Skiing across the top of the world
A Centennial adventure spanning icefields, under starlit skies
By Chic Scott
For the Crag and Canyon
26th April, 2017
This article is retyped below the images for ease of reading
Along the crest of the Rockies, between Jasper and Lake Louise, is a world of snow and ice where nine major icefields and dozens of glaciers cling to the mountains. In the springtime the valleys are covered in a thick blanket of snow and the crevasses in the glaciers are safely bridged. At this time of year this route, across the roof of the Rockies, becomes an enticing challenge for adventurous ski mountaineers. In fact it is one of the greatest ski adventures in the world. As I write there are several parties of young men and women out there skiing the Great Divide Traverse right now.
The route had been attempted in 1954 and in 1960 but it was not until 1967 that four young men from Calgary succeeded in skiing the 320-kilometre distance. Charlie Locke and Don Gardner were only 20 years old at the time. I was 21 and Neil Liske was a seemingly ancient 30 years of age. Over a period of 21 days we traveled up the Whirlpool River, then turned south along the spine of the Rockies, crossing the Hooker, Chaba, Columbia, Lyell, Mons, Freshfield, Wapta and Waputik Icefields.
Although we were young, we were well prepared. We had spent the winter poring over maps and air photos. We had carefully placed four caches along the way, each containing a week’s worth of food, fuel and wax. In a remarkable departure from traditional practice, we had chosen to use wooden cross-country skis and waxes rather than the heavy Head metal skis and skins that were popular at that time.
In another departure from normal, we actually turned down financial sponsorship from Weekend Magazine. We wanted this trip to be ours: to be beholden to no one. If things did not go well, we did not want our trials and tribulations broadcast in the popular press.
As it did happen, everything did go well – there were no injuries, crevasse falls, avalanches or personal disagreements. Ski pioneer Erling Strom wrote that unless something goes wrong on a trip it makes for a boring story. Perhaps he is right but we never found out. When we arrived at Kicking Horse Pass after our 21-day adventure, we took a single photo of ourselves then went our separate ways. There was no victory celebration and no press conference. We didn’t even write up the story in the mountaineering journals. Like a Buddhist sand mandala we just swept the slate clean and moved on.
In our hearts however, we carried memories of sunny days crossing immense icefields, happy times around campfires and pristine nights under starry skies – memories which would last a lifetime and warm us years later like glowing coals in a dying campfire.
Of course, it was Canada’s 100th birthday, and this was our Centennial project. It was a time of great change in the world and a time of great change in Canada’s mountain community. For the first half of the 20th century, Canada’s leading mountaineers had been Swiss and Austrian guides and their well-heeled British and American clients.
After the Second World War our leading climbers had also come from Europe – men like Hans Gmoser, Leo Grillmair, Peter Fuhrmann and Willy Pfisterer. But during the 1960s, born-in-Canada Canadians began to take their place in the alpine world, showing that they could climb and ski as well as play hockey.
In the early sixties, Don Vockeroth (from Drumheller originally) and Lloyd MacKay (from Nova Scotia) put up the hardest climbs of the day on Yamnuska. In 1965, Don Gardner and Charlie Locke (both from Calgary), only 19 years old at the time, traversed all 23 peaks that ring Moraine Lake, Paradise Valley and Lake Louise in a remarkable week-long effort – a feat that has never since been repeated.
Today, in Canada, our leading ski mountaineers, alpinists, mountain guides and avalanche professionals are all Canadian-born, but it wasn’t always that way.
To me the Great Divide Ski Traverse in 1967 was a tipping point. It was when young men and women in this country showed that you didn’t have to be able to yodel to be a good mountaineer.
For me, the traverse was the tipping point in my life too. Afterwards, I knew that I wanted to devote my life to the mountains. At Christmas that year, Don Gardner, Eckhardt Grassman and I made the first winter ascent of Mount Assiniboine. Then, in January, I left Calgary bound for the European Alps and a whole new adventure began in my life.
Since then, I have skied another nine Grand Traverses (four of them as a guide). I have climbed and guided extensively in the European Alps. I have climbed in the Himalaya and the great peaks of the St. Elias Range in the Yukon. But none of these adventures have ever been more special than that ski traverse along the Great Divide, 50 years ago, with my three best friends.
Source: Bow Valley Crag and Canyon