Murray Basin Off-Trail skiing on 8-Mar-2022

Well, it was not “face-shot” powder but it was really good ski conditions on Tuesday at Murray Creek valley. There had been a small amount of snow overnight, and about 30cm in the past week. It was minus 19oC with negligible wind at 09:30 in the Sawmill parking lot, but with the mix of sun and cloud, soon warmed up to a balmy -14oC. We quickly got far enough up into the valley to see most of the options for turns. There are lots of overhead hazards in this big terrain cirque valley, but with ratings of 2/1/1 and snow feeling good (30-50cm of relatively unconsolidated snow on top of the stable harder (Feb 19) layer), we were quite confident that we could safely manage the terrain. After a good look around and some discussion, we decided to go up lookers right into the moraine features between Mt Smith-Dorrien and Mt Murray.

Upper Cirque Valley below Mt Smith-Dorrien

Gord and Peter put in a great uptrack through thin trees on the east side of the valley to near tree line for our first run. Everyone agreed that the ski conditions warranted another run in the same area and with improving light conditions we pushed a bit higher in to more open terrain. Then for the third uptrack, we went up even higher on a rib between two avi paths on the lower southerly slopes of Mt Murray. From our high point on the third run, we could see a group in the distance up on the Hero Knob col, and soon after they were on their way down Sweet Sixteen. Not a lot of sun gets into this steep sided valley this time of the year, but at the very top of our third run, on the true south aspect we found a bit of a sun crust. Fortunately, we could avoid it by skiing a slightly more easterly aspect, so we did.

Peter with Hero Knob and Smith-Dorrien Valley behind

After skiing about half way down we all decided that the open area to lookers left was too good to be left untracked, so we went back up for another, and it was the right decision.

Barb - last run

Chris showing style

We headed out of the valley and were at the cars by 4pm. Thank you everyone (Sim,Barbara,Gordon,Chris,Peter) for making it a great day out, and thank you Gord and Barb for the photos, c/s Clifton.