McArthur Pass lies just a skins climb above the Liz Parker Hut near Lake O'Hara. This area is only open in the winter for touring as it is prime bear habitat. We certainly felt privileged to be there with such wonderful conditions.

Five Ramblers: Garry, Marianne, Carmie, Jim and Lorri (unofficial photographer/scribe), left the O'Hara trailhead parking lot in brilliant sunshine, cool temperatures and lots of new snow on the trail. It was a delightful amble up the fire road which opened up to beautiful views along the way. There was very little traffic, just a couple of groups on their way to the hut or lodge. We stopped for a bite of lunch and marveled at the glacier and bowl at the end of the lake. Several people staying at the lodge were out enjoying a ski around the cabins andlake area.

After filling up, we put the skins on and headed up the trail to Liz Parker hut. Even more snow was encountered on our trip in and it was a very enjoyable ski up the creek. We climbed up to the pass from the hut on a broken trail with more fresh, deep snow and the forest soon turned to larch and opened to expansive views.

Giant boulders were strewn everywhere and covered in blankets of 3 or 4 feet of snow. The views of Mts. Hubert, Odaray and the rest of the range gave us very impressive 360 degree views. The sun shone, the wind was but a breeze. We broke trail in a big loop and covered some ground over to have a view of the end of the pass. No one was in a hurry to leave this amazing landscape ... we sat and caught some rays (I have the raccoon eyes to prove it!), we rambled on with stories and tales and had lots of laughs. More than one person mentioned how nice it would be to winter camp here and explore more of this area.

The ski back down to the hut was fast and fun with only one difficult section and we all managed to find some snow pocket that swallowed us up. The ski out the fire road was NOT all downhill as I had remembered (wrongly), but Marianne still rocketed out in 56 minutes! The rest of us were not far behind, stopping here and there to catch the late afternoon glow on the craggy mountains, pointing out a window we had not seen before and a big tree that a woodpecker had worked hard on during the day, leaving telltale holes and shavings. We were back at the car and driving home by 5:30 ... exhausted and delighted at the excellent tour and conditions. Our thanks to Garry for arranging a fine tour, including ordering up lots of sunshine and new snow! Quick review of trip, we figure ~30 km and a couple of thousand feet elevation - great day!

Skiing toward McArthur Pass, Mt Huber behind.--invalid photo216--

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