Chickadee Boom Traverse. This trip went through several gyrations, starting with a counter clockwise tour to Boom Lake and up the gully used by Rick Collier in his 1988 trip, and then descending to Chickadee valley from the col just North of Boom Mountain.

It turned out that one of the participants had done this route before, and we followed his suggestion to go clockwise, ascending to the col from Chickadee and skiing to Boom Lake down a gully about .5 km West of Rick’s.

The day was sunny and warm, skies were blue, company excellent, and views of Whymper, Bell, Quadra were spectacular.

The snow was generally good, and we had a good run down from the col. The last few hundred feet to Boom Lake was extremely (blush - other adjectives were used as well) steep, and survival kick turns were the order of the day for many of us.

Thanks to Al for showing the way, and to Arnold, John, Terry, Bernie, Leslie, Dianne and Chip for trail breaking and superb company from c/s Stan.

Chickadee Boom Circuit

Mt Whymper from Chick/Boom col

Mts Bell and Quadra

Returning over Boom Lake

Waiting for the car shuttle

30-Jan-2021
Jenny, Gord, & Gerald went out to "explore" this route. We used this report as part of our "research". Stan's adjectives per above, are appropriate. Below the pass, where Stan's group went skiers left, we went skiers straight and were drawn down a sketchy (but beautiful) canyon before escaping left about 3/4 way down to the same slopes that Stan skied... It is amazing how steep the last 200m down to the lake is. You can't even see the lake from the pass.

So for future trips, after the initial descent from the pass, follow the pin's in the "map" screen shot (to skiers right). Open up photo "Return over Boom Lake" - P17585. Zoom in, and look to the upper left, where the mountain ridge drops down to meet the bump. I think that pitch is where the pins refer too. For the uptrack, if you can use slide paths to work your way up, they will be gentler than the denser forest. While we did find an up-track, we (Gord) broke trail most of the way. So this trip is not too popular. We were 8hrs, 16km, 680m gain. Happy skiing - Gerald