TR: Kootenay Pass Baldy/Crags

This season has been overall pretty lackluster here in the West Kootenays with temperature spikes after or during pretty much every storm that's come through and long periods of inversions and high pressures. Our snowpack has been poop and snow quality is far from blower. That being said, after months of fucking around in low angle trees and playing with shovels in valley bottom we finally got out for a few days of what felt like normal. While the snow still isn't blower, at least we are starting to get enough confidence in the snowpack to start hitting more interesting terrain.

Had my first real day of ski touring yesterday and it was a beautiful day so I figured I'd put together a TR for all you guys.

We were up at Kootenay Pass with our objective being NE Baldy and the main N chute off Crags.

The hoar is getting really, really thick on pretty much all aspects around here. It's been almost two weeks since our last snowfall with barely any wind. We are supposed to get some snow tonight which will make for a bit of sluff management for the next few days I think.

Summit of Baldy Rocks. I realized while climbing the ridge to the peak that I haven't stood on top of Baldy since my first tour at Kootenay Pass 9 years ago. It was a nice reflective moment to say the least.

We wanted to ski the NE face of Baldy - none of us had skied it before but it looked really fun. The day before we were doing chutes on the shoulder of Baldy with a similar aspect and decided it was safe and went for it today. Felt good to finally put turns down a face I've been wanting to ski for a few years now but never got to.

Not the best angle, but here's the NE face of Baldy from the bottom. Features the whole way down.

Ray about to drop into NE Baldy

Ray dropping

Heading over to the Crags from Baldy. At least when the snow isn't blower the trail breaking is easy!

Top of the main N chute on the Crags. There are three sweet narrow chutes leading up to the main chute that we went up here to check out. They got rinsed out and the fans at the bottom had debris so we had to save them for another day. From what we could tell it was most likely cornice collapse by solar heating that caused them to go.

Main N Chute, Crags. A little taste of alpine in an otherwise alpine free zone.

After the Crags we skinned over to 'Lunch Box' which is right above the parking lot. No photos, but it's a fun run with cliff bands, boulders, and you can ski right to your car. Fine way to end the day. About as fine as the sunset on our way back down into the cloudy valley at the end of the day.

Around 7km travelled (including the down), 900M vert climbed, three runs - NE, N, NW 5 hours round trip. Not a big day by any means, but it felt like the first proper day so far this year so I'm gonna take it!