Published November 17, 2021 05:37PM
Watch the First Ski Descent of British Columbia's Gold Card Couloir
Christina Lustenberger, Brette Harrington, and Andrew McNab skied the 800-meter line in the Monashee Mountains on Jan. 23, 2021.
The Gold Card Couloir is a rugged serac between Mount Burnham and Mount Grady of British Columbia, Canada. It sat largely untouched in the Monashee Mountains since it was first climbed in 1984 by Cameron Cairns and Mike O’Reilly. Then Christina Lustenberger, Brette Harrington, and Andrew McNab came along. On Jan 23, 2021, while the Canadian border remained locked down during the pandemic, the trio of professional skiers and mountaineers made the first ski descent of the extremely technical route.
After Lustenberger and Harrington’s first attempt was thwarted, they returned two days later with McNab to top out on the climb and make the 55-degree ski down. The 800-meter line has been graded M4+ C0, WI4, which means it’s 1,426 times easier to watch this short film of the ascent than to ski it.
