Asulkan Ski Hut

Booking

After my second Bow Yoho traverse in the spring of 2025, I started researching other huts in the Canadian Rockies. Among other considerations, I was hoping to find a trip that Mary might enjoy during her spring break from law school in the last week of March.

Initially, I had high hopes for the two ACC ski week cabins, Kokanee Glacier Cabin and Fairy Meadow Hut. Both allow a single group to book the cabin for an entire week and the booking includes a helicopter ride to and from the hut.

A sizable fraction of the 2026 Bow Yoho crew also put their names in the hat in the ACC ski week lottery and we waited until results were published in June. No dice. I emailed the ACC to inquire how many people had also applied for Faity Meadows and Kokanee and got the following response:

“For Fairy Meadow, we received a total of 656 entries for the full lottery. The week of March 21–28 had 145 entries, making it one of the more popular weeks. For Kokanee, we received 965 total entries, with 90 specifically for March 21–28.”

Given the number of tickets we secured, I calculated that there was only a 10% chance that we would have won either hut for the desired week.

The next idea was Asulkan Hut, a storied hut off Rogers Pass. That hut is booked on a per person basis, up to 6 months out for ACC members. A nuance to the booking system is that once you book a single night you can extend for up to 4 additional nights. As a result, even if one logs on immediately at the booking time there is no guarantee that the night which is 180 days out is not already booked by a group staying the previous night.

Our strategy was to attempt to book our first night as Sunday, March 22nd. If we were unsuccessful we planned to continue trying to book a first night for the next three days. Surprisingly, Sam managed to get all 10 Asulkan hut spots on the very first attempt. Sam then called and extended the stay to Friday.

Avalanches

Leading up to the trip, the avalanche situation was looking spooky. There were two persistent weak layers from January. In early March, Parks Canada sent out an email warning: “Staff members have seen numerous size 4 avalanches come down over the past week - these slides are big enough to bury buildings, a railway car, or a 10 acre forest”.

A week prior to our arrival a large warm storm moved in. The avalanche forecast predicted avalanche conditions increasing to “Extreme” at all elevations. Fortunately, the forecast predicted temperatures dropping on Saturday and staying low for the subsequent week.

Sure enough, by the time we flew to Canada on Saturday, the forecast for Sunday was 3, 2, 2. And by Monday it was 2, 2, 1. A number of very large avalanches had run the previous week, but it appeared that the warm storm had largely solved the persistent slab problem.

Rogers Pass and Asulkan Hut History

The first rail line was laid across Rogers Pass in 1885 as part of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s transconitnent line. The pass had only been ‘discovered’ four years earlier by its name sake A.B. Rogers. During the construction 6.4km of snowsheds were built to protect the train and workmen from avalanches.

In addition to many snowsheds, the CPR built Glacier House, a world renowned hosterlry just to the west of the pass.

The DPR began regular coast-to-coast service in 1886. To avoid hauling dining cars, it was decided that there should be a permanent dining room at the Glacier Station. Glacier House slowly grew and by 1895 the Glacier House had over 700 guests during the summer. Among other attractions, a grizzly bear was chained near the station.

In 1899 CPR brought out two swiss guides. The two guides returned to Interlacken that winter and six Swiss guides came to the Canadian Rockies the summer of 1900.

In 1906 Wheeler with Elizabeth Parker founded the Alpine Club of Canada.

In 1910, 58 railroad workers were killed in an [avalanche on Rogers Pass] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1910_Rogers_Pass_avalanche) while they worked to clear the tracks. That CPR admitted defeat and began building a tunnel under Rogers Pass. The five mile long Connaught Tunnel was completed in 1913.

The Asulkan hut sits in the Asulkan Valley of Glacier National Park. It was first built in 1912 by the Alpine Club of Canada and was used as a base for peaks like Youngs Peak and Dome. The original hut was destroyed by an avalanche in 1925. A second hut was built shortly aftwards and then destoryed again by an avalanche in 1928.

The modern day Asulkan hut was constructed in 1947 and was placed more carefully to reduce avalanche risk.

Arriving in Canada

Saturday afternoon, Mary, Catherine, and I picked up our Turo rental car in the Calgary airpot and drove to Canmore. Our first stop was at the Canmore Save On Foods, to shop for the other five who were flying in late in the evening. Sam had clearly put some thought into his hut cuisine; his list included items like 6+ oz pecorino romano, 16+ oz pancetta, and 12 eggs.

Mary shopped for Sam + Deirdra + Kyle + Jazemine while I shopped only for myself and Mary. She still beat me to checkout. Well played Mary.

We then checked into our Basecamp Suites apartment and got out for a little run on the Canmore bike path.

Post run and dinner, we called Sam and the crew who had just picked up their rental car. The big point of discussion was: are we skiing in on Sunday? After going back and forth we ultimately decided to wait until Monday. While we felt reasonably safe skiing on Sunday (3 / 2 / 2) with the most significant risk being wind slab) it was agreed that it would be strictly safer to ski on Monday (2 / 2 / 1). The ancillary benefits of delaying a day included (a) slow morning Sunday after a day of travel (b) Catherine was able to get more work done (c) the folks that flew in Saturday night would have a bit more time to organize their bags and would not be rushing.

With a reasonably open Sunday ahead of us, Mary and I got out for a morning run Sunday along the trails near the bike path. An excellent run! Then we all ate breakfast, packed our two vehicles and departed for Radium Hotsprings which is a Parks Canada run natural spring about 2km from a town also named Radium Hotsprings.

For the evening, we booked a last minute airbnb outside Golden at Alpine Meadows Lodge B&B. Our unit was a four bedroom house for a little over 300 USD. We got to the Lodge, ate dinner (one of Sam’s dinners he had planned to hike in) and then went off to bed with the plan to roll at 7:30 the next morning.

Day 1: Ski in

The previous night we had decied that Thomas, Mary, and I would ski in together as part of the “slow” group. However, we happened to be the slightly faster group packing up and departed punctually at 7:30 while the other group was still loading their bags with a warm feeling of superiority that a punctual departure inspires. However, we were not able to gloat for long. Shortly after crossing the one way bridge across the Columbia we are stopped by a freight train sitting stationary on the tracks. After waiting for about 10 minutes, our friends catch up to us and after waiting 10 minutes more the train starts to move at a glacial rate and eventually we are free to continue our journey.

Other then a brief awkward event where I found myself driving on the wrong way on the Trans Canadian Highway (I must say it was very poorly signed), we made it to the Roges Pass trailhead uneventfully and donned our ski gear, weighed our packs (at risk of bragging mine was the heaviest at 56 pounds), and began skiing up the valley.

Enough fresh snow had fallen over the previous week’s crust the conditions were pretty ideal. For the first couple of miles along the valley floor the biggest challenge was a skin track followed the sloping bank of the Asulkan creek. While not especially exposed I could tell that Mary did not love the fact that a careless step could result in slide into the creek.

However, we all made it through without any creek event taking place and had another mile-ish of easy skinning before arriving at the Mousetrap, a portion of the valley known for intersecting avalanche paths. We were not especially worried about any avalanche today. However, some very large avalanches had run the previous week when a large wet storm had saturated the snowpack. The result was that the entire valley was an uneven mound of hard snow with broken trees poking out in places. About three inches of fresh snow had fallen on top of the avy debris which was not quite enough to make it skinnable.

After watching the group in front of us attempt to slowly circumnavigate the debris in the steep trees on the right, we decided to follow another young guy as he strapped his skis to his pack, lowered himself down into the debris field and walked through the debris up valley.

I strapped both Mary’s skies and mine to my pack. Fortunately, the debris was so hard packed it was mostly very easy to walk on. However, occasionally the new snow would have obscured a hole in the debris field that would not be apparent until one’s book sank 10cm (notice the use of the local unit) more than anticipated.

With two pairs of skis strapped to an already heavy backpack I was moving slowly and was stoked when we finally made it to the upper end of the debris and I was able to drop my load. While most of my group felt similarly about the challenges of the debris field Mary chipperly volunteered that she had enjoyed walking rather than being in the skies and that the debris field walk had been the easiest part of her day.

The good Canadian fellow that had pioneered our boot packing across the debris field was recuperating by smoking a joint. Never having been a huge fan of the smell of smoke, I put my skies back on and Mary and I continued. We only have about 1 mile and 1500ft left. However, it turned out to be a challenging mile. There were two problems. First, Mary is still mastering the kick turn. She occasionally gets herself in the ∨ of death were both skies are spread sufficently wide as to be inoperable and then she feels very exposed and out of control. The second is that the skin track was somewhat steep in places. And Mary is still mastering the art of a steep skin track. She frequently falls into the habit that many do of leaning too far forward and thereby exerting her normal force parallel to the slope which results in sliding backwards, another less fun sensation.

Our low point was when Mary was caught in the ∨ of death I naively suggested she take her skies off to reposition herself. As soon as she took one ski off she immediately post holed up to her thigh. Not so fun.

After a bit more trial and tribulation, we decided to flip to snow shoes which I was also carrying. That improved the situation, but the power was deep enough and the slope steep enough in places that a snowshoe is not an ideal piece of equipment.

However, it was very serviceable and eventually we were in sight of the cabin! Oh beautiful day!

After lunch, a subsection of the group skied up towards Younges Peak.

The wind was blowing quite hard and the snow was a little wind crusted, but we had very clear views which we knew were temporary.

We skinned up to the final pitch of Younge’s Peak and waited for this large, disorgnized group above us to drop before we began our descent. This group had been skinning up towards the hut around the same time as us and we were already skeptical about their vibe after they abandoned one of their buddies and Kyle felt obliged to stay back and watch the guy as he ascended the final somewhat wind-loaded slope near the hut. As we were waiting we saw a large chunk of cornice fall and slide down the slope crossing the skin track near the base of the climb. Did those guys just cut a cornice? Their buddy is still only halfway up the skin track? We were perplexed.

The disorganized group eventually drops; make slow turns right beneath the cornice that just fell. Who are these guys? The majority of their group pauses near us, but the fellow on the uptrack still has not moved. Is your friend going to drop us? “We hope so,” they say. Did you guys cut that cornice while he was beneath you? No, they say, not us. We are only half convinced having heard one of the guys from the same group ask “What do the colors mean?” when inspecting a Caltopo map with slope angle shading.

Eventually their buddy skis down and Catherine, Sam, and Kyle begin the climb up towards Younge’s Peak. I dislike how stacked the track and elected to stay below.

**

They make it up to the ridge and ski back towards me before we all point our skies downhill and slide back to the hut on a slightly windcrusted but very scenic slope.

Looking back towards Rogers Pass.

Sam skiing dropping the slow below the Pterodactyl.

One of my few group hut photos, taken with a lens.

Day 2: Storm Day

Day dawns with zero visibility and whipping winds. As the first bathroom user of our group, it is my responsibility to dig the bathroom out. This morning, that is a significant job. I try to cut out better steps down to the bathroom although with all the wind I suspect my work will not be long lasting.

Steps carved by a modern day Michelangelo.

No one has big ski ambitions today, so we eat a leisurely breakfast then everyone pursues their own interests — Sam, Deirdra, Thomas, and I play a long game of hearts. We only stop when Thomas makes it to -50 points. The next closest play (Sam) has 0 points. I have 34. Thomas is a very modest card player. Throughout the game he points out his success has been due to random good fortune. However, by the end of 15 hands he has shot the moon twice and consistently scored lower than the rest of us.

At lunch we discover the two burner propane stoves are well suited to quesadillas.

In the afternoon Kyle and I decided to get out just to avoid cabin fever. We skin up about 800 feet above the hut. The ground has variable amounts of snow — in some spots there are 30 cm of winddirft powder in other spots the fresh snow has mostly been blown off the underlying crust. Kyle leads the way on our ski down and I am happy to have him below me for perspective.

After we get back, Mary and I also get out for a little ski. We only climb maybe 300 feet and then start skiing back to the hut. There is no visibility and at one point I get off to the steeper side of the ridge we have been skiing on and kick off a small windslab below me. It breaks maybe 30 feet wide and 20cm deep or so. A good reminder to be carful. We move back towards the crest of the ridge. Interestingly, on caltopo the side of the ridge that slid displays no color. So in theory the terrain is on average less than 27 degrees. However, due to the lower resolution of Canadian lidar data (compared to the states) I suspect that the local feature we were on was briefly steeped then 30 degrees and too small to be captured by the lidar data.

We make it back to the hut and eat a shrimp pasta dish for dinner, wash up, play a game of Avalon (a trip favorite), and go to bed. The wind is really howling tonight.

Day 3: Tree Triangle Day

It continued to snow significant quantities during the night. I again was the first one up and re-built my snow steps down to the bathroom which had largely disappeared. The visibility was a smidge better and everyone was feeling ready to go skiing. Mary and I ate a quick breakfast and then went for a walk around the hut on our skies. We just skinned along the ridge above the hut and then slid back down. The visibility above the hut was quite poor, so I thought it might be worth seeing the terrain down in the trees. However, as we slid down the ridge towards the trees a cloud moved in and we lost what little visibility we had. “I don’t like this, let’s go back”, Mary said. And so we did. We got back to the hut right as the rest of the crew was prepping for a tree lap. Mary went inside and ripped my skins and joined them.

We were a little nervous about a possible windslab on the steep part of the ridge before you end the trees more fully. We skied it in turns and didn’t set anything off.

The skiing was great. About 20-30 cm of fresh snow on top of the crust from the rain the previous week.

Deirdre and Catherine skin up for lap number two.

Sam cuts a skin track after transitioning below me.

We had two lovely laps and then I skied back to the hut to see if Mary might want to get out again.

I made it back to the hut to find Mary asleep. She was not especially stoked on the idea of getting outside, so I sat on the bed and wished I had skied one more lap while telling myself it was silly to be optimizing for vert. We started to make lunch which took my mind off my skiing choices.

After lunch Mary and I got out for a couple turns in the tree triangle. Skiing down the steeper slope Mary decided she would prefer snow shoes. We switched to snow shoes and then back to the skies and Mary made some nice turns in the trees. We then skied a slightly steeper pitch until the trees felt too tight, and then transitioned.

On the ski up, Mary was having difficulty maintaining traction on a steeper part of the skin track. I tried to assist by going behind her, but I only managed trip her up and to have a front row seat as she toppled backwards into the snow. Not so nice. We decided to try snowshoes again.

Snowshoes got us back up the steep pitch and we paused under a tree at the top to consider our life choices and collect ourselves before walking back to the hut.

As we sat there Sam and Deirdre came by. I took a nice photo of them which became one of my favorite photos of them from the trip.

Mawwidge brings us together today..

We eventually started to cool off and strolled back to the hut. At this point it was snowing in earnest and we had very little visibility. Fortuneyl, we were going uphill so it mattered less.

We made it back to the hut and I still felt the desire to get out and ski. Mary kindly suggested I go ski a lap with Sam, which I did. And then as Sam and I were climbing back to the hut I got a radio from Thomas and joined him for a lap as well. Happy days.

That night we ate Sam’s chicken curry. We had surplus rice when we cooked 900g. Sam cooked 1100 grams and had proportionally more left over rice. Unlike us however, Sam also had proportional amounts of left over curry. He had carried 2.4 kgs of chicken and six cans of coconut milk. Sam’s dinner was the only dinner that had surplus of the main course. Well done, Sam, well done. In admiration, I volunteered to bury his surplus chicken curry in the snow to keep it regeriated for consumption the next day.

After dinner, we lit the propane lanterns and played another round of Avalon. Games like Avalalon are very rewarding because the feedback loop between making mistaktes and improving is reasonably tight.

We went to bed dreaming of perfect visibility and blower powder.

Day 4: More tree triangle

The day started with my customary excavation effort of the toilet. Following that, the whole group ate another lesieurely breakfast. The visibility was sitll poor enough that no one was in a rush. However, as we ate the visibility seemed to be improving. After breakfast Mary and I got our gear on and started skinning above the hut. The sun was almost peaking through. The light was still a little flat and the contours of the terrain above the hut was visible for the first time in two days.

As we skinned up it looked like the sun might come out for a moment and I even caught a photo of our friends below us in what looks suspiciously like sunlight.

However, the moment passed and the clouds began to again occlude any blue in the sky. Rather than bet that the weather might improve, Mary and I ripped skins and skied back towards the hut with decent visibility.

Upon making it back to the flats nea the hut we decided to go up for another go. As we climbed the visibility decreased and the snow started again in earnest. We ripped skins near the same spot as before and skied slowly back down to the hut. It was a modest two ~400ft run but I was very excited that Mary had been able to ski some Canadian powder with at least passable visibility.

The rest of our crew made it back to our hut shortly after we did. We enjoyed watching them from the window make the somewhat challenging final ~10m climb after finishing their descent, short enough that it seems like one can do it without skins but long enough it is a bit arduous without traction.

With the snow falling, we decided some tree triangle laps were in order and skied two before returning for lunch.

Are you a pro??

Lunch!

Snow was falling at an impressive rate still after lunch, so a number of us went for another tree triangle lap. I then skinned back to the hut with the hope of getting out for a short lap with Mary. And so we did. The visibility cleared a bit and Thomas, Mary, and I had three very pleasant short laps above the hut before we again lost visibility.

Tombo!

Day 5: Asulkan Pass and ski out

I went outside for a pea at 6:15 and blue skis were everywhere. Not wanting the rest of the group to miss it I went back inside and annoyingly woke everyone with “Blue bird alert! Blue bird alert!” After setting the morning hut machine into slow movement, I made b-line to the bathroom and dug the toilet out one more time.

Looking up towards Asulkan Pass.

While the sky was blue, the wind was also whipping. Ideas we’d had about perfect powder unmolested by wind were rapidly disabused.

However, I was still stoked just to finally have some visibility above the tree line. Thomas, Mary, and I ate a reasonably quick breakfast and then began skiing up the ridge.

Mary is the first one out the door and walks in a circle near the hut as Thomas and I get going.

The visibility was certainly better than it had been the previous 3 days, but was still reasonably flat. Mary, aware that we still had a long ski out later in the day, made it up to our previous high point of some rocks and skied back towards the hut. Thomas and I continued a long traverse up to Asulkan Pass. The whole climb to the pass was quite low angle. At times it was hard to tell whether the slopes we traversed were also low andle. Caltopo showed everything as sub 27 degrees but wary of small terrain features Thomas and I spread out as we climbed to the pass.

Eventually we made it to the ridge and got a nice view towards Comstock Coulior. Also in theory the Bugs to Rogers traverse goes over this pass. With the wind whipping I was just as happy that my once aspirations of skiing the Bugs to Rogers traverse had stayed as aspirations.

We did not dally on the ridge. I cut a skin track back towards the base of Younge’s peak. We could see Sam’s group in the distance. They had started after us but now were above us as they headed towards the base of Younge’s Peak.

We cut a long traverse and ended up one pitch below Sam’s group as they began to drop.

We also skied up to the same point I had paused on the first day and Thomas and I ripped skins and slid back to the hut. We made it back at 9:30 with the visibility significantly worse than when we departed.

After a bit of a snack and packing my bag, Mary and I started back towards the trailhead. We assumed we would be slower then the rest of the group so got a head start. Mary did great as we skied down the tree triangle, keeping her skies on the whole time. I kept us skiers on the right side of the tree triangle which I thought might be a little more gentle then the more left lines we had been skiing. That may or may not have been true, but we were able to ski all the way down to the start of the avalanche debris. There we transitioned to boots and booted our way down the track that folks were skinning up. As we passed day tripers ascending I apologized for destroying their skin track.

As we strolled down the avalnche debris, we heard over the radio some very suspect things from the rest of the group. It sounded like they were trying to stay high above the avalanche debris. However, from our angle, slopes on both sides of the valley looked quite steep.

Better them than us!

In good order, we made it off the avalanche debris and had a very pleasant glide and double pole back towards the creek.

Mary did excellently on the steep creek bit and we soon found ourselves back on the old railroad grade. As we poled down it we paused to chat with some guys heading up to Asulkan. When Sam had booked the hut he had noted that it was booked from Friday - Sunday even though those dates were more than 180 days prior to the date when we were booking. I noisily asked — are you guys guided? (assuming that the guided groups might have an inside door). They were not. Are you guys assoicated with the ACC? They said they were not. I was prepared to leave it there but Mary explained the situation and asked them: what gives?

This more direct line of questioning was successful. Ahh we know the guy that built the booking system, the first guy said bashfully. He quickly pointed out that they were Canmore locals and still have to fight tooth and nail to book a hut. And I did not begrudge him his special privileges. If anything, I am mostly grateful that the Canadians are willing to allow us Californians to become members of the ACC and book huts at all.

The rest of the descent was uneventful and got to the parking lot before most of the rest of the group. We cleared about 15cm of snow off the cars. The rest of the group arrrived and we took one almost group photo (minus me) and then drove to Golden for lunch. Successful trip!

Notes

• Kyle printed out the slope angled shaded caltopo of the area. That was a great idea. It’s very fun to look at the local slopes on a large piece of paper.
• In retrospect, it was nice to have one buffer day at the start of the trip before skiing in.
• New skies for Mary prior to this trip might have been warranted. Hers are slightly old and heavy (2100g per ski) and the bindings are a little more fickle then modern AT bindings.
• After skiing out, we skied a day on rented nordic skies at Dawn Mountain. Truly a terrific experience. Lovely facility. There was a scavenger hunt for little kids as we arrived and a volunteer appreciation day going on. The volunteers had surplus braughtwaursts and fed us. The skiing was also lovely. 6200g for dinner food for a group of 8 was about right. We probably carried about 200g extra of rice (packed 900g) and 200g extra of cheese (packed 600g). Otherwise I ate the whole meal.
• For Mary and I excluding dinners, we carried 6,350g of food for 4.5 days (on Monday, out Friday afternoon). We basically nailed it. Carried out 400g of cheese at the end and some bars but that was basically the sweet spot. If Mary had been skiing bigger days we might have even under packed.
• Deirdre had miso soup and I was jealous.
• Ramen for midday snack is a nice way to get fluids + salt in.
• If Mary and I do a similar trip in the future, buy her down booties.