BOU AVENUE
Record Ridge
On 26 December 2021, Zosia Zgolak and I
skied partway up Record Ridge near Rossland, British Columbia. The
ridge is most easily accessed via the Seven Summits Trail, a popular but
challenging mountain biking route. Our plan for the day was to
start from the trail’s southern terminus and simply ski as far as time
and energy would allow. Recent heavy snowfall in the area meant
that we were likely facing some strenuous trail-breaking, but there was
also some uncertainty about whether we could even drive to the trailhead.
From the junction with Highway 3B at the west end of Rossland (near
the visitor info centre and mining museum), drive west on Highway 22 for
400 metres and veer right onto Rossland Cascade Road (2WD gravel).
Drive 12 kilometres and park in a pullout for the trailhead on the right
opposite a rough road branching off to the left.
As luck would have it, Rossland Cascade Road
was freshly plowed that morning, and Zosia and I had no problems driving
to the trailhead. In fact, we actually caught up to the grader just
as it finished clearing the snow at the trailhead pullout.
Unfortunately just as I had feared, the Seven Summits Trail was
completely blanketed by fresh snow, and although we could still follow
faint traces of old ski tracks, we would be breaking
trail right from the get-go. For the next 3.5 hours, we slowly
grinded our way up the south end of Record Ridge. Zosia did a
tremendous job of breaking trail most of the time, but even following in
her tracks, I was often sinking deeper into the snow. Our route
also entailed a lot of annoying undulations which would prove to be
problematic later on during our ski back out.
About 1.5 kilometres from the trailhead,
Zosia and I lost the trail and ended up bushwhacking a bit before getting
back on track and reaching a sign prohibiting motorized vehicles.
Past this sign, we immediately dropped into a small dip and were suddenly
faced with a very steep slope in front of us. We then mistakenly
traversed to the right (east) and soon found ourselves on a somewhat
exposed hillside with some potential to slide. Fortunately, the
snow pack was generally stable, and we quickly climbed out of there to
safer terrain on the ridge crest without incident. We had no more
serious issues in reaching a nondescript high point a little more than
four kilometres from the trailhead. Had we made better progress
with a broken trail and had the weather been clearer, we might have
considered pushing further and higher up the ridge, but the cold
temperatures and lack of far-reaching views made it easy to call it a day
and turn around. Besides, I was tired of skinning and was itching
to finally do some downhill skiing.
Our return ski was a bit of a mixed bag.
The aforementioned undulations really undermined much of the fleeting
enjoyment Zosia and I got from skiing in fresh powder. Without
re-attaching skins, we spent an inordinate amount of time and effort
sidestepping or post-holing up every uphill section--both big and
small--on our way out. Where we had inadvertently traversed onto
avalanche-prone terrain earlier, we descended the very steep slope we had
avoided on the way up. This turned out to be more difficult than
expected due to the surprisingly thin snow pack here, and we both scraped
over a few hidden rocks while carefully zigzagging down the slope.
After returning to the sign prohibiting motorized vehicles, we easily
cruised the remaining mostly downhill section back to the trailhead.
