Author: Callum Cathro
General area: McGregor West FSR
Trip start date: 2021-01-09
McGregor west trip report
We accessed this line with snowmobiles from the Torpy riding area parking lot. From there we sledded across the Torpy river to the McGregor west FSR. At the first junction after the bridge we took the road that went to the west and snowmobiled another few km before stopping and parking.
We began to skin up from the road and headed up a drainage trending west towards the ridge above. The untrack was very heinous to put in at the bottom especially as the slope was very steep. There was a pretty massive cliff band that we noticed stretch across most of the hillside that we had to navigate around. Once we hit the top of the ridge we toured across to the top of a ridge we had found on google earth and seemed like the best option for protected tree skiing and little overhead hazard. The skiing down was epic! Great snow, open trees and consistent steepness all the way down. We had previously shuttled a sled to the cut block we ended in so it was a pretty quick ride back and out.
To any future people planning on skiing this, it would be worthwhile to bring a good handsaw with you as there were a considerable number of trees down over the road on the way in. It’s also worth noting that most of the main avalanche paths along that ridge cliff out at the bottom so make sure you know what your committing yourself to before you drop in and get stuck above a hefty send.
Good luck out there and always remember, you can’t get hurt in the air.