Waterton Ski Touring

On Jan 21, Brad and I headed to Waterton for our first ski tour. The plan was to park along the Akamina Parkway, ski south towards Cameron Lake, then west up over the Akamina Pass into British Columbia. The weather was perfect, and it was a beautiful day to be outside skiing because of fresh snow in the area.

After an early morning departure and drive to Waterton, we geared up and left the car at around 10:00. The first bit of skiing was quite easy and flat, as it followed the unplowed road for several kilometres. We then turned onto the Akamina Pass trail and began a moderate climb for the next 2kms. At this point, the trail levelled off, and we hit the BC Border! From there we descended slightly for about a kilometre, before starting a 3km climb up to Wall Lake. For most of the way thus far we had followed fresh tracks, but once we turned towards Wall Lake we had to break trail through the fresh snow. The view from Wall Lake was awesome, with a ton of ice hanging off the headwall at the back of the lake. These routes form the "midnight" chain of routes (owing to the fact that they all have midnight in their names), and we'll definately be back to climb them someday! At Wall Lake, we stopped for lunch, which we ate with our skis on because the snow was so deep. At this point the weather started to turn a little nasty, and the wind picked up across the lake. This caused some of the trees we were standing under to make cracking and popping noises and we could see giant cracks in some of them. We were a little cold and sketched out, so we hightailed it out of there back down the trail.

A short time later, we arrived back at the trail junction, and instead of continuing back into Alberta, we turned off to head to Forum Lake. The ski up to Forum Lake is much steeper, and we had to switchback a fair amount to follow the trail up the hill. After about 2 km, we had gained Forum Ridge, and were supposed to be looking down on Forum Lake in a huge meadow. However, we had traversed too far right, following the trails of some other skiiers headed for telemark slopes. We started to bushwhack accross to the lake, but turned around because of the deteriorating weather situation (It had started to snow and get windier). After retracing our route for a bit, we were able to take the skins off our skis, and get in some great turns on the way down. The powder skiing through the trees was awesome!

In no time, we were back at the trail junction, and we skinned up to travel back across the pass into Alberta. Soon enough, we were able to take our skins off again and coast down the trail until hitting the Akamina Parkway. From there it was an easy ski back to the car. All in all, we were 6 hours car to car, skiied about 18kms, got some turns in, and visited (or came close to) 2 separate lakes. It was a highly successful day that we capped off with a beer and some seafood chowder at the Kilmorey Lodge. We'll be back for the ice climbing at Wall Lake, and have plans to sleep in a quinzee we found at the turnoff for Forum Lake.