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A trip report by Kieran Crimeen
The only beta we could find on the Murchison ‘Mega Couloir’ was a cryptic mention on the BigLines classics thread and a vague memory of a post on Instagram last winter. Seemed like enough. The previous week we’d bailed from the car on a different objective so we salvaged the day by snapping a few photos of fun things along the parkway.
We set out from the car at 6:15, with an unsupportive crust forcing us out of the drainage and into the trees. After twenty minutes of bashing we got back into the drainage above the waterfall and got to skinning. We arrived at the base of the ‘couloir’ to find it was full of bowling ball sized chunks of snow, the hallmark of a loose wet slide. The crux of the lower chute was not twisting an ankle on the scree-esque snow. Soon it was time to skin again, except we’d anticipated a slightly steeper line and dumped skins at the bottom. Oh well, plates have their uses even in spring.
The snow was a mix of blower, blower on deep facets, hard slab on facets or just facets without the trimmings. The angle was a real grind, just not quite steep enough to be able to kick a bucket without breaking the one below. A few hours of this awaited us, with my knees feeling twenty years older. It’s amazing how quickly you can lose fitness when you’re back to weekend warrior status.
Exposure, seracs, Oh my!
After the absolutely horrible time getting down from the ridge things really improved. The pockets of powder were sloughing at roughly the same speed we were skiing, allowing us to enjoy nice soft turns down the entire couloir. And what a long run it was, with around 1200m of excellent moderate skiing in all.
Matt keepin er nice and tight through the tight section
Now he’s skiing irresponsibly fast
The final bowling alley awaited us, I attempted to ski the damn thing but gave up and walked to the bottom. After swapping layers, repacking skins and padding our expensive cameras in our backpacks we were ready to brave what was likely to be breakable crust over a streambed. Luckily we happened to arrive on the tail end of corn o’clock and cruised back to the car with only a short detour around the waterfall.
This line seems to be relatively obscure, but it shouldn’t be. With views across the Lyells and up to the Columbia, an airy feel and over a kilometer vertical of great skiing there’s not a lot to dislike about Murchison.