In mid-February Alex and I went on a dream ski trip with a great group of friends. We embarked on the famous Canadian Powder Highway, driving some 1,500 miles through beautiful British Columbia and skiing at some of the best resorts the province and the country have to offer. The route also took us straight through Rogers Pass, a backcountry ski mecca in its own right. We had three days booked in the Revelstoke/Rogers Pass area and hoped that one of the days would allow for a bigger objective in the Rogers Pass backcountry. We got lucky and on our final day in the area the forecast was calling for clear skies, calm conditions, and a mostly favorable avalanche forecast. We were going on a tour!

Alex and I had planned for our summer/fall hiking season to end with our Ice Lakes backpacking trip the first weekend of October. We thought it would be the perfect way to wrap up the season with a larch-yellow bow. Then we saw the forecast for the second weekend of October and knew we had to squeeze in just one more trip. The forecast was downright summer-like with clear skies and highs in the 60s. Alex needed to leave for a work trip on Sunday so we couldn’t go on another backpacking trip, but we could get out on a day hike or trail run on Saturday.

Every fall, Washingtonians flood to the mountains for two to three weeks each October to embark on an annual “larch march”. During this brief window of time, the needles of larch trees in the high alpine turn from green to a vibrant shade of yellow before dropping entirely for the winter. They are among a few species of conifers that drop their needles annually and they do it in such a vivid display of color that people from all over come to see the spectacle. It’s tough to nail the timing of the larch trees turning. It’s a narrow window and can shift depending on seasonal weather patterns, but when you are able to get the timing right the scenes are jaw-dropping. I try to go on a larch march once a year, but I don’t think I’ve ever got the timing quite right. I would either be too early and the trees would still be slightly green, or I’d go too late and entire stands of larches would be brown or naked. Those hikes were still undoubtedly beautiful, but I felt as if I wasn’t getting that experience that so many other larch-lovers get. Until this year.