A slightly smaller but much more intimidating line next to the classic Owls Couloir.

Statistics

0 - 1

hrs

0

m

493

m

53

max°

Difficulty

FATMAP difficulty grade

Extreme

Description

The Owls Couloir is a Whistler steep ski classic.

It's a step up from many of the other steep lines in the area.

It has a "little brother" however, just a bit further west along the ridge.

I called it Owls Jr.

but there's a chance it's got another name.

JD Hare skied it back in the 2000s and Trevor Hunt repeated it sometime around 2012.

During a period of high pressure, Marty and I headed out to have a look and found very firm conditions but good enough to get an edge.

We climbed up the couloir proper on front points and using ice tools, then followed the ridge to a snowy summit that felt like an appropriate place to ski from.

In hindsight on looking at arial photos, we may have been able to ski from the next bump up.

Skiing down the initial section was slow with some rock protruding from the snow and knowing we were above big cliffs on either side but the sun softened the snow somewhat.

Dropping into the couloir, we were back on firm snow with very little edge penetration.

We made very careful turns down the initial face and then into the choke at the bottom.

Concentration stayed high until we were safely on the low angle glacier below!