On Saturday, Skyler and I skied Mount Hector and despite some misgivings about the weather got seriously rewarded. Sunday we tried to repeat that luck in the Grand Daddy Couloir and holy shit did it ever pay off.

Really, our planning for the weekend was about as perfect as it gets. Mount Hector was only two kilometers away from the Mosquito Creek Hostel, so we went from skiing to drinking victory beers by the fire in about ten minutes. A lot of victory beers later, we woke up gloriously late since skiing the Grand Daddy involves leaving from Mosquito Creek. Yep - you basically roll out of bed, put your skis on and away you go.

With a blisteringly early alpine start of 8:30am we sauntered up through the trees towards Bow Peak and got our first real view of the couloir. Much like Saturday on Hector, there was a little weather related concern. It had snowed overnight, was still snowing, and there was a fair bit of cloud cover. Vis was not great - but it was good enough to start getting nervous. Because of the angle it slices into the mountain's face, it's a while before you can see the whole thing - but before that you look up and see a gash of snow disappearing into an incredible wall of vertical rock.