french military group traverse

Had a great few days this week with some friends checking out a completely new zone: The peaks, valleys and glaciers that make up the French military group in Kananaskis, namely Elk Lake, the Petain Glacier, Mt. Joffre and others. I have been studying this route for a couple of years and with no prior experience, no beta and nothing but some summer photos of key cruxes and a few espresso charged google earth sessions it was time to stop caffeinating and just head out the god dang door! "Pull out the pickle" and just go for it, you know?!

As you may guess with such an ill advised endevour, based entirely on a few dreams and a map - partners may be slim pickins'..not so!..Enter Ivo "Vigorous" Vigoroux and Zach Cohen, the former being a keen for adventure, female heart throb and international man of intrigue: the latter being the most reliable partner in the northern hemisphere...and maybe the south.
We sushed along the Elk Pass trail on perfectly groomed government trails to eventually branch off and enter the 'wilderness', starting with Elk Lake: the gateway of our mini-traverse and a fabulous spot in its own right, surrounded by mysterious alpine walls, hanging glaciers and electric air.
We elected on the 'mega-mid' approach for this outing, a great choice for treeline and below camping which was our best intentions. In anything but a light wind, it will take off on you but for this it is 'mega'. We very much swanked it out with benches, a full kitchen, storage and an island walkway (islands are HUGE right now)..


The first crux of this trip was the head-wall to access the Petain basin and similarly named glacier. On the map it showed a consistent angle of 40/45 degrees and knowing the local maps penchant for not divulging cliffs 40m in size and below, I was a a bit nerve racked..Zach and I did a quick recon the night before, even establishing an up-track into the lower reaches without even needing ski crampons..it seemed like a 'go' and that night I slept the sleep of a thousand sleeps.

After our initial up track push, the going was not bad..a few 'I wish my parents never met' and 'why aren't we somewhere else' moments came through but sure enough, our persistence paid dividends and we arrived above the clouds after a few rounds with the Mike Tyson of steep bushwack's...seriously though, not bad if you are into this sort of thing.

The headwall of discipline.

Glory above the clouds..

"What! you mean there isn't a starbucks here!"

After gaining the bench below the glacier, a few small cliffs needed to be conquered..the first of which and the biggest, on the left around a steep roll and then asthetic ridge. The second via a snow ramp through a small weakness and the third, pictured above, via a traverse around its furthest and northern toe..

Glacier is gained! D R E A M Y

Magic..

Gaining the Joffre/Petain col - The third "?". This also went swimingly and we enjoyed a 600m descent into the Joffre basin and Aster lake..

Aster lake environs..before the descent to Hidden lake and the road..

All is well that ends well!

Thanks to these great ski fellows. A great trip through some awesome real estate. Well recommended if you want to mix up the bag of usual ski trips.