ACC Gazette Section Stories: Yukon
Into the White: Living in the clouds
By Megan Cramb for the 2025 ACC Gazette
On a beautiful, sunny day in May, at the reasonable hour of 6:00 am, our group of six members from the Yukon Section set off from Whitehorse with all our gear and food for a 10-day ski mountaineering trip in Kluane National Park. We were a little tired from packing and prepping, but we were ready and excited for the adventure ahead.
We were heading for the Eclipse Glacier, a spot nestled between Donjek Mountain (3,560 m) and Mt. Badham (3,670 m), 250 kilometres west of Whitehorse. The exquisite greatness of Mount Logan dominated the view from our basecamp at 3,000 metres.
The name for the whole of the park came from the name given to Kluane Lake by the Southern Tutchone First Nation, “Łù’àn Män” meaning “big fish lake”. Not a lot of big fish up high on the glaciers, but there you have it. The Southern Tutchone refer to the area of the park as Ä́’sía Keyi: Grandfather’s Land, meaning “the bears” in this case: the land belongs to the bears.
What was it like to fly into a basecamp at 3,000 metres, in the middle of a vast and seemingly infinite icefield, more than 100 km away from the nearest humans, you ask? Well, it was incredible. We had perfect weather and excellent visibility on the flight in. If you’ve never been up there before, it might be hard to imagine it: vast glaciers that stretch on for what seems like forever. Steep north faces cracked up and deformed beyond belief. Crevasses galore, big and small, sometimes in surprising locations – a reminder of caution for our team.
Glacial recession has been on our minds and has been a theme of discussions during the UN Year of Glaciers’ Preservation, but nothing brings home how important they are like living on one for 10 days. Glaciers are natural freshwater reservoirs; they regulate the flow of water seasonally and as they recede, or disappear entirely, there is a host of downstream ecological concerns. From a purely recreational standpoint, the more a glacier recedes, and the crevasses change, the more difficult navigation can become.
And sometimes it’s the opposite. If you’re more familiar with travelling in Canada’s southern mountains you might be surprised to find, as I was, that there is still crevasse danger on the ridges in these mountains. While walking on ridges, we needed to continue to be conscious of crevasse-fall hazards; something that is much less of a concern in ranges where the glaciers reaching to ridgetops is far less common.
Our first couple of days were spent setting up and fortifying our camp against the weather, and practising (and teaching) glacier skills. We took our skis for a walk to a nearby low angle slope where we dug a snow pit to learn about the snowpack. As we were the first people in this area of the park since last summer, there wasn’t much information to go on. Lo and behold, we found a persistent weak layer (PWL), which is very unusual to the region! (See MIN report at avalanche.ca for more information)
The next few days were spent travelling to other slopes, gaining confidence in the snowpack, and skiing some really neat lines. Some days we had clouds rolling in on us midday, forcing us to ski & walk home in a whiteout. Another day was full whiteout, where we stayed “home” and practised navigation skills in our communal basecamp tent, played ukelele and harmonica, and did some sketching. On better weather days we crossed bergschrunds (roped up), bootpacked up steep slopes (with crampons on), and walked along ridges (roped up and with crampons on), looking down to immense views on the other side.
The food was delicious! The beauty of having a basecamp style setup is that we could bring fresh(ly frozen) food! Being on a glacier is like living in a walk-in freezer, things just had to be in a convenient shape for fitting into pots. Overall, it was an incredible trip; the Kluane Icefields did not disappoint, and the Yukon Section will sure be going back again soon!
Regional ACC Sections are the Alpine Club of Canada’s strength. Membership in an ACC Section enables members to participate in numerous summer and winter mountaineering, rock climbing, and skiing activities, coordinated by experienced amateur leaders in their local area. The majority of activities offered by sections are either free or are offered on a break-even basis to their members. Through ACC Section trips you’ll learn all the basics you need to travel safely in the mountains, while meeting new friends to enjoy your experiences with.
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