Several attempts and no success. That’s been the story of Pope’s peak and I over the years as I tried in vain to ski north couloir from the summit. The first time, Joel and I cleared the ice crux before heavy sloughing chased us back into the safety of the valley. The second time, we didn’t even make it up the fan before a surprise squall turned the slough taps on full blast. You can read about those attempts here. I also made a solo attempt in the intervening years but didn’t make it very far. I’m not that well suited to solo gnar.

After a few years of skill development and improved strategy, the new plan was to ascend the increasingly melted south glacier route from Lake Louise and ski the thing top down. This would minimize time spent in the slough and serac bowling alley that is the north couloir, skip a hard pitch of alpine climbing but add some uncertainty to the ski. Having seen the top of the crux before and being able to view the upper glacier from the road, it seemed like an acceptable trade.

Marcus and I left Golden a bit late, probably on the road by 4 AM. That put us a bit behind the warming that was forecast for the day so we hoped we’d make it up with some fast travel towards the Plain of Six glaciers from Lake Louise. To our surprise, the lake could still be skated easily and we regained some time there. Without too many route finding bobbles, we made it to the base of the glacier in pretty reasonable time. The air was still cold, but the sun was going to be hot. We were maybe a day or two away from one of the first big warming events of the spring and neither of us wanted to be anywhere near this kind of terrain when it reached the tipping point.

Yellow light conditions, we decided. Proceed with caution. Ahead of us, a lone figure was wallowing up an apparent trench in the glacier, while an abandoned bootpack in a rock gully hinted at an alternative. We looked at the wallow, then back at the gully. The soloist ahead had ground to a near halt. We chose the gully. There were a few old pins in there, and Marcus got a sideways screw into a curtain of water ice. One short pitch had us through the difficulty and we reached Popes-Collier col after only a few meters of chest deep facets. We both agreed we’d made it to the col without much time to spare in the increasing heat, but the snowshoe clad mountaineer descended the ascent line on foot shortly afterwards without issue, so perhaps we had more time than we thought.

I’d heard the summit ridge presented some difficulties, but it had been stomped in a few times in the past week, including just minutes previously. Knowing where to go, we didn’t find it too tricky. There were maybe one or two fifth class rock moves, but they were on solid enough rock and not terribly exposed. The heat meant that we were committed to the north face now, which actually relaxed us considerably. Our race with the sun was mostly over, so we lounged on the summit a while and enjoyed the spectacular look around the Lake Louise group.

Then, the moment I’d been waiting for all these years. Skiing off the summit of Popes, towards the north face and couloir. I was pretty excited. Down the mellow summit glacier and arcing left into the abyss, the line is the very definition of commitment. The final few turns as we approached the rappel felt especially spicey – as well they should! There used to be a second rappel here but either the ice bulge fell off or the line filled in this season in such a way that you could just ski over it. In any case, it was kind of an anticlimactic way to clear the obstacle where my first attempt had ended.

I would not describe this line as popular, but it’s been skied enough that there is a reliable anchor in place; with each successive skier through seemingly adding a piece to the rat’s nest. That made the rappel pretty straightforward, though it did require some extension to get our 30m ropes to the bottom. Happily, even this had been taken care of by friends recently enough that we could just recycle their cord. Rappelling confirmed our top down approach as the right one, as what had been a thin and difficult but climbable alpine waterfall when Joel and I climbed it was just a rotten memory. I doubt we would have made it in the other direction this time!

At the bottom we regrouped in a cool cave, coiled the ropes and marvelled at the ancient, glass-smooth ice that formed the back wall of the feature. One of those special places very few people will ever see.

The lower couloir is just fantastic. If it weren’t so heavily serac threatened I’d recommend it on its own, but the chunks of blue ice littering the entire area make it a little too nerve wracking. Regardless, it’s steep, sustained and has just enough width between parallel walls to make for dreamy couloir skiing. Between the Narao couloirs and this, the cirque holds some real gems.

Marcus and I were stoked. We considered exiting via Narao shoulder to the O’Hara road and simply hitchhiking back, or trying to call a friend. I’d already kind of angled the track towards Popes’ other north glacier (the one people usually talk about skiing), which links back into the south basin via a scrappy little couloir and after some discussion we decided to try skiing back to the car. It would probably be faster and we could always bail back to O’Hara if the couloir was too hot to ski.

That turned out to be a terrific sneak. I can’t take credit for it, I originally got the idea from the late, great Gery Unterasinger who was, I believe the first to ski the north face/couloir top down and used this same exit. Solo, for something to do on a day off from heli guiding. The legend of The Wolverine lives on.

The exit couloir.

Actually, I know a pretty good story from the descent which I’ve never seen in writing. On the same day, another friend was on a solo vision quest of his own, attempting the very same line bottom up. At the time it had only been skied twice if I’m remembering correctly. As he crested the waterfall crux (a burly pitch to solo!) a cloud of spindrift came down from above, followed by a rope end and then a head. “Christian! Is that you?” asked Gery’s head, en route to scooping the descent Christian had been working so hard for. Must have been quite a surprise to both of them – what are the odds that the third and fourth descents of the line would take place on the same day, completely independent of each other? And both in such impressive fashion: Christian’s bold solo of the crux and Gery’s completely new circuit to ski the line top down.

Anyway, I digress. The exit couloir was well on its way to going isothermal, but not quite there. Wouldn’t have wanted to climb it but very tough to pass up as an exit. From there it was a loong, loooong corn ski back to the lake, still frozen enough to skate. Much better than hitchhiking home from the O’Hara lot.

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