Two kilometers and 500m of vertical gain of dirt walking to finally ski the E Face of Mt Begbie had Greg and I ready to head back up to Rogers Pass for the next days adventure. We head out to get a peek at the North Face of Mt Roger’s. This 3169m peak is one of the area classics, named for the American surveyor Major A. B. Rogers, hired by the Canadian Pacific Railway to find a route through the Selkirk Range. His discovery of the Rogers Pass, sighted from some 30km to the west in 1881 (on his birthday), and crossed from the east the following year, earned him $5000 and the honour of having the pass, and ultimately this gorgeous peak, bear his name. He was apparently a tough boss, driving his men to near starvation on their foray’s into this mountain wilderness.
The standard route up the Swiss glacier to the Rogers/Grant col needs to be behind us as early as possible on this fine spring day, so we hammer out the ugly skinning below, and break out into the alpine in crisp morning air.
Soon after, the ski crampons are on and we are pushing up the 40 degree slope to the col. A traverse out to the East affords us a good view of the upper part of the our objective: the North Face. 50+ degrees, dropping over a 1000 feet straight down from the ridge joining Rogers peak with the sub-summit Fleming. The top looks great.
We finish off the fine snow ridge to the summit of Rogers, then carry on along the ridge North towards Fleming to the top of the line, the absence of any cornice allowing us to look straight down the face to the crevasse riddled abyss below. And it looks really good. Can’t quite see if our intended exit goes, but what the heck. Here’s Greg dropping in…
Leap-frogging down the face while managing the sluff created by our turns, conditions were perfect. A few centimetres of cold spring snow stuck on to a nice solid base, giving confidence in the stability of the snowpack. As the angle eases off, we scoot across a bench between an icefall and a large crevasse and over to the climbers left side of the glacier to see if we can get out of here. It goes!
Considering the early hour and our position, an attempt to climb Swiss Peak via the N ridge is decided on. We skin and bootpack up the steep snow on the North side of Swiss that joins the ridge less than 100m from the summit. Once we start up the ridge, things get a bit spicy, and a couple of exposed moves to get us through some short rock steps.
A brief summit stop and a careful sideslip/sidestep down the NE face has us looking down the S couloir. When we ascended this aesthetic line to ski the stellar run on the N Face last year all I could think about was what a wicked run it would be as well. Unfortunately, it is now 3pm, and it has been baking in the sun all day. Not yet isothermal, but very wet and heavy. Pushing the slush down in front of us, we descend with a wary eye for sluff releasing off the slopes that feed into our run.
The Selkirks never cease to amaze, and “bagging” these two summits in this exceptional link-up made for a truly outstanding day.
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