Burstall Pass & AT/Telemark slopes Off-Trail skiing on 19-Dec-2021

We arrived around 9:00 am at the Burstall trailhead around the same time as 3 young men (yes I know people reading this will be surprised they were younger than our group!). As it turned out we enjoyed their company off and on thoughout the day. It turned out one Jacek know one of them. We also admired and appreciated their trailbreaking as Burstall had seen surprisingly little travel and there seemed to be about 10-15cms of fresh on a solid base. Indeed there were no problems until yours truly took over a little bit of trailbreaking in the trees after the flats above the headwall. I went too far climber's left with no trail to follow. We debated thrashing up a steep slope or turning back to the correct line. We turned back and the young men had corrected my mistake and had put in a right switch back off my track. After rejoining at their right switchback we enjoyed more of their trailbreaking up to the north pass.

We enjoyed a short lunch in the sparse trees below the final ascent around 12:30 pm. A pretty nice short run off the pass. In the alpine there were some wind scoured patches but right off our high point there was a bit of powder in this often wind blasted area. Up to the pass again we debated next runs but decided to try a short descent and traverse to what is a nice exit, though often difficult to hit, far skiers left off the uptrack. I think I have found it 50% of my time there but on this day we cut down a tad too early - some very nice powder initially but then we traversed through tight trees to join the correct line. Amazing snow for the Rockies at this time of the year with the trees loaded with snow (I got tree bombed) - to me it looked more like the Monashees than the Rockies.

The rest of the descent went well. People had gone down the creek and there is a lot of snow. I think though some of the boulder holes may grab a person until the snow settles out more so we went down the uptrack of the headwall.

Back at the trailhead around 4:00 pm to say a final thank you to the young men who had helped out with navigation and trailbreaking. Kim asked them where the were going tomorrow ... all I heard was some muttering about "...work". Thanks to participants: Kim,David,Carl,Clifton and Jacek from John for tolerating the west coast wimp who had forgotten the route to Burstall pass! Merry Christmas!

Thanks to Carl for the following photos and for providing the west coaster with a bed for a couple of nights.

Wending our way through the tree bombs below Burstall Pass

Kim and John in the Pow

Clifton in the Pow (below the slope that we were aiming for)

David and Jacek in the Pow

Clifton, John, David, Kim and Jack in Burstall Meadows