Day 1 - We all met for the first time as a group at Canadian Helicopters in Smithers. It was the usual last minute gear madness and finalizing. "Are you sure we're not going to need more than one keg?" Anyhow, after three shuttles we were standing in blazing sun atop the middle solitaire glacier. We spotted a worthy couloir, and scrambled up it for an awesome view of the Howson range. The top couloir provided some sphinter clenching moments before we got down to mellower slopes. Back at our heli drop site we decided to descend a large chute running down between glacial ice on one side, and an impressive rockwall on the other. Arriving back at the cabin we huddled around the map trying to decide what to do for the next day.

Day 2 - Bluebird! A semi early start gave way to coffee induced hallucinations as we slogged up the Burnie Glacier. The morning was thoroughly enjoyed as we worked our way up the moraine rimming the Burnie Glacier. Getting on top of the upper icefall was interesting as Steve and I decided to skirt the gaping maw of a monster crevasse in order to avoid kicking steps directly up the headwall, it turned out that our way was the sketchiest option by far. Once onto the main icefield we made an emergency gear stash of glacier rescue gear. We were drawn in by a magnetic force to climb the aesthetic line up the east face of Kinayakwa Peak. Reaching the summit provided us an amazing vantage of Howson Peak to the south, Telkwa peak to the north, and the endless sea of summits that reaches out to the coast. We then did the first descent of the "kitnayakwa mainline" with Lothar leading the charge.

From there we wrapped around through Kitnayakwa pass to gain the upper loft glacier. Many, many icy turns later we arrived at the valley bottom, and followed Christoph's trail back to the cabin. The keg was flowing, the sauna was cranking, and finally Mark's burritos put the final nail in my coffin as I collapsed into my bed for some much needed rest.

Day 3 - A bit of a lazy morning gave way to a leisurely gear haul up the moraine to gain the upper Burnie Icefield. The skies looked threatening and grey, but eventually we dumped our gear at around 2000m. A quick dash back down the Burnie allowed us to put in a bit of hut time.

Day 4 - Early start with claggy skies giving us in and out visibility. Mark, Steve and I arrived at our gear stash at around 11am, and built our selves a tiny walled shelter that would cut the wind for tonight during out bivi. Shortly after the shelter was built the rest of the group arrived, and we headed across to the south Telkwa glacier. We skied fantastic bootdeep powder snow down the Telkwa with our objective for the day Telkwa peak in the distance. Eventually we gained the SE ridge of Telkwa, and chugged on and on through misty skies to the summit. The summit slopes were rime encrusted and exposed, however we had spied a chute that ran directly down the south face from the summit. Since I had the pleasure of skiing it first, it was dubbed "Shute's Chute." I raced back to the glacier gear stash, and hauled it back to our bivi spot. Steve cooked up a fantastic pesto dinner which mark and I quickly inhaled, and we were all tucked into our bivi's by 8pm!

Day 5 - Slow start since we dealt with having snow blowing on our faces all night long. The morning wind was relentless and biting. The previous day I was lounging without a shirt, and this morning I'm wrapped in down and unable to heat up. We break camp, and head out towards the couloirs just west of polemic pass. These chutes are north facing, steep, with rock walls on either side and just begging to be skied. We leisurely bootpacked up the longer steeper couloir, and arriving at the top we were treated to a view of the unclimbed north face of Howson peak. Strapping on the skis we skied the chute in fine style, and named it "Porque No Couloir." I dashed up the next couloir to the left which had just been skied by Will and Dean and called "Four fingers (of scotch) couloir." Greg, Genevieve, Hélène and I hooted and hollered as we skied it top to bottom without stopping.

We cruised on through Polemic Pass to gain the upper Polemic Glacier. We watched Lothar boot packing up a narrow couloir just to the left of "Primo Loft Couloir," and keep going to bootpack up "Yammering Old Dogs Couloir" to the col. From there our plan was to contour around to the top of "fatty couloir" and do the first descent. Arriving at the top of the chute we craned our necks over the entrance, and were pretty intimidated. Mark and I were the only ones who were able to summon enough nerve (or had the thickest skulls) to try ski it. I bootpacked down with an ice axe, and got a good look at it. The chute runs for around 400m, and the first 75m was 55° ice followed by 200m of 50° chalky snow. There is a mandatory 10ft bergshrund air, and I managed to blow the landing and start sliding headfirst for a moment until I got my skis under me and arrested the fall. We breathed a breath of relief as the last 125m were 45° back to the bivi site. We each carried gargantuan loads back to the cabin since we had to bring Steve's gear down too. That night we drank gin and tonics to celebrate, and Stevo treated us to an amazing slideshow. We dubbed the day "couloir fest 2005," since in total our group skied 6 couloirs (4 of which were first descents).

Day 6 - 7 - Rest days. The weather crapped out so we kept mainly to the cabin, and did runs down the south face of Tom George mountain. Dean's birthday party was memorable, and we managed to finish all of the alcohol we had brought in. Fantastic trip with great people!