The Canadian Rockies
The Canadian ski-mountaineering scene, possibly the burliest and most modest outside of Chamonix, has its roots in the remote, craggy summits and highly technical, highly exposed descents of the Rockies. So when legendary ski mountaineers Ptor Spricenieks and Jon Walsh returned to their former home of Golden, BC to conquer some peaks of years past, it wasn’t just a nostalgic reunion of two gray-haired, cowboy-hatted retirees; it was a chance to revisit the mountains that inspired a lifelong high-alpine addiction.
Words Ptor Spricenieks
My very first time in the mountains was in Banff, AB, spending the summer as a rowdy little one-year-old while my dad studied opera at the Banff School of Fine Arts. As it turned out, that experience as an infant remained indelibly etched in my being. My next alpine visit was while visiting my uncle in Calgary at age 11, when my dad made sure to take me back to Banff and Lake Louise. As we reached the top of the Banff Gondola I immediately took off, scrambling up the rocks towards higher ground and, much to my dad’s chagrin, refusing to come down. The year was 1978, the same as Doug Ward and Greg Hann’s milestone ski descent of the ‘Three-and-a-Half’ and ’20 Dollar Bill’ couloirs at nearby Moraine Lake.
Some 10 years later, I finally realized my true calling as a skier and permanently returned to the mountains, across the Continental Divide to Whistler, BC. By that time Ward had already made numerous impressive descents in the Rockies and established himself as one of Canada’s first bonafide extreme skiers.