Assiniboine Pass hike/ski March 2016

We love cross-country skiing, we love camping, and we had a 4-day long weekend for easter. The obvious solution to this non-dilemma was to go ski camping.

After our awesome trip to Lake O’Hara for a long weekend in February, it was a strong contender for a return visit. On top of that, a group of really cool families were going to be there and it would be nice to meet up. In the end, we decided that, beautiful as it is, Lake O’Hara is better suited for a one or two night winter stay since so much of the surrounding area is in avalanche terrain and so the options for day trips with kids are limited.

We decided to head up the Bryant Creek trail toward Mount Assiniboine. With campgrounds at 9 and 17km from the trailhead, it was well suited to a 3 night trip with nice 8-10km daily distances.

When we got there, we took a look at conditions and Tania wisely decided that walking/snowshoeing was the right mode for the trip. Tadhg has enough experience that he also knew that conditions were questionable for skiing. Fiona, is a little lot more obstinate and was determined to go ski-camping. I decided that I should ski so that I would be better able to keep pace with Fiona, I also brought my boots and snowshoes. I dutifully loaded the snowshoes for the family into the sled in anticipation that we might need them later.

The first part of the trail is the Watrige lake trail from the Mount Shark trailhead, a gentle groomed XC ski trail.  The trail itself is a little dull, but the surrounding peaks make for enough distraction that it is hard not to enjoy.

After a few km, the trail has a long descent to the Spray River/Lake and that was where my ski plan began to fall apart. My sled was simply too heavy for me to hold back with the poles I used to pull it. I had never used it with the weight of our snowshoes padding out the usual load of food and a sleeping bag. Even after taking my skis off, I had to struggle to keep the sled from overtaking me – I was worried about breaking the tow poles with pushing back, and if I tried zig-zagging down the hill to keep the speed in check, the sled would roll and I would need to drop my pack to go back to set it upright.

The second half of our first day was spent climbing the Bryant Creek trail to the campground. The BR9 campground was where Fiona and I had spent our fun weekend  skipacking together in February so we knew what to expect.

Our now traditional first night of camping meal is bean and cheese burritos with our homemade dehydrated pinto beans.  It is surprising how well the beans rehydrate to taste like real food. We have been roasting them over campfires to make them even better, but the Bryant Creek campgrounds do not allow fires and so we had to skip this improvement.

Our second day had us hiking past the Bryant Creek shelter, 2 more campgrounds and reaching the BR17 campground at the Allenby junction. Apparently, no one but us had used this campground this winter, because it was undisturbed snow – I was somewhat happy to see this because it meant that the snowshoes that I had been dragging suddenly became indispensable.

After searching around the deep untracked snow in the forest for about half an hour, we located the outhouse and a reasonable spot to put up our tarp and tent. Tadhg shovelled a tent pad 2 feet into the snow, as well as the outhouse door (about 3 feet deep)  and some stairs down to it. Fiona wanted desperately to help with the shovelling, and she finally got a turn when it came to shovelling out a pad for us to sleep on below the tarp. Tadhg also dug a snow cave that he thought Fiona should sleep in – I told him he had to make it big enough for the both of us, but he was tired of shovelling.

The Allenby junction is surrounded by mountains and is as beautiful as it is remote. I would definitely be willing to walk the 17km to stay there again. It was also higher and colder than our previous campground. When we got to checking the thermometer at 9:30AM it was -14ºC after warming up for a couple of hours so we estimate it was around -18ºC at night. It seems I was pushing my -10º sleeping bag a little. Nonetheless I was comfy enough to sleep and everyone was better rested when we got up.

Our stretch goal for the weekend was to make it to the top of Assiniboine pass where we hoped to get a view of the iconic mountain as well as the surrounding area.

The last 4 km to the top of the pass were fairly steep and since they were quite icy, we used snowshoes for the extra traction. The climb was well worth it even though Assiniboine was shrouded in cloud and snow, it was still somewhat visible and we sat facing it while eating our snack.

Afterwards, we made the trip back down to the campground to collect our stuff and make the return hike to BR9.

I was last to leave the campground and as I pulled out, I broke one of the poles that pull the sled. After a hasty repair, I got moving on the trail again. Unfortunately, my repair was not as effective as I hoped and my ability to steer the sled was very limited. Also, whenever the sled got more than a tiny bit sideways, the working bar would pull the sled over, forcing me to drop my pack to run back to put the sled back upright. After about 50 iterations of the sled rolling game. I finally caught up to Tania and the kids waiting for me. This meant that Tadhg could follow behind to right the sled and to pull on a brake rope for descents.

It was past our usual dinner time when we got back to camp, but we got everything set up quickly and though we had to eat in the dark, we weren’t as put out as we might have been.

I took a few minutes in the morning to revise my sled repairs into something I thought I could deal with and we were off right around noon with Fiona skiing again and the rest of us hiking. After the climb from Spray Lake, I even put on my skis for the last 3 or so km back to the car. Finny still says that only she went ski camping since I didn’t  ski enough for it to count – she was the only one to ski the whole way between the campsites.