N Burstall-Palliser Trail-Shark PL traverse Off-trail Skiing on 15-Fe
After leaving the Burstall trailhead around 8:00 am the plan was to go up over Burstall pass into the Spray valley, follow the Spray valley down to it's junction with the trail into Assiniboine and then east to the Mount Shark trailhead. We had very fine views of the peaks around Burstall pass and to the east across the Smith-Dorrien road as we ascended to Burstall pass.
Above the headwall we cut a first track through "wonderful", "garbage" powder towards the pass - for most of the party the snow was definitely in the "wonderful" category. The exception was Bob who had recently returned from being very spoiled after a week skiing metre deep B.C. powder. Surprisingly, for such a popular area, this fresh Alberta powder was untracked in the upper section. Up above us in a mostly blue sky wisps of cloud were really flying by and at last trees we stopped to zip and hood up for the final scenic push to the pass which looked like it would be very windy.
At the pass, alas, the wind moderated and was replaced by thick mist. Before the mist came down really thickly we had some idea of the features ahead with a loaded, corniced slope to the south and milder looking terrain to the north. With compass, map and memories of the summer route by some in the party we felt our way down, doing the tricky balancing act of spacing out but keeping everyone in view. From trail descriptions and memories we knew there was a large sink hole on the west side. A timely clearing of the mist showed we had successfully skied down into the bottom of it! After the short climb out of the sink hole and the mist clearing route finding became much easier. All skins came off and we enjoyed some nice powder skiing down through scattered alpine trees - Doug and Sue showing fine tele form on skinny skis with your scribe demonstrating his "flop turn" (patent pending: turn and flop over). The excellent snow conditions helped us down into the Spray valley mostly following the obvious drainage down from Burstall pass. Avalanche exposure was not bad although we did cross the very tail end of one old slide. We stopped for lunch after completing our descent to the Spray river around 1:00 pm.
Soon after setting off down the Spray valley after lunch we looked down to read a trail sign indicating 19 Kms to the Mount Shark parking lot. A brief stop at the Palliser warden cabin and pretty reasonable trail breaking conditions, but with a section over some lumpy terrain, saw us at the junction with the trail up Bryant creek around 5:30 - 6:00 pm. The following section of packed and then groomed trail got us fairly quickly to our Mount Shark parking lot destination despite an initial wearisome climb up after the bridge around 7:15 - 7:30 pm.
The group of Doug, Sue, Christine, Bob, David (coordinator) and John (scribe) completed the day with supper at the Grizzly Paw. The French onion soup was good - but more mellow music would have suited our tired group rather than the rap(?) music(?) the resident DJ enjoyed. Thanks Dave and the group for another rewarding trip.
