Summer 2010 - The Alpine Club of Canada

Skiers complete Jasper to Lake Louise backcountry route
by Lynn Martel
After nine major ski traverses,
Chic Scott joked he should have
known better before embarking
on his tenth.
In March, Scott and Margaret
Gmoser, both long-time Alpine Club
of Canada members and both just
months shy of their 65th birthdays, skied
18 ½ days from Jasper to Banff carrying
45-pound packs, camping at night and
cooking over a backpacking stove.
“It was a real adventure,” Scott said.
“This was a big trip, it was full-on. I’ve
never been so tired in my life. It was as
hard as any trip I’ve ever done. Maybe
being older was a factor.”
Margaret Gmoser, Chic Scott and Faye Atkinson
(rear) climb out of the North Saskatchewan Valley
heading south up into the Siffleur Valley in the
Siffleur Wilderness Area. photo by Tony Hoare.
8 Alpine Club of Canada Gazette Summer 2010
The two long-time friends, who met
as high school students on youth hostel
mountain outings, were accompanied
by two “youngsters”, Faye Atkinson,
49, a Colorado River guide, and Tony
Hoare, 54, a Vancouver-based adventure
photographer.
The foursome started out from Signal
Mountain trailhead in Jasper, mostly
following the Skyline hiking trail, then
linked to the Eight Pass backcountry ski
route, first pioneered by mountain guide
Willie Pfisterer who was Jasper National
Park’s first alpine specialist in the late
1960s.
For Scott, whose previous long ski
expeditions include the first Great Divide
Traverse in 1967, when he and three
partners skied for 21 days from Jasper to
Lake Louise by crossing icefields and
high alpine passes along the Continental
Divide, it was the first time linking the
Signal Mountain to Poboktan Creek
section.
“I’m calling that the 13 Pass Route,”
Scott said. “That route alone takes about
a week and is just as good as the entire
Wapta Traverse. It stays up high almost
all the time, just with no glaciers—and no
huts.”
From Poboktan Creek they crossed
Jonas Pass and skied through the White
Goat Wilderness Area to reach the David
Thompson Highway via Cline River.
At that point everyone responded
positively to Scott’s suggestion they ski
out to Nordegg “for a hamburger”.
“Not only that, beer too,” Gmoser
added. “All of us perked right up.”
“We got there at day 13 and we were
tired,” Scott admitted. “But we weren’t
quite ready to quit yet.”
Having received daily updates from
the group via a SPOT satellite communication
system, Banff residents and
ACC members Jeanette Fish and Chuck
O’Callaghan decided to rendezvous
with the skiers at their David Thompson
food cache. Everyone was surprised
when Fish and O’Callaghan spotted
Hoare and Gmoser hitchhiking on the
side of the road. Not only was the lift to
Nordegg appreciated, so were the goodies,
including fresh vegetables, Fish and
O’Callaghan bore.
After enjoying multiple showers
and plentiful meals for two nights in
Nordegg, the skiers continued up the
Siffleur River to Pipestone Creek, reaching
Skoki Lodge after six days just in
time to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a
group known as the Green Waxers.
“We ended the trip with two days
of partying at Skoki,” Scott said. “It was
nice to sleep in a bed, eat good food and
be warm. There, Marg and I decided to
pack it in. We’d skied 300 kilometres and
Margaret’s knees had been hurting for
10 days. She never complained; she just
motored along.”
Hoare and Atkinson continued skiing
to Banff via Baker Lake, Pulsatilla Pass
and Mystic Pass to Mount Norquay—
Atkinson likely the first woman to ski the
entire Jasper to Banff route.
With this year marking the 80th
anniversary of the first Jasper to Banff
ski traverse, Scott said he and his companions
planned their trip as a fitting
celebration. In 1930 Swiss-born Joe Weiss,
who pioneered five massive ski traverses
in Jasper and Banff parks between 1929
and 1933, led four others for 15 days
following the now Icefields Parkway.
Scott said his recent route, following
the parkway’s east side, had been skied
twice, in 1976 by Donnie Gardner and
Larry Mason and in the late 1970s by Bob
Saunders and Mel Hynes.
“But I don’t think anybody’s skied it
since,” Scott said.
Gmoser, a grandmother who raised
two sons while her husband Hans, who
died in 2006, ran his heli-skiing company,
Canadian Mountain Holidays, said she
appreciated being able to experience such
a trip in her prime.
“Both of us are 65 this year,” she said.
“We’re both in shape, so let’s go!”
Although blessed with sunshine on
all but one day, the trip was always hard
work, as they carried five to seven days’
food between caches. While windswept
passes made for easy travel, in the valley
bottoms they sank two feet with each
step.
“It was hard work, from the moment
we woke up,” Scott said. “There was no
rest. We split into teams at the end of the
day, one person shovelling out a cooking
area, another shovelling out tent pads.
After an hour, hour and a half, we’d have