julianiles.com

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I had the great fortune to be called up on Saturday night by Jeff Honig, lead guide at Selkirk-Tangiers, informing me that there would be space on the helicopter for the next two days. The Canadian guiding culture has developed “practicums” for guides in training to shadow guides and better learn the trade before exams and future work. I was thrilled for the opportunity.

My first day was with Andre, a guide of 23 years, who did not hesitate to relate many stories from the field. He impressed me with his depth of experience and his capacity for humility. He freely explored the factors that contributed to the incidents of his past allowing me to absorb their lessons and hopefully become a better guide. He said, “it is all about working the terrain. Julia, this is what makes a good guide.”

The skiing was incredible. The sun came out allowing us to soak up the fresh powder and marvelous terrain. A Swiss snowboarder showed us some tricks as the snow absorbed all impact upon landing.

My second day was with Dave, a young guide with a twinkle in his eye. He quietly takes on the responsibilities of the day. Some of the terrain was new to him, and it was fascinating watching him on-sight some runs without hesitation. The stability allowed us to ski some steeper features and remained soft and fluffy. We managed to ski 8250 meters in one day! There sure are benefits to the heli!

This March, Mountain Hardwear sent me to Slovenia to go ski mountaineering. I was accompanied by accomplished photographer Steve Ogle and renowned writer Andrew Findlay. We explored the areas in and around Triglav National Park. These mountains, the Julian Alps, boast the highest mountain in Slovenia (2864 m) and tons of beautiful ski mountaineering terrain.
When I met Steve at the airport, sheepishly without my bags, we quickly arranged for them to be shipped to Slovenia so that we did not have to wait in the very expensive city of Zurich. We hit the grocery store and ran some errands. Andrew finally arrived, and without thought of a nap, we piled into a car for the eight hour drive to Bled, Slovenia. Already in one sleepless stretch, I had travelled through Canada, the United States, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, and Slovenia.
The first day we headed out to Krvavec, where we were told that it was not a good day to ski as it was snowing. Being skiers from British Columbia where we make any excuse possible to go skiing when its snowing, we found this idea funny. So we went skiing despite the warnings and had an adventure. After an hour or so of heavy back tracking, we drove right past the gondola heading to the base station at Krvavec because there were no cars and it was not running. We figured that people must have driven to the base. We end up in this tiny village where a super kind elderly woman came outside to help us get on track. Despite not understanding a single word, we were touched by her eagerness to help stray Canadians. Finally, after much questioning people who spoke little to no English, we realized that our best bet was to descend back to the gondola station, and ask there. Turns out that the gondola was simply broken that day, and we were right to assume there was a way to drive, but it was another half an hour in the other direction. We began to wonder if the rain would turn to snow because the thermometer in our car read 6 degrees C. We drove up a shrinking, windy road that took us higher and higher, until our doubts about the snow vanished into piles of slush blocking our way. There were people trying to dig cars out of ruts and other cars backing up to gain speed through the tricky sections. Finally, we pulled over, and walked the rest of the way to the lifts. Everything was closed without a soul in sight. As we approached the lift, someone miraculously emerged, flipped the switch, and let us through. Amazing. It turns out that most of the hill was closed due to high winds, but the slowest single chairlift I have ever seen gave us a few rides that felt glorious after our epic struggle.

The snow just kept falling, dumping about a meter of fresh in the mountains causing serious instability. We devoted ourselves to skiing the lifts and the slack-country whilst remaining super conservative. We hit up Vogel on day two- and while every step we took seemed to produce a mini avalanche, the weather cleared at the end of the day to give us views of a simply magnificent range. We saw the summit of Vogel, which we skied a couple days later, the summit of Triglav where we would also go, and a whole slew of other beautiful mountains that were untouchable with the current snow stability.
Before diving into the beauty of the mountains, we were destined for some more travelers’ epics. We headed to Kranjska Gora in the evening hoping to get a full day of skiing in the next day. We were jabbering happily about all the great things we would ski when we found ourselves going through an unexpected toll. On the other side of the toll, a man in a “DARS” uniform waved us over to the side of the road. “Uh oh,” we collectively sighed.
“Your documents, please,” said the curt officer.
We quickly produced our passports as he explained to us that we needed a Vignette on our car window.
I scanned my memory for a definition of Vignette that did not mean a short story or a cropped photograph. Nothing popped up.
“Thank you for informing us, officer. Let us know where we can buy one, and we will be on our way,” replied Steve innocently.
“I am sorry. You can buy a Vignette from me, but it is too late now.”
“Too late for what,” I wondered while keeping my mouth shut. The boys were called out of the car.
Turns out he was unbending. We spent ninety minutes on the side of the road, pleading with the man. Telling him that we did not see the signs, that we had no idea that we needed to buy this 35 Euro sticker for our window to drive the highways in Slovenia- and that we were sorry and would buy one right away. We even tried to get the help of the other toll people. But alas, the man was absolutely unbending, telling us that we should have known, and charged us 150 Euros to get Steve’s passport back. The comedy continued as their credit card machine could not get a signal, so they started to drive away with my card. I quickly hopped in eliciting the first smile from the man as he told me in his broken English that I was smart not to leave my card. Steve followed us around with his camera, documenting it all.
Finally, we drove on, only to realize our mistake: that we had been going the wrong way the whole time. Had we made the right turn, we never would have come across DARS. After making light of the whole situation by acknowledging both our mistake and our innocence, we laughed it off, and finally found Kransjka Gora.
The epics of the first two days quickly erased themselves in our memory as we started to get out skiing. We returned to Vogel on a sunny day when all the chairs were going and discovered a hearty slack-country community. We toured off to ski Vogel, the highest mountain in the area, and found ourselves giddy with the super long run. The terrain is similar to the coast with lots of nobs. We were not sure that our route would take us back to the road, but we tried it anyway. Each roll over continued through more heavy but consistent snow allowing us to open in up. Thousands of feet of untracked cream has a way of healing all malaise.
Then we met up with Davo Karnicar and skied his local workout peak, Golivhr, which brought us to the Austrian border and incredible views. Davo has skied the highest mountains on each of the seven continents, and he is planning to ski K2. He and his wife had us for a late lunch where we were charmed by their three children and a local meal. We chatted about many universal themes in a mountaineers life such as how to manage being away for such long stretches of time, how to stay fit, and how age can add just enough wisdom to a climber to be successful despite a decline in fitness. He said one thing that really stuck with me: he does not bring any pictures of his family with him on expeditions. He feels that he needs to be completely focused on the task at hand to both be safe and successful. He exuded wisdom, humility, and a great love for his family.
Finally, we made it to the highest hut in the Slovenian Alps, where a super kind hut keeper, Andres, kept us well hydrated with his tea of secret ingredients. We were greatly relieved at this comfort after the journey to the hut. The 7,000 foot climb ended in 100 km winds and face biting cold. Andres informed us that we were only the sixteenth visitor to the hut since October. He seemed happy to have the work. We quickly realized that Triglav was not in skiable condition due to the high winds. So the next morning, we left our skis behind and headed to the summit with our ice axes and crampons for a morning jaunt. Despite being an easy scramble in the summer, the via ferrata is mostly buried in the winter, and the climbing is at times very interesting. We climbed a knife edge ridge with huge cliffs below on either side. We hurried to beat the sun rays which would weaken the precarious snow we were climbing. I found myself digging for the iron hand holds of the via ferrata to feel safe from the possibility of an avalanche sweeping us down the cliffs below. <img
Our descent from the hut down the Kot valley was incredible. I was awed by the incredible rock. There were thousand foot, steep faces of solid-looking rock lining the valley. I made a mental note to remember to return in the summer for the climbing before the technical descent ahead captured all of my attention. The entire valley dropped to cliffs, and we had to pick our way down a steep uneven slope. We changed to ice axes and crampons because the littlest slip on skis would mean falling over a cliff. The bottom of the valley was a death trap that would have been impossible to pass through if the weather was any warmer. We skied quickly through the huge amounts of avalanche debris to the safe flats below.

We checked out Kanin as our final mission in Slovenia. Just to witness the ski hill with the deepest snow pack Europe has ever seen. There were eight hundred and eighty centimeters of snow at the top of this ski area. It was a beautiful sunny day. A perfect way to end the trip to Slovenia.
The drive back to Zurich was filled with laughter as we reviewed our adventure and planned for more. We stopped in Italy for wine and coffee and were amazed at the ebullience of the three sisters who owned the shop. They would not let us leave without kissing each of them three times.
Slovenia impressed me with the ability to be both ancient and entirely modern. The streets are narrow, but the cars are efficient. The architecture is breathtaking and the small towns have resisted the tarnish of big box stores and flashy advertisements. Instead, the mountains and towns are sprinkled with cathedrals and tiny stone churches. The mountains are completely accessible: by gondola, train, and small winding roads. This accessibility, however, has not led to destruction. There is a clear stewardship for wild places: the trees are cut selectively, the ski areas are kept clean, and eleven percent of the country is protected in parks. A thank you to Black Diamond for supplying the skis! And a huge thanks to Mountain Hardwear for making this trip possible.

Well, we finally made it into the Ghost- it only took us four hours. Most of it had to do the heavy bag of sand our friend sent us with (aka poor directions) but eventually, after getting stuck on a wrong turn and driving in a few circles, we emptied the sand and flew over snow drifts to the Ghost River. Emily sure knows how to drive- I was gripping the seat pretty much the whole way- mostly because when driving conditions get bad, Emily steps on it. But it works.
We decided that time had run out for the Sorcerer that day, so we headed towards Valley of the Birds instead. While we walked, she began talking me out of a funk, and suddenly the day started to look like fun. It was a gorgeous and sunny with no wind (little did we know how rare of a treat that is). We passed The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, a fat piece of ice crag- and kept walking. As we neared our canyon, we realized that there was no easy crossing of the river to get to the ice- we would have to commit to wet feat, or to crossing barefoot- and we had spent all our burliness digging out the bat-mobile (Em’s rig). We decided to hit The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly for a little fix instead.

The next day, armed with the determination, we found our way in super quick. We tromped for two hours through the forest, winding through dense trees, post-holing through a thick snow crust until finally we saw the beautiful ice.
The wind was howling- at times gusting strong enough to knock us over- but we kept moving towards the ice hoping that it would relent.
When we took off our packs, we worried that the gusts would pick them up and drop them somewhere else- so we buried them in a hole and headed up. Emily took the first two pitches winding us up some brittle ice. We looked up on the second pitch and commented that the top pitches looked funky.
But we like it a little funky. I couldn’t figure out which way to begin the third pitch. The middle was just a thin smear of detached ice, the right side would be unprotected mixed climbing, and the left was a thin pillar topped with overhanging ice. Sometimes you wish that ice was just the stuff you kept in your freezer to water down the scotch. First try- I chose wrong. The thin smear up the middle was no fun at all. No pro- and when I swung my tool into it it sounded like wind chimes. A bit too thin. So, I spared Emily a crampon in the head, and moved out left.

With my left foot on a micro crack in the rock and my right foot gingerly standing on a chandelier, I reached up and over the bulging mushroom to some rotten snice (thats snow thats supposed to be ice). Should I commit? I looked down at my last ice screw- that was in at least fifty percent air- and then I looked up to see that I would have to commit heavily to that pick placement to make the next move. Maybe I’ll just swing that tool a little harder. Finally, without the strength to swing again, the tool vibrates with the sound of “solid” and I move quickly up and over the bulge. Only now, I realize that my entire weight is committed to these overhanging blobs of ice. Ewww. But magically (as one expects from a sorcerer) it worked. It was perfectly climb-able. Blobland.

I must say that as wonderful as ice climbing is. All of this dark magic wind and ghost and sorcerer stuff was starting to give me the creeps. Not to mention, I was starving. I ate a bit at the belay and headed up for the fourth and final “crux” pitch. It was steep and sustained, but nothing compared to pitch three.
Emily and I made it back into the trees when we succumbed to yet another magic: darkness.
But we came prepared with headlamps and some good conversation- before we knew it, we were eating steak and laughing at the wild magic of the Ghost.

Sean and I headed up to Roger’s Pass on Monday trying to catch a perfect day. The stability had improved miraculously from the weeks before when size 4 avalanches were ripping across the road making it difficult to keep the highway open for more than a few hours at a time. It had warmed so much and then froze again locking down the week layers. The weather was meant to be mild and bluebird. We met Ross, our old roomate, up there. We were a half hour late, he was hung over, and it was minus 25 degrees, but still we mustered up the psych to make high goals for ourselves. A healthy 6,000 foot climb and excellent 40 degree ski descent of Roger’s Peak somehow morphed into an attempt at the North couloir of Swiss. This is a gem of the range. A continuous descent all the way to the valley complete with a steep climb up a SE couloir and no-falls skiing.

We had a bit of a problem though, we were not sure which couloir on Swiss led to the entrance to the North shot we were heading for. We tried calling friends and searching on the map, but we were truly left guessing by the time we reached the base.

But we climbed with heart. We kicked steps through the glassy crust all the way laughing about how great it was that we did not have to ski down this in such condition. The north side would be much better.

I trudged up the final steps. Staying far away from the cornice overhanging the steep north side, I scrambled up on some rocks on the right.

“We’re too far right!” I yelled down. Still undefeated, Ross climbed up the opposite side, looking for a way in- but it was all steep rock below. We lingered, discussing rappelling in with our 30 meter rope, traversing into the couloir, or just anything. But alas, it was hopeless. We, through lack of planning, were fated to skiing glass with little pebbles of ice on it. ICK! There is always a bright side though: the sun was still shining, and the slope was not about to slide.

Turns out, after doing my “homework,” that the correct ascent is published on Greg Hill’s website in perfect clarity. It was the couloir just to the left of the one we climbed.

We did not ski the gnar, but we definitely found some good snow on the way down. And now, next time we have 6,000+ feet of approaching in us, we will know the way.

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