Mountain Culture

Avalanche and weather conditions aligned perfectly for the first annual ACC Saskatchewan Section Ski and Board Fest from March 28 to April 1. Our team was made up of nine section members, six of us made the long drive from Saskatoon, and met up with three who came from Calgary. The trip was based out of the Lake Louise Alpine Centre hostel, and we toured different locations in the area for four days. In total, we climbed over 3,500 metres and travelled almost 50 kilometres on our skis and split boards.

I hadn’t met any of our group of nine who would be traversing the Wapta Icefields, so we met in an Edmonton playground to practise our crevasse rescue. I had taken a crevasse course but hadn’t done any glacier travel since, so I practised every day for a week in my living room. We carpooled to Lake Louise where we spent the night at the hostel in shared dorm rooms just like a bunch of kids on a sleepover.

In early 2024, Simon Trudel and I developed what we call the Peaks and Ridges Ski Mountaineering (PRiSM) series of outings. Our goal? To take ski mountaineering with the section to some great heights. Our PRiSM trips focus on sharing adventures and summits (and occasional suffering) with the passionate skiers and split-boarders in the section.

Back in 2015, during my first year of climbing, I found myself a bit over my head, tied into the top anchor of a double rope rappel on the popular “The Fold” climb in Kananaskis. It was pitch dark and my partner had started the rappel about an hour earlier. We had opted to only bring one rope, and we were very aware that we had to find the mid station of this rap to make it to the ground safely…