Driving to Lake Louise we could see Fairview from the highway with the upper slopes blown clear of snow. When we all got together in Laggan's we discussed a few alternatives. The group let me decide and I thought we might find the slope below Saddleback, just at the larch treeline, similar to what we found at Bourgeau meadows last weekend. It was, however, a destination I had not skied before. The trail was well broken to treeline but at and above treeline the trail was blown in and the snow was thin over rocks and wind affected.

We got to the pass and discussed options again. We were grateful for the shelter from the strong, gusty wind in some trees.

The skiing was not going to be good on the slope I had in mind, rocky ascents in plastic boots did n't appeal and with the wind really howling anything above treeline was unpleasant and getting wind loaded. David suggested seeing if we could tour down into Sheol valley and out Paradise valley. This seemed the most appealing option - we would be below treeline and none of us had done this tour on skis. It is not described in any references I have - perhaps we know why now! We found the summer trail and traversed above the steep slopes of Sheol valley towards it's head. We crossed a couple of avalanche paths one of which had slid on one side. We were descending at a gradual rate but the terrain got steeper and rockier across some of the open paths.

With the terrain not giving us an adequate comfort level we decided to turn back. The least steep way down, on skis, might be to go down the side of one of the earlier avalanche paths but the slope was sufficiently steep we could not see it all the way to valley bottom - it looks like they too may be too steep lower down and that route would expose the whole group. After retreating to less steep terrain we stopped for lunch in the trees below the pass. The wind had not abated - I think it got stronger actually - then we followed our route back to the Chateau Lake Louise. A fast tight descent saw us back at the cars around 2:15 pm - no need for headlamps! Thanks to the group of David, Arnold, Bob, Bill, Damian, Lida and Kevin from John for joining me - sorry the trip did n't work out as I had hoped. Thanks to Bill and Arnold for the photos.

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