I had been to the saddles on each side of Table Mountain, but not much after that, so finally decided to do the full circumnav to get more familiar with the terrain on the backside of Table. The snow was getting a little old, but had stayed cold, so the snow was variable with pockets of powder and crust.
I opted to go clockwise as I generally prefer to traverse below the South side of Table, especially on sunny days, in the morning as opposed to later in the afternoon when it has had more time to bake. Clockwise also tends to have more open slope skiing as opposed to treed skiing.
A small party stands atop Table Mountain after successfully working through the steep snow.
I got up to Artist Point just as a team was topping out on Table Mountain, the phone camera doing a crappy job of capturing the size of the stoke. I cut South to get a quick tag of Huntoon Point and a better view on Lake Ann. A fun little side mission that only added about 40 minutes to the tour.
A lone skier, bottom center, skinning further out on the Ptarmigan Ridge.
I cut through the trees fairly high so I could use gravity to traverse as far as possible on the South side of Table in ski mode.
As I reached the saddle, I noticed there was a group braving the winds on top of Video Peak but I never saw them drop. I’m not sure if they went down the Northeast Face or decided to bail due to conditions, but the snow on the North Face was wavy, tale tell signs of snow drift.
By this point the 500ml water bottle I keep on my backpack strap was starting to freeze, I forgot the koozie, so I chugged what was left. The area by Hush Hush was fairly wind effected so I decided to stick to the Ptarmigan Bowl down to Kootenay Trees.
Crossing a small exposed creek at the base of Bonsai Trees.
When I got to the base of Bonsai Trees, there was an open creek that is hard to see at certain angles, so be careful if going the opposite direction.
Luckily there was already a skin track up through the trees to follow and I didn’t need to break trail. Coming out of the trees and over the hill was quite the site, seeing the prominent prow above Pond Shop.
A group taking a lunch break on Iceberg Lake.
As I crossed Iceberg Lake a wispy snow devil shyly wandered it’s way towards me before breaking up around me, like a clumsy cub learning to pounce.
As I got to Herman saddle, the visibility was starting to deteriorate as the next storm slowly rolled in. Taking the Herman Saddle Descent option 1 down to Bagley Lakes. The sun started to set behind table mountain as I made the final transition.
