Vance, Ivan, Margo and Derry enjoy the sunny weather and explore the valley above Fryatt Hut.

By Steve B

Vance, Margo, Derry, Ivan and I loaded heavy packs and pulks at 9:00 am Friday morning and headed across the frozen Athabasca river and quickly joined up with the Fryatt Valley Trail. The lower section of trail is fairly flat and meanders through the woods offering the occasional glimpse of the Endless Chain Ridge to the east and Mount Christie to the south. Another group had been in the previos week and left a nice track and we had to do minimal trail breaking.

It wasn’t long before we had our first challenge of the day when one of Margo’s binding cables broke and we had to dig into her repair kit for a spare. With a bit of cursing and head scratching it was fixed in 20 minutes and everyone was back on the trail looking for sunshine.

We quickly passed through Lower Fryatt campground and crossed Fryatt Creek where the trail steepened and the packs got heavier with gravity working against us. At the first sunny spot on the trail we stopped for a quick bite of lunch and then pushed on up the shady valley through the trees.

Crossing back over Fryatt Creek on a narrow snow covered bridge with long skis and a big pack added a few moments of excitement but brought us back out into the warm sun and offered us our first glimpse of the much anticipated headwall that lay between us and our destination for the night, Fryatt Hut. Still several kilometers away the headwall did not look too imposing but the mountains can be so deceptive.

Soon after we entered the wide open valley Margo’s other binding cable broke but at least this time she chose a sunny spot and it was quickly fixed by our experienced maintenance crew. While repairs were being made Ivan and I headed for Fryatt Lake and the headwall with slight breeze coming down the valley and storm clouds brewing to the west.

from It seemed like we would never reach the headwall as the valley, the lake and the trail through the forest, all seemed longer than expected but we eventually arrived at the base of the headwall at 5:00 pm, eight hours after leaving the trailhead.

On some sections of the headwall there is a well travelled path but for many portions it is just a free-for-all of braided indents in the snow from previous travelers making it difficult to find solid footing and would often leave you wallowing up to your waist in deep snow with a heavy pack on.

We kept our skis and skins on, Margo used wax, to attempt the lower section of the headwall and made pretty fast progress up the first third but it required a lot of very short switchbacks and much side stepping. Eventually the headwall became too steep and the trail too narrow for skins and skis so we lashed them to our packs and began to climb in just our boots as the sun began to set for the night.

Knowing that our hut was so close we continued to climb, broke through the crust, cursed and climbed some more as the minute details of the trail faded along with the light.  Ivan and I trailed at the rear as the others raced to warm up the hut. When the headwall seemed to level out we donned our skis to avoid any more post holing took about 20 strides and saw the inviting lights of the hut 30 meters through the trees and smiling faces there to great us.

It was now just after 7:00 pm, we quickly got the hut warmed up and started melting snow. While we rehydrated ourselves Vance rehydrated his delicious bison pot roast which was very filling after a long day and a hard climb.

Saturday saw us off to a leisurely start as we headed further up the Fryatt Valley above the headwall. The sun was shining, -10º celsius, there was very little wind but our legs were tired from the previous days climb.  We headed up towards the col and found a sunny perch on the rocks to enjoy our lunch and the stunning views. The wind picked up a bit so we headed back to the hut looking for some turns along the way.

We hit the trail for home by 9:00 am and quickly walked, skied and slid our way our way down the headwall to the valley floor. Our pace out slowed at times as we waited for the sun to warm up our trail out. There seemed to be much less downhill going out than uphill going in but Vance had lots of fun racing against his pulk on some of the steeper sections. We arrived back at the trailhead around 3:00 pm and enjoyed the blue sky mountain drive home.