Zosia and I skied south along the well-defined gypsum mine road for about 800 metres before reaching the "junction" with the branching road to Gypsum Creek valley at a hairpin turn.  "Junction" might be a bit of a stretch as we discovered to our dismay that the branching road was completely overgrown just as Daffern had reported.  Out of curiosity and with some faint hope for better conditions further up the valley, we tried to ski the road anyway, but after grinding through about 350 metres of heinous deadfall, we gave up and turned around.  In my opinion, there may still be some merit for exploring this reclaimed road using snowshoes, but skiers would be well-advised to avoid it like the plague.

	Sonny descends to the inlet near the mouth of Smith-Dorrien Creek at the north end of Lower Kananaskis Lake.  Gypsum Ridge is visible in the background. Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak
	Zosia is shocked to see some icy "shark fins" sticking out of the snow-covered inlet at the mouth of Smith-Dorrien Creek.
	On the other side of Smith-Dorrien Creek, Zosia proceeds up the road which ultimately leads to a gypsum mine.
	The road to Gypsum Creek does not appear to be well-traveled.
	Sonny struggles to get past some deadfall blocking the road to Gypsum Creek. Photo courtesy of Zosia Zgolak
	Giving up on reaching Gypsum Creek, Zosia beats a hasty retreat along the overgrown road.

Hoping to salvage the day, Zosia and I decided to ski up Gypsum Ridge which I had previously ascended in 2016 using snowshoes.  Unfortunately, I made a mistake thinking that we could simply gain the west end of the ridge from the gypsum mine road and work our way eastward to the high point.  There are some short but troublesome dips along the ridge which are not indicated by the contour lines on any topographical maps, but worst, most of the terrain here is very bushy and, like the reclaimed road, not conducive to skiing.  The bush was so bad that, at one point, I thought that we had stumbled onto someone else's ski tracks only to realize shortly after that we had gone in a complete circle.  We wasted some time here going in the wrong direction since it took awhile for my GPS to orient correctly in the forest.

Even after we righted our course, bushwhacking along the ridge crest with our skis was a miserable affair, and I was starting to become frazzled both physically and mentally.  We eventually resorted to carrying our skis for a short distance before ditching them altogether some 400 metres short of the ridge's high point.  Luckily, the snow was not too deep for hiking, and by then, we had finally found a path of some sort which made travel much easier through the trees.  We had no further difficulties reaching the true high point of Gypsum Ridge and the subsidiary viewpoint further east.  On this day, the surrounding views under an overcast sky hardly justified the Herculean effort to reach the viewpoint, and we only stayed long enough to take an obligatory photograph before retracing our steps back to our skis.

	Zosia makes better progress along the gypsum mine road.
	Leaving the road, Zosia skis through some rather miserable terrain en route to Gypsum Ridge.
	After a few hours of thrashing through thick bush, Zosia finally emerges onto the semi-open crest of Gypsum Ridge.
	Behind Zosia is the actual high point of Gypsum Ridge (2117 metres).
	Sonny and Zosia stand on the eastern high point of Gypsum Ridge.  Behind them is Mount Indefatigable.