Icefall Lodge

3 weeks ago I got a call to go on a trip up to the Icefall Lodge north of Golden, BC for a magazine article. Since I had pretty much nothing going on at the time I said "yes" to this and planned my travel last minute to meet the crew for this once in a lifetime adventure. The Icefall Lodge is BC's newest backcountry lodge and offers access to the highest peaks and largest skiable terrain of any lodge in BC. I met Rico (the writer), Doug (the photographer), Jeff (skier), Erica (skier), and Jimmy (Rico's buddy) at a motel in Golden the night before we headed out to the lodge. We drove about 40 minutes north of Golden, BC to rendezvous with the helicopter for a lift into the lodge. We ditched our cars and jumped in the helicopter for a 20 minute flight straight to heaven. After flying past hundreds of mountains we finally rounded the cornner and caught our first glimpse of the lodge. In the photo below you can just make out the lodge directly in the middle of the shot nestled in the trees to the left of the most prominent avalanche path.
This shot is slightly closer to the lodge and shows the several structures that Icefall Lodge has. The old lodge is off to the right and the new lodge is the larger building to the left. As you can see, the Icefall Lodge is situated in the heart of some awesome ski terrain. Three feet of snow fell in the 2 days prior to our arrival and the skiing was incredibly good the entire time we were there.Here's the view from the 2nd floor of the lodge with another load being brought in from the heli. The heli pad is about 20 feet from the building making for some really dramatic heli drops. Sometimes we'd even start our ski runs from the heli pad in the morning.
Here's the main Icefall Lodge from the heli pad. This lodge is about 2 years old and has more than doubled the capacity and comfort level at Icefall. The building is three stories tall with a drying room and the woodstove on the ground floor, kitchen and dining area on the 2nd floor, and bedrooms on the 3rd floor. It is important to note that this roof was great for jumping off and Jeff and I took advantage of that later in the week. Our group stayed in the old lodge which was about 100 feet to the right of this one and was no less comfortable, just smaller... In the photo below people are getting ready to head out for a clear day of powder skiing.Our first day at the lodge was spent skiing powder around the lodge getting a feel for the snow and terrain. Our second day broke bluebird and we headed off to the Lyell hut which iss located about 8 kilometers and 4500 vertical feet from the Icefall Lodge. The basis for the article is the hut to hut traverse that is an option at Icefall. There are actually three huts operated by Icefall lodge including the Icefall, Lyell, and Mons huts. The Lyell and Mons huts are at much higher elevation than the Icefall and are both located near some serious glaciated terrain. So we set off with the goal of reaching the Lyell hut. We hiked up into the alpine and got some incredible views on our way...Early morning in January lends itself to some long shadows. Here we're looking at Mt. LaClytte and our route towards the Lyell Icefield. Lots of terrain up here.Hours later and we're almost up to the col (pass) where we'll head over a ridge and onto the Lyell Icefield. In the photo below Rico, Jimmy, and Erica make their way up the skin track towards Crampon Col. The views of the mountains only got more incredible the higher we got.Jeff Annetts nears Crampon Col after hours of hiking through some unbelievable mountains and glaciated terrain. One the other side of the low spot on the lookers right is the Lyell Icefield.After going up and over the Crampon Col we hiked straight across the Lyell Icefield and up the Lyell Hut. In the photo below lodge owner Larry Dolecki takes the last few steps towards the Lyell hut. This hut sits at about 10,000 feet just west of the continental divide. The lodge is quite rustic but it has a propane heater and stove making it surprisingly comfortable, even when its -10 degrees outside...We spent the night at the Lyell hut and headed out for a ski the next day. It was really, really cold the next day and the winds had picked up making for some barely tolerable temperatures. We decided on a quick and easy objective in Lyell 5 or Christian Peak, 11,154 ft. We made quick work of this summit and decided to head back to the Icefall lodge for some more deep powder skiing and more comfortable temperatures. While the Lyell hut was truly incredible, the snow and weather conditions were not ideal for us to stay there and get photos. Another storm was rolling in and we had some powder to ski... In the photo below you can see the amazing scenery as well as people swinging their legs in an effort to prevent frostbite to their toes... This was the coldest I have been in years.

After another long day of touring to get back to the lodge we found ourselves back at Icefall and sweet comfort. Here's a shot of the second floor of the lodge. The kitchen is just out of sight to the right and the common area/dining area is where everyone is sitting.Just downstairs from the dining area/kitchen is the drying room and wood stove. This wood stove keeps the entire three story building warm with no problems. There is a drying room for your boots and gear that can accommodate everyone's gear and then some. Directly out in front of the door is the heli pad and the start of some of the ski runs.We were getting absolutely dumped on while we were up there, almost 4 feet of snow fell while were there, on top of three feet the week before! The conditions were incredible for shooting ski photos and just begged for the obligatory roof huck. Since the building was three stories high we figured the roof jump was about 30 feet. We also jumped off the other roofs, but the main lodge had the best landing and biggest drop. Getting onto the roof was scarier than jumping off it. This ladder was straight up and climbing it in plastic ski boots was no easy task. After climbing up we had to pull our skis up on a rope as seen in the photo below.

All around the lodge was great skiing, and since the snow kept coming the skiing only got better and better. We enjoyed the pillows, trees, and chutes that were easily accessible from the lodge and played it safe with the increasing avalanche danger. Luckily the lodge has a good deal of protected tree skiing that is right near the lodge, we had plenty to do while it was storming... In the photo below Rico (look closely) shreds the crap shoot in epic conditions.

We were busy shooting photos most of the time, but Jeff and I found some fun cliffs to jump off of. I'm pretty sure we got some good shots for the magazine, but I could barely see anything the whole time we were there since the snow was so deep, so I'm not really sure. In the photo below Jeff takes a little air...
Jeff Annetts get a deep turn in some of the pillow near the lodge. I didn't take too many pictures of the skiing since we had a professional photographer with us the whole time, but this photo is a good representation of what the skiing was like the whole time. Deep, some of the deepest snow I have ever skied.After days and days of heavy snowfall we finally got to see the raw power of mother nature. While we were skiing in the trees, to avoid avalanche terrain, an enormous avalanche swept down the Kitchen Chute just feet from where we were skiing. It was an unexpected and shocking thing to have happen, and luckily we were all well within the old growth trees for just that reason. I've never been that close to an avalanche this big and it definitely was a little scary. The photo below shows the avalanche path and just how close we were to it. There's 20 foot tall trees in the debris... Not only was this scary but it was also awesome to see something like this up close while being completely safe and out of its way. My trip to Icefall could not have been any better. It was definitely one the best trip I've been on in years. I can't wait to go back, there's so much more to explore...

Volkl Skis

After six years with Elan skis I've switched ski sponsors to Volkl Skis and Marker Bindings. This is a great switch for me since I've always loved the way Volkls ski. I got a pair of Katanas and pair of Gotamas. I took my Katanas out for a few laps on Hidden Peak the other day while it was storming and it appears that they ski Powder very well. Avalanche Danger was really high so we kept it in the trees and took three really fun runs. Keep the snow coming!!!!

First run on my new Katanas from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

November 10, 2010 Powder day?

Just the third day of the winter with snow on the ground and we're already skiing POW!

A little settlement coupled with another foot on top made for some great early season turns. Mike Vaughan and I went back to Alpine and hiked around for a few hours. I made a little video.

11/10/2010 Alpine Meadows from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Skiing! First turns of the season

Just a couple days ago we were enjoying the best mountain biking conditions of the year here in Lake Tahoe. Consistent rains and nice warm temperatures made this fall one to remember on the trails around the Lake. That being said, once November hits I'm usually ready for it to start snowing in earnest, or at least go one way or the other, indian summer or winter. A couple days ago it started raining and winter flexed its muscles. We only got about a half inch of snow at lake level, but up high there was anywhere between a foot and eighteen inches. I went out for a tour of Alpine Meadows and found some fun snow to ski. It was definitely some of the thinnest cover I've ever skied, but was fun nonetheless.

November 8, 2010. from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

I used my GoPro POV camera to catch some interesting video of the action. This was one of the rare times of the season when speed is not your friend and you defintely don't want to take any chances. It was great to get out and move around on the snow regardless. If you decide to go, bring your rock skis....

More fun on the East Side

Ah the East Side. There's really not quite any place else like it on earth. For the past 2 weeks my friends and I have taken full advantage of the mild high pressure conditions and have gone after some of the loftiest summits in the state of California. This weeks goals were Split Mountain and Birch Mountain. Both located just outside of Big Pine, CA, these peaks are separated by only a couple of miles. Basically, Split is west of Mt. Tenemaha, and Birch is north of Tenemaha. You even use the same system of dirt roads to reach both "parking areas". In the photo below my friend Oscar sets out on the "trail" toward Red Lake on our way to Split Mountain, 14,058 ft. I always love the juxtaposition of the desert and the snow, it wouldn't be the east side if you didn't do a little desert walking...About three hours, and a variety of minor issues, we reach Red Lake and catch the first glimpse of our objective. From here the summit is only a mere 4,000 vertical feet away... We came to ski the fabled East Couloir, which becomes visible as you approach the base of the peak. Our ascent route is visible in this photo, and it is the very thin ribbon of snow on the lookers right of the peak, known as the St. Jean couloir.
About an hour later we're still about an hour from the bottom of the couloirs. The East Couloir coming into view on the lookers left, and the St. Jean, in the center of the photo. The scale of things down here is really deceptive. What looks like a short distance often turns out to be much farther and steeper than it seems...Here is a view of our primary descent objective, the East Couloir. On a big year this line has a 70 foot rappel over an ice bulge at the bottom, this year it has about a 400 foot rappel over ice, rock, more ice, more rock... it just isn't that filled in, so we changed our plan. Maybe we'll come back and tag this classic line another year. So we head up the St. Jean couloir in hopes that the snow will be good in this aesthetic, steep, skinny couloir. About a quarter of the way up we find about a half inch of water ice on top of the snow in the chute, fine conditions for climbing in crampons, not so sweet for attempting to ski down. Here's a view looking up the chute....

And here's my view looking down. This chute was no joke, really steep, pretty narrow, and with beautiful rock walls top to bottom. You can also see the Owens Valley, only 9,000 feet below us here.

Eventually the crew made it to the summit of Split Mountain. Andrew, Oscar, Duncan and myself are all pretty wiped out at this point. We'd explored all of the ways down the mountain that we weren't willing to go down, so we opted for the "easy" way down, which we had to pretty much figure out as we went. It turned out to be pretty decent skiing, and far less life threatening than either of the other options we'd explored that day. About 11 hours after leaving the car that morning we returned safe and sound. 7,500 vertical foot runs are lots of fun, especially when you carry ropes and harnesses most of the way for no good reason, I guess we all could use a little extra exercise... In any event, skiing Split Mountain was something I've wanted to do for a while, and I'm thankful to my friend Andrew for providing the motivation I needed. Hopefully the next time I head that way there will be appropriate snow conditions for getting after the more aggressive lines.

One of the best parts of spring skiing down on the east side of the Sierra is the camping. Camping in the desert way out on some dirt road in the middle of nowhere at the base of beautiful 13 and 14 thousand foot peaks just can't be beat. In this shot Mt. Tenemaha dominates the evening skyline. Split Mountain sits just behind that, and Birch Mountain is just visible on the right of the photo.
Our next objective was the summit of Birch Mountain, and as usual this mission started with a healthy little dose of desert walking. In the photo below Oscar makes his way towards the snow just after leaving the car at the end of the dirt road at 6,500 feet. The summit of Birch Mountain is 13,658 ft., so the climb and the ski run are 7,000 vertical feet. Unlike Split Mountain, Birch is not set back on the crest, so the fall line is quite a bit more direct making for a quicker climb and a much quicker descent, depending on your route. Birch Mountain is on the right, Mt. Tenemaha is on the left. Its hard to tell from the photo, but Birch is 1,000 feet taller than Tenemaha. About a third of the way up the mountain and I can't get over the contrast of the snow and the desert. Here Oscar is bootpacking up with the snow and the desert making things interesting in the background.

Our goal on Birch Mountain was to get a 7,000 foot corn run. The south facing slopes were nice and smooth and the winds were out of the north keeping our chances for excellent conditions high. We'd viewed the south side of Birch Mountain from the summit of Split 2 days earlier and this is what we saw. In the photo below you can see the south side of Birch, the peak on the right. We ascended roughly on the lookers right skyline to the summit, and dropped in just to the lookers left down the really aesthetic 3,000 foot long south facing gully. The rest of our run is obscured by ridgelines in this photo, but it was really fun.

Near the top of Birch the views were pretty phenomenal, here Oscar skins with Split Mountain dominating the skyline behind him. Our descent route from two days earlier is visible in this shot. Again, it is hard to capture the scale of everything in a photo, these mountains are absolutely enormous...After about 5 and half hours we reached the summit of Birch Mountain and were awed by the view. The Palisades to the North, Split Mountain and the other high peaks to the south was just too much for my camera to take in. My computer almost exploded when I downloaded all the photos, and in fact I lost about 40 shots in the process. Oh well. Luckily, Oscar captured a shot of me on the summit of Birch scoping out the downclimb to get into the line we wanted to ski.

The High Sierra is a great place to call home, if only for a few days at a time....

Double the pleasure, double the pain

Like any good morning down on the east side, ours started with a pre-dawn wake up in the desert. We had arrived at the Shepherd Pass trailhead, just west of Independence, CA, around midnight the night before. We knew we had a big day ahead of us, so we got up early and got on the trail as soon as we could. Our goal was the summit of Mt. Tyndall, one of the thirteen 14,000+ foot peaks in the state of California. Tyndall's summit sits at 14,018 feet above sea level and is the western-most 14 er of the bunch, meaning that it is the farthest away from any road. Lucky for us the summit was only 8 miles and 8,000 vertical feet from where we parked and the sunrise is always beautiful on the east side.Since the distance to our objective was so great we decided that it would be a good idea to spend the night out there. We figured that we could ski a couple things, instead of just having one massive day we could have two. After hiking for a couple hours we crested the ridge from Symmes creek into Shepherd Creek and we were awed by the scale of the mountains. It might be hard to tell from the pictures, but these mountains are huge, really huge. Mt Williamson is on the left, and on the far right of the picture you can just see Shepherd Pass, only 5 and a half more hours away. To access Mt. Tyndall it is easiest to follow the Shepherd Creek Drainage up to Shepherd Pass at 12,000 feet. From there it is only a mile and 2,000 more feet to the summit.
5 hours later and the rest of the crew, Andrew E., Andrew P., and Duncan are about to crest the top of Shepherd Pass. The drainage we ascended is behind them with Mt. Keith off to the left. At this point we'd already been hiking for 7 hours and calling it a day certainly would've been pretty awesome, but our objective had finally come into view so there was really no stopping now.
As we crested the Pass we saw the hulking mass of the north face of Mt. Tyndall. We also entered into the boundary of Sequoia National Park, which was a first for me. At this point we are a mile from the base of the face we want to ski the weather is perfect and we're all feeling pretty good, and happy that we're not trying to return to the car tonight.
About two hours later I'm on the front of the bootpack heading to the summit of Tyndall. Shepherd Pass is the low spot behind us and Mt. Keith is the huge peak in the distance. We made it to the summit, took in the sights and wondered at the scale of it all. The mountains in this area are so massive it is hard to even imagine until you see them for yourself.
After skiing the variable cold snow conditions down the north face of Tyndall we set up a camp in some of the talus on the plateau at about 12,000 feet. Camping on dry ground is a little easier than camping on snow and having a bunch of loose rocks around to build a small wind shelter to sleep behind is always nice. It was a cool night for us, but a warm night by mid-winter high elevation standards. In the photo below we prepare for day two in the early morning sun under the north face of Mt. Tyndall.
Our original plan was to ski the west face of Mt. Williamson on day 2. After reconsidering the logistics and timing we modified our plan to ski the inviting south face of Mt. Keith. While Mt. Keith doesn't top out above 14 thousand feet it comes in just shy at 13,977 feet. Due to its lack of height it is often overlooked and I had never even heard of this mountain before attempting to ski it. Mt Keith was also kind of on the way back to the car so we just had to check it out. In the photo below Andrew E. approaches the south face of Mt. Keith with some nameless 13,000+ foot peaks in the background. You could easily spend a week skiing back here and have barely scratched the surface...
As we ascend the couloir the views just get better and better. Andrew P. and Duncan are the two dots below with Tyndall and Shepherd Pass in the background. The south facing snow was softening up quite nicely by now...
Crazily enough I even got one of those guys to take a picture of me on the summit of Mt. Keith. Mt Tyndall, Mt. Whitney, and Kings Canyon in the background. An amazing area to say the least. I'll be venturing back this way very soon.
And dropping! Duncan drops into the line we just climbed, and shreds it. He's got 3,000 vertical feet of fall line skiing before the first bench and the beginning of the ski/hike back out.
Andrew P. drops in for some hard earned corn turns down the south flank of Mt. Keith. Once we gathered our stashed gear at the bottom of this run it was a 3 and a half hour ski/ hike/survival skiing slog back to the car. The only reasonable way out of this area is the way we came in and it wasn't that much easier on the way out, other than it being slightly downhill. There was lots of skis off, skis on, walking on dirt, walking on snow, etc. This area is deep!
By doubling up on peaks we also doubled up on the pain. Carrying your winter overnight gear deep into the high sierra certainly puts the hurt on. But what made us hurt only made for an epic adventure the likes of which I've never been on before. While I was aware of the possibilities in this area I had never realized the true potential, until now. I'll be back down there soon, really soon.

Milking it.

With daytime highs forecasted in the mid to upper fifties our most recent snow is changing quickly from powder to something other than powder. This transitional phase began in earnest yesterday and is going to continue for the next several days. Never one to give up on the remaining powder I headed up to Mt. Tallac today with my buddy Jon to see if we could find any of that vanishing powder. Lucky for us the Emerald Bay road had been closed and nobody had gone anywhere near any of the lines we wanted to ski today. 2 days after the storm and we had our pick of all of our favorite lines. In the photo below, Jon drops into a completely fresh Babycham with possibly the most heroic powder conditions I've ever seen. We followed that up with the Hanging snowfield and corkscrew, respectively, and both enjoyed more perfect conditions down each line.

After skiing such incredible snow we decided on another lap off the top and headed back up. We dropped into the steep entrance of the Cross and enjoyed a continuous 3,000 foot run of creamy but somewhat variable powder. It was especially fun for me since I have never entered the Cross from this particular spot, and doing something new is always fun for me. The cold powder snow changed significantly throughout the course of our day on Tallac, and unfortunately it seems like we may have milked it for all that it was worth. However, all is not lost, since we live in California we'll be skiing corn in just a matter of days....

More exceptional conditions in Lake Tahoe

That's right, more great skiing in Lake Tahoe. While I might have missed the storm that rolled through here last week when I was in Utah, I won't be missing any more. Some of the snow that fell last week has stayed cold and dry in the high north facing areas, that coupled with the 6 inches of cold fluffy snow we got last night has made for great ski conditions all over the Lake Tahoe backcountry. Today I headed up to Mt. Tallac with Andrew and his buddy Matt. In the photo above they scope their line with Angora and the Hall of the Gods in the background.

Here we're getting ready to drop into another perfect pow run after skiing the line on the left in the background. It was a beautiful day out there today, sunny all morning with some high clouds moving in this afternoon bringing another overnight refresher... It has actually already started snowing again...

Lake Tahoe Backcountry, Tuesday 3-9-10 from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

I've been having fun playing with the angles on my GoPro POV camera and here's another video from the pole cam. We had some great conditions out there today, and possibly the best run down the Corkscrew that I've ever had. Later in the video I picked my way down into the S-chute which is still pretty narrow, and incredibly steep...

Please hit button to Refresh

As it was finally starting to get a little ugly around here we got just what we needed. Somebody hit the refresh button, and just like that we've got six new inches of good quality snow to smooth everything out. With a bit of a nagging foot injury I can't really ski anything but really smooth snow, so I headed up to Mt. Tallac today to see how the snow was. The recent snow has made the skining conditions much better and more grippy making for a much easier climb than you would have found out there a few days ago. Only three people were out there in front of me today, and I thank them for a great new skin track. I was also impressed by their especially gnarly drop-ins to the top of the cross, way to get after it whoever you are. Luckily for me, two of my favorite ski runs in the world were completely untracked... While the new snow was very stable it was sluffing pretty fast, not deep, but fast. The sluff made me a little tentative, but I still had a great time up there today. I toyed around with a new GoPro POV set up today and I was pleased with the results. I basically mounted the camera on the top of a telescoping ski pole which I securely strapped to my pack. In the future I think I might try and put it up a little higher, it was a fun experiment nonetheless.

Mt. Tallac 2/22/10 from Jeremy Benson on Vimeo.

Mt. Tallac with Jason Abraham

A few days ago I headed up Mt. Tallac with Jason Abraham to see if we could find some good snow. At the time it hadn't snowed in probably 9 days or so, and the typical route down was so heavily skied it was almost moguls. The snow on south faces was perfect corn, and on the north and northeast faces we found some great shallow powder. We were hoping to snap a few photos, so we decided to head over to the south side of the mountain, and we were pleasantly surprised to find that side of the mountain almost completely untracked. Thanks to everyone out there who skis in everyone else's tracks....Coverage on Tallac is the best it has been a couple years, all of the really gnarly lines are filled in really well. While we didn't opt for the really aggressive skiing that day, the open powder slopes we found offered up some great snow conditions and worked well for getting a few pictures... It was Abro's first day on Tallac, and he just got a tiny taste of the possibilities that are up there.
We had another relaxed but successful photo day and it seems like we're on a roll. It is snowing lightly here in Tahoe again, and our weather looks unsettled for the next couple weeks. Bring it on!

Trying something new

After nine winters living in Tahoe and skiing the backcountry I am always stoked to get out and do something new. Since I'm somewhat of a creature of habit there are way more things that I haven't done out there than things I have. I suppose that I tend to get into a groove with the places I ski, and I often I find that I just do what is easier, or closer. This was not the case yesterday. A friend of Lynn and I suggested that we go ski Pyramid Peak in Desolation Wilderness. In the photograph above, Pyramid is on the left, Mt. Price is on the right, and Jack's peak is in the foreground, pictured from Dick's Peak in the center of the wilderness. At 9,983 feet, Pyramid Peak is the highest point in the wilderness and one of the most aesthetic mountains in the region. We chose to access this peak from the closest main road, and we parked our car around 6,000 feet at the Horsetail Falls parking area off of Highway 50. The hike brings you up a southeast facing ridge to start and at that elevation the snow was a little thin... We had a bit of an interesting bushwack to start out our day. After ascending about 500 feet or so we were out of the thinly covered rocks and bushes and up onto a prominent ridge that would lead us all the way to the top of Pyramid Peak. While the summit isn't very close to where we parked getting there was quite straightforward and the navigation was simple, once you were out of the bushes. In the photo below Lynn approaches the Southeast side of Pyramid Peak about 3 hours into the approach...
After hanging out at the summit for a while we dropped in on our objective, the north face of Pyramid. Having only viewed this face from a distance I always thought that it was way longer and steeper than it actually was. The snow on the north side was still nice and powdery despite the unseasonably warm temperatures that we've had lately and the skiing was great. Here's a shot of the north side of Pyramid with good coverage, many seasons this doesn't fill in well enough to be able to ski it without walking over rocks...
After skiing the north side we traversed back around and skied a variety of terrain and snow conditions near the route that we came up. Coverage was great and the terrain interesting most of the way back down to the car. Things got a little spicy once we got back down below 6500 feet or so, but with some good route finding, a little bit of bush skiing, and some questionable creek crossings we made it out of there with no problems at all.

It was a beautiful day in tahoe yesterday and going out to try something new with a mellow crew made for a fun and relaxing day in the backcountry. Its always fun to ski something you've never skied before and a mountain like this that stares you in the face is nice to check off the list. This peak is deep so if you plan to head out there be prepared for a long day or take it easy and make it an overnight...