was fairly unanimous.

I was disappointed, as I had been looking forward to the traverse, but, after hearing how hard our friends had found the Bonnington, I wondered if it was not a wise decision. While I am sure our friends would have made the trip, I am also sure that Doug and I would have spent quite a bit of time waiting. Philosophically, I don't mind waiting, but I find it easier to do on day trips than overnight trips and good weather trips than bad weather trips. On overnight trips, I just want to keep moving at a smooth steady pace from morning until late afternoon and then take the big backpack off for good. In bad weather, I like to do the same. Standing waiting with a big backpack is uncomfortable and putting it on and off a dozen times a day is more tiring than keeping it on and holding a steady pace.

Turns out, the weather seemed far better than forecast, and, I am still wondering if we made the right decision, although I suspect I am the only one. Our friends were feeling tired after their four day trip and seemed very pleased with the two day trips we did. Doug hates doing trips in bad weather, and, I, well, I second guess most of my decisions so some endless neurotic analyzing should only be expected.

Descending Ymir Mountain on Sunday

Spring Finally Comes

In the last few days spring has finally arrived in the West Kootenay. Temperatures are high, the sky is clear, the snow is soft, and creeks are rising.

We spent the last two days doing a couple of popular local ski tours with some friends from Vancouver. On Saturday we skied up Old Glory taking the round about, but safe, south ridge route. We were too late to ski down the east face - as we knew we would be - so descended the south ridge finding a little corn snow along the way.

On Sunday, we traversed Ymir Mountain, skiing up the west ridge and descending the north ridge on the east side until we could drop into the big west facing Ymir bowl on a lower angle ramp. The skiing sucked - wet and heavy the whole way - but the ambiance was good.

It's been a long winter, spring is welcome. 

Robin approaching the summit of Old Glory

Making It Happen

There are people who make things happen, there are people who watch things happen, and there are people who wonder what happened. Jim Lovell

Lately I've been thinking that there are people you meet in life who make things happen, and others who go along with whatever is happening. The former are much rarer than the latter.

On my recent Bonnington Traverse, we skied up a couple of peaks after the days travel between cabins was completed. After skiing to Steed Cabin we skied up Siwash, and after skiing to Copper Cabin we skied up Copper. Usually, I also ski up Grassy on the first day after we have skied into the Grassy Cabin (it takes only about four hours to the cabin), but, on this trip, I had to return to the trail-head to pick up a forgotten jacket and didn't get into Grassy Cabin until late (with sore feet too).

The two other fellows on the traverse had, of course, plenty of time to ski up Grassy Mountain without me as I was at least two hours behind them. But, neither of them did. Instead, they hung around the Grassy Cabin all afternoon. Similarly, when we got to Steed and Copper Cabins, I encouraged them to head off to the summits without me, but neither would, although they were more than keen to go along with me.

Before Easter, I was chatting with a friend before she left on the Wapta traverse, I asked if she had plans to ski up some peaks along the way as her group was taking 5 days to do a 3 day trip and would have plenty of time. She replied that she had made no plans as she didn't know how fast her partners would be.

This is completely different to how I approach a ski traverse. Before the trip, I research all the peaks along the route and work out which ones are potential ascents and by what route. Then, when we get near the peak, I am ready to go and getting to the top is simply a matter of making it happen.

Guess that makes me one of the former.

Climbing Wesley on the Hurley Traverse

Three Out Of Five: The Bonnington Range Traverse

Each year, for the last eight, either Doug or myself has run the Bonnington Traverse as a four day trip for our local mountaineering club. This year was my fifth, and I fully expect to be my last, trip across the Bonnington Range. After four full traverses and countless single day trips into the area, there is not much new terrain for me in the Bonnington. However, the moderate distance and elevation gain, the lack of glaciers, and the three (or four) cabins along the route make this an ideal traverse for people who have never done a multi-day ski trip before.

The crux of the traverse is the final day which involves traversing the ridge line from Copper Mountain to Empire Peak. In distance, this is only about six kilometres and 520 metres of elevation gain, but the ridge line is narrow in places, steep, corniced, and one section requires step-kicking. In good conditions, the step-kicking portion for experienced skiers, is only about 10 metres long, but in hard, icy conditions, much more step-kicking is required.

Of my five trips, I've only completed the last day twice. On three other trips, including this one, we have been shut down by poor weather and/or avalanche hazard. As an aside, I've actually done the last day three times as winter logging allowed us to do the fourth day as a day trip a few years back.

This year, I had moderate hopes of completing day four, even though the weather forecast called for a system to arrive on Monday. I thought, that, if we were lucky, the system would not arrive until later in the day and we could leave early, travel fast, and still get day four done in reasonable weather.

As it turns out, the system moved in very rapidly. We left the Copper Mountain Cabin at 7.30 am with the most promising looking weather of the trip, but, within 30 minutes, the cloud deck had built all around, 15 minutes more and snow was falling in the surrounding mountains. By 8.15 am, we were in snowfall, and, 8.30 am brought thickly falling snow pushed by a driving wind, and visibility down to 50 metres.

Struggling with icy wind-rolls on the ridge leading to Empire Peak, I wondered to myself, how long we would persevere before someone said "What are we doing?" Groups can be impelled forward into unreasonable conditions and dangerous circumstances simply because everyone in the group has committed to a predetermined plan made when conditions were better. The effort required to rethink the plan seems to be too much for groups to overcome and decision making inertia propels the entire group forward regardless of circumstance.

I realized in a moment that the most reasonable thing for our group to do was turn around. A stronger party, that could move faster (and had ski crampons) could continue on with safety, but, I felt that our group was not particularly strong (it never is on these trips) and our safety margin was shrinking with every step forward we took.

In a huddle we had a brief discussion. I started by laying out my reasons for turning around and describing our escape options. As a group leader, I find it important to state your own opinion first, otherwise, unless you have a strong group, no-one will say anything. Although in name we are a group of peers, in function, there is a leader to whom people are looking for advice.

The decision was quickly, and I think, appropriately made to turn around and use one of two possible escape routes. By the time we had got back to the ridge leading to Copper Mountain, we were all quite wet, and conditions had deteriorated even further. I can be prone to second guessing my decisions but I had no qualms about this one.

We escaped down 49 Creek using the Copper Mountain FSR. This route was not without its own adventures, involving at the start, a very steep traverse across the southeast face of Copper Mountain that was treacherously icy. Traversing at a constant elevation was too difficult due to the icy conditions so we ended up slightly below the road, and were forced to boot-pack up - the conditions being initially too icy and steep to skin up without ski-crampons.

In the gloom, we even had difficulty following the road initially, and, it was only when we had descended a few kilometres that I started to feel confident that we were going the right way on the right road.

Below 1200 metres, it was raining heavily and we got, if possible, wetter. We did manage to ski - with a few short sections of walking - all the way to the road plowing on Copper Mountain FSR, and then I led the group down my little trail that leads directly to my house. Doug was surprised to see three skiers with big packs and skis on packs walk out of the woods to the house. 

Jonas struggling to hold an edge in icy conditions

Sorry, I Can't Make It ....

'cos I can't get a ride, have a work deadline, can't be ready in time .... Or, if you were actually going to tell the truth, you might say "I don't feel like going anymore. In fact, I'm not sure I was ever really committed to this trip, and, really, I don't give a rats' arse if this puts you out, inconveniences you, causes a lot of trouble, because, basically, it's all about me."

Tomorrow I leave for the Bonnington Traverse which I am running as a four day trip for my local mountaineering club. This will be my fifth time on the traverse. Clearly, I don't need to do it again, but, it is a good local traverse, suitable for people doing their first ski traverse, and, as our club maintains the cabins along the route, using them annually seems like a good idea. After so many years running the traverse, you would think that someone else in the club might take it on, but, that seems unlikely - and the topic for another blog post.

This year I had 10 people cancel. Of those 10, I consider two - one broken leg, the other the spouse of the person with the broken leg - had a real reason to cancel. The others all canceled because they just didn't feel like coming, although the excuses I heard were (ever so slightly) more creative than that. Some people canceled (three) because they organized another trip for the weekend before the Bonnington (which they had previously signed up for). These three didn't even let me know until long after they had organized their second (marginally) conflicting trip that they couldn't make it. In fact, they didn't let me know until I pointedly asked them if they were still coming on the Bonnington.

At least three of the people who canceled I fully expected to cancel as they make a very regular practice of canceling. In fact, these three people have canceled out of more trips than they have attended. I wanted to say to them, "Look, lets just save your time and mine and not go through this farce where you sign up, then cancel."

I always wonder if the chronic cancelers know that I know - not suspect, but know - that as the trip comes closer they will cancel. Do they know that every time they sign up for a trip, I roll my eyes, sigh, and think "here we go again." 

Near Grassy Cabin

One More Off The Project List

Mount Jordan is a non-descript peak at the far western end of the Goat Range near Nakusp. As such, it falls into the somewhat amorphous list of West Kootenay peaks that I have, for some inexplicable reason, decided to climb. This project - climbing all the peaks of the West Kootenay - has been proceeding in fits and starts for the past ten years. Frequently, I abandon the list to climb or ski in other areas, then, in a burst of enthusiasm, I revisit the list and check off a few more peaks. I was currently in the throes of one of my enthusiastic periods and the previous day Doug and I had skied up Mount Kuskanax, another relatively unknown peak that nonetheless is on the list.

We planned to ski up Mount Jordan via a logging road that switchbacks to 1350 metres on the south side. There were various options for getting to the section of road that actually gained elevation. One option was to start from the Wensley Creek Road near Box Lake, the other was to navigate a confusing series of roads from the Wensley Creek Cross Country Ski Area. We chose the latter option as being shorter (should we manage to navigate the perplexing morass of unmapped roads in the area correctly) and involving slightly less elevation gain.

We had a couple of maps, one a BC Basemap and the other a snippet of the cross-country trail map that eluded to some of the other labyrinthine roads criss-crosssing the area, but neither map showed all the roads correctly. There were two critical junctions where short-cut roads could be taken, and we managed to miss both of them. The first resulted in us skiing a long flat hairpin bend that doubled back on itself and brought us out perhaps 20 metres higher than we had started. The second was similar but on a larger scale. An extra two kilometres of skiing gained us perhaps 100 metres of elevation and left us at a prominent junction with no idea where we actually were.

Doug wanted to go right, I wanted to go left. We went left, trundled back to the west gaining elevation at a slow pace, and finally came to a three way junction where both the map and the altimeter actually agreed and we finally worked out where we were and, more importantly, where we should have been. From this point on, we simply plodded up a few switchbacks to where the road forks for the last time below the south ridge. As we had now been going for a few hours, we stopped for lunch in the sun. The final 500 metres to the top took only an hour, far less time than the previous 600 metres of elevation gain, even with wet, heavy, sticky snow.

By dint of moving here and there, we managed to get reasonable views from the top. The inevitable spring squalls were moving over the bigger mountains to our east and west, and Upper Arrow Lake was looking stormy. Skiing down was easy, except for the cement like quality of the new snow in the sun, as the trees were open and angle modest. The road provided almost perfect conditions, fast sliding on a firm surface. At three way junction, we took the correct option - a narrow road disappearing through a dense cedar forest, and were back at the parking area within an hour of leaving the top, and a good 15 minutes before a rain squall hit.

In deference to Doug, I should point out that all navigation errors were mine, and he had correctly picked out the roads we should have followed. I bought him a big Easter Bunny to make up for all the extra skiing. 

Mount Jordan view