Mount Hosmer South

Summary

Tucked behind what is commonly referred to as Ghostrider peak, this area is infrequently visited. The slow bushwhacking through sharp thorns and alder bashing is rewarded with gorgeous views of the Elk Valley and a 500m fall line. Wide open bowls and the odd gully feature provide endless woohoos during the descent. With limited ways to reduce exposure and significant time spent climbing on avalanche paths and 35-50° slopes, a good weather window is likely a prerequisite. Gaining the ridge provides access to various couloirs and an approach to the next subpeak.

Becoming a ghostrider

After a touchy if not sketchy snowpack in the Bow Valley last year, El Niño rolled in this winter vampirically draining all the snow across the mountains (although apparently the PNW south of the border received record levels of snow, grrr). I was able to continue mountain biking hero dirt on Moose Mountain all the way until the last week of November . That says something about how dry it was. The Fernie ski resort still had dirt showing across most of the lower mountain but we were able to find some powder by Tunnel Mountain a couple days earlier. With fingers crossed, I set out with Ben.

The start was...rough. After an icy climb up an ATV path we made a hard left and tried to simply find a path of least resistance. Carefully stepping over branches and fighting our way through tight bushes on skins, we eventually gave up and switched to bootpacking. The thorny bushes continued to stab and snag me as we made slow but steady progress above the drainage.

As we continued climbing the bushes eventually thinned out and we were finally able to get back on our skins. Looking back it became evident that all the bushes were leaning downhill. Ben remarked that it wasn't uncommon to see avalanche debris all the way down in the drainage. How often it runs the full path is likely unknown but it wasn't too long before we found some smaller debris.

Eventually we reached the base of the north drainage slide path and were forced to make a decision. While we were finally on snow, it was quite firm and occasionally solid. It had already taken us two hours to go a (drumroll) whopping 2km. Do we cut our losses and go back into town for pastries? Or do we try to persevere in hopes of better snow? At this point, you already know what the answer was.

Cutting hard left into tight trees, we pushed our way through to another drainage on the opposite side and continued switchbacking our way up. We saw more little chunks of debris here and there. We eventually emerged with our goal in sight. The surface had an inpenetrably thick crust. The next gully we had to climb was difficult to get an edge into, especially when off-camber. The sweater weather during the day and cold nights must have created katabatic winds that formed a bulletproof crust.

Surfing above the Kootenay Sea

The Elk Valley is home to some weather phenomenon that we don't often see in Alberta. The extra humidity often creates low elevation cloud seas in both summer and winter (New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh anyone?) that are a treat to climb above. Ben also noted that it's common to comfortably top out onto a windless peak. Tunnel Mountain (a short drive towards Elko) even has it's own local weather system that is often quite different from the rest of the valley. I thoroughly enjoyed this part.

This was the first time I've had to bootpack anything this steep. It was getting close to 50° at this point. While the crust was thinner now, the snow baskets were not sinking very far even with a good jab. Ben taught me to invert my poles to drive them deeper into the snow for better support. Laterally, stabbing them pole-side down created a useful anchor when transitioning. It otherwise felt like I was one accidental bump from watching my gear go rolling downhill.

Ben now proudly dons his Japanese fisherman gloves. After leaving them in a bag to offgas the previous year and being too shy to whip them out in front of our ACMGs' fisherman gloves he has now fully embraced them. It's always fun to see what part of Ben's kit gets changed out each time we see him. Eurofit pants, long handle touring poles, Summit helmet, etc. His glasses would later be replaced by a pair of Julbo goggles due to the difficulty trying to unfog them after taking a fall. To be fair, it's become a thing at this point in our group to poke Ben this way but he'll simply say "c'mon, lay it on me".

After taking our time to transition we began making our way down. Under the 1cm thick crust was some honest to god dry powder. I quit skiing when I was 14 and was unaware that crusts can be problematic and occasionally catch your skis mid-turn. Snowboards are fat enough with a centered weight that it just plows through the crust (we have several other disadvantages though).

Frustrated with my first splitboard (too stiff, bad float, heavy) I was able to convince Basia to let me pick up a new board in anticipation of an upcoming trip (later be cancelled due to a broken wrist, grrr). Making a brief revival from the dead was Kemper - a brand that hasn't really been seen since the 90s. I liked the volume shifted (am a convert) and more flexy shape of the Kemper Apex which all together solved the manuverability and nosediving issues I was having with the XV.

I actually ended up liking the Apex so much that when I broke the nose of my United Shapes Cadet in Revelstoke, I picked up the non-split version of the Apex in town a couple hours later for 50% off (they went bankrupt after only 3.5 seasons back). The extra width makes easy work of laid out carves even on steep runs. The mellow fishtail and big nose also preserved so much energy in powder (especially the back leg) while being snappy and easy to pivot.

As we neared the end of the bowl we followed a couple gullies back towards our uptrack. Ben unfortunately snagged some hidden debris at some point and caked his glasses with snow. Unable to stop it from fogging afterwards, he had to protect his eyes with his arms as we alder bashed our way down. When we got home Baloo was chuffed to see us but absolutely spent from his first skijoring outing on the Fernie crosscountry track.

On an unrelated note, this was my first action outing with the a7cii and the AI-enhanced AF is the real deal. It's ability to lock onto humans even if they're back is facing you, wearing a helmet, and only occupying a small portion of the viewfinder was very impressive. It even tries to estimate where the eyes would be when they're wearing glasses and goggles. The real test will be how big of an improvement it is when shooting in a storm.

In the end, it turned out to be a pretty epic day. I look forward to returning to the area with Ben and skiing some of the other faces. Later that night, a full moon illuminated the ridge (you can just barely see our tracks on the full resolution picture) while we gorged on some trash TV and watched overly attractive buff koreans battle it out.