Splitboarding - Wapta Icefields

It didn’t take much convincing from my friends for me to pick up a splitboard and get into the backcountry. The basic kit includes a factory or homemade board that splits apart, climbing skins, splitboard bindings, collapsable poles, and avalanche safety gear.

Our crew from Saskatchewan loaded up the truck and headed out to Alberta. We met up with a friend (Joey Norsworthy) in Calgary for the night and headed out into the Kananaskis backcountry early the next morning for a day tour. The snow cover in that area at the time was pretty minimal and there were a lot of exposed rocks. While this didn’t make for amazing riding conditions it did mean the avalanche conditions were very safe and highly unlikely. It was a great intro to touring and helped me gain some familiarity with my gear and more experience changing over from touring mode to riding mode.

Later that night we met up with another friend from Golden BC, Colin Wallace. Colin is a contributor to sleddermag.com and has a ton of experience in the backcountry and splitboarding.

The hike in to the hut consists of about 530 meters in total elevation gain, the majority of the gain occurring atthe end of the hike. It was roughly a 8.5km hike and skin in which took usaround 4-5 hours. It was a greatworkout, and amazingly scenic. The we got to the hut just before dusk and setout for one quick run before dinner. Skinning up the powder covered glacier asthe sun set was pretty unreal. But even better were the sunset turns we got onthe way back down to the hut for dinner. We settled in and stoked the fires upnice and hot, and cracked open a few drinks and cooked some food.

The sleep was probably one of my worst but coffee and some cool mountain air in the morning had me wide awake. We ascended the glacier once more and were sure to rope up to one another forglacier travel. Our leader Colin navigated the crevasses and we all followed safelybehind. We chose to summit Mount Olive, which lies along the continental divideof BC and Alberta. The peak is about 700m elevation gain from the hut and tookus 2-3hrs to reach the peak with a few snack breaks. The views were prettyunreal and the peaks made me feel very small and insignificant. We chose not toride from the top due to the variable snow conditions and visible sliding oncongruent slopes. We switched our boards over to ride mode a littlefurther down the peak and got in some rad turns on the way back down to the hutthough. The long slog out of the canyonwasn’t terribly fun and my feet were in agony from breaking in a new pair ofboots. Overall the trip was a super cool experience and opened my eyes to how much there is to learn about backcountry riding and ski touring.