Hero's Knob

Summary

Situated along the Smith-Dorrien road, Hero's Knob is a short but very popular (and busy) route known for its 1,600-foot descent dubbed the 'Sweet Sixteen.' The loop begins with crossing some potentially dicey snow bridges (depending on the season) and significant exposure to avalanche terrain; full burials have occurred here in the past. The final approach to the saddle includes a scenic ridgewalk with stunning views of the surrounding cols. Because the area is heavily exposed to strong southerly winds, you can often expect the snowpack to be decently crusty. On the way out, there's usually a tight off-camber section right beside an open creek; while it splitskis okay, you'll see plenty of boot prints from folks who chose to walk it. To finish up, a quick skin along the road gets you right back to the car.

Route Access

Trailhead

From highway 40, hang a right onto the Smith-Dorrien road and continue driving for another 13.5km until you reach an open meadow with Hero's Knob in the background. Park on the side of the road here, or continue north another 400m and park by the Sawmill trailhead. A Kananaskis pass is required.

Approach

Head south through the meadow toward the creek and scope out the easiest crossing; there's usually a handy downed tree or snow bridge you can use. (if you're hitting this loop in November, prepare for wet feet). Once across, hang a left and stick to the bank until an old logging road appears. Take this road past a slide path and into the trees, eventually popping out at a second meadow at the base of another large slide path. From there, aim for the triangle of trees at the base of the cliff band and start kick-turning your way up. Traverse beneath the cliffs, following the bench until you can gain the treed ridge on your right. Skin along the ridge to the saddle, transition, and get ready to drop in. For the second half of the run, you can either cruise down the main low-angle face or choose a line past the trees on skiier's right.

It's got to be sweet 16s, not F-16s 🎶

I've always adored Stranger Than Fiction (2006 - 5★); it remains one of my favourite movies of all time. Beyond enjoying the dulcet tones of Emma Thompson, the film left me wanting more agency over my own life, especially as I wrapped up a tumultuous decade in my twenties. Little did I know my spur-of-the-moment decision at the climbing gym to take my AST1 would be the catalyst for falling in love with splitboarding, embarking on incredible adventures, and meeting Margaret and her eventual partner, Mat. After joining us for some home made pork belly bao, Basia joked to Ben that Mat was basically a white, finance version of me; a fellow mountain biking, climbing, splitboarder who also loves cooking and animated movies. Ben just laughed and said "Woof, that's a lot to unpack".

Mat and I were originally planning to hit the bike trails once the mud cleared, but a late spring storm delivered a perfect winter reset. It gave us chance for us to trauma-bond on the uptrack, fulfill his 15-year dream of skiing a big mountain, and deliver one of my top five backcountry days ever.

After two drought seasons plagued by a terrible, sketchy snowpack even below treeline, we were rewarded with a historic snowfall in the Bow Valley; though we still had a warm, dry spell long enough to ride hero dirt on Moose Mountain in February. Kananaskis can be fickle. It doesn't hold as much snow as the Banff areas, and gets battered by Chinooks, leaving behind tricky wind slabs and crusts. A couple ACMGs I've spoken with say to avoid the area altogether. Still, there are always a couple of days a season where the stars align and it goes off. When we rolled up to blue skies and a bottomless layer of surface powder, we thanked Margaret for the beautiful day and got ready.

The Step On system is admittedly pretty sleek. The highbacks fold down flat for transport, and with a satisfying click, Mat was locked into his skis without even needing to bend over. Built on Spark’s Tesla system, they carry over all the proven benefits of that design. According to Mat, the step-on boots have more lateral stiffness in order to work with the bindings. A nice bonus when dealing with awful off-camber traverses and being able to pizza more effectively when needed. The only downside is that the boots lack an 'active' walk mode, unlike the K2 Waive or Nitro Vertical.

The snow bridge from the week prior had melted out into just two wobbly logs. Playing it safe, we opted to huck our skis to the other side. Note to self: always throw them binding-side down. My first ski landed on its skin and immediately tried to slide away.

A historic snowfall also means historic slides. A few weeks prior, heavy storms followed by a rapid warming cycle brought "black brick" conditions throughout the Bow Valley, leading to reports of potentially the largest avalanche cycle in twenty years. The Icefields Parkway saw a 12-meter deep slide on the road, the approach to Shadow Lake was buried, and the valley surrounding the Murray Moraines at the bottom of Sweet Sixteen held up to 20 meters of debris in some spots.

Popping out into the clearing with the tree triangle in sight, we navigated around fridge-sized chunks of debris that had run the full length of the path and even pushed up into the trees on the opposite side. It was a good reminder of the exposure in this area.

Despite the obvious hazards, there are a couple of lines down the slide paths from the top that would likely be amazing on a stable day. Over to looker's right, there's also a cliff band usually draped in ice that features a rappel anchor set up for the exit off of Spiderman.

The usual uptrack kick-turns through the trees to the top of the tree triangle before traversing right under the cliff to reduce exposure.

Our original plan for today included bagging Black Prince Col, but as we approached the bench, we ultimately decided against it. The intense spring sun was already punching through the surface, even triggering a couple of sluffs off the cliffs behind us. Looking toward the col, there was enough recent post-storm activity to convince us to save it for another year. It would be one thing to ski it in a few minutes versus breaking trail up the guts of bowl. We took our time making the call, assessing exactly how much of the heebie-jeebies is too much of the heebie-jeebies while waiting for a trio at the top to drop in. In the end, both of our internal Margarets were saying the same thing: "What's the rush?". We agreed doing the full traverse starting from the opposite site would be a nice objective for another year.

It was a nice treat to see Purple Col and Black Prince Col in the sunlight for a change. This was my first time in the area this late in the spring and they're both in the shade earlier in the season. The same goes for the descent down Sweet Sixteen. The original forecast had called for afternoon clouds, but since it stayed sunny, we kept a close eye out for any signs of solar effect, especially off the steeper west-facing aspects.

Coming from Ontario, Mat is still finding his touring legs on a splitboard. I remember that learning curve all too well; the stress of trying not to hold up the skiers in the group, and the frustration of slipping out on the skin track while they just glide up. Having been through the exact same experience when Margaret also first mentored me, it felt good to pay it forward. Mat said just getting out together was super helpful. Watching my kick-turn posture, seeing when I chose to use my risers (or not), and watching my transition routine gave him plenty of mental notes on how to tweak his own setup.

From the bench, gain the ridge to the right and skin through the trees toward the saddle. Do not ascend the open bowl. If it’s been baking in the sun, the ridge can get icy. I've seen folks bust out crampons here.

When it came to transitions, Mat’s favourite takeaway was a trick I learned from Taylor, a lodge member up at Icefall: roll your skins, don't fold them glue-to-glue. My original skins had a safety strip, so pulling them apart took some muscle but was manageable. When I upgraded to a pair of strip-free Montanas, they were amazing on the uptrack but occasionally required a two-person tug-of-war with Ben to separate. Taylor had the same skins and taught me to roll them instead. Not only does it speed things up, but it also stops your skins from turning into kites during windy transitions.

Then there's the classic splitboarder dilemma of what to do with your poles. Pack 'em? Hold 'em? Stash them down your back like a Ninja Turtle? It only took a few tours that involved butt-scooching through deep powder for me to decide to just hold onto mine (also useful to more easily get back up after tumbling in deep powder by forming an X). Like Mat, I started out with Z-poles, but the buttons constantly froze, and they packed down too short to strap neatly to my backpack without a janky setup. It's little splitboard-specific nuances like this that Mat hadn't been exposed to while touring mostly with skiers.

Thanks to the fresh storm and a bit of wind transport, Sweet Sixteen got a full reset. The debris and crusty solar layers from earlier in the week were completely erased, replaced by bottomless dry powder. Thanks to reports that the snow bridge had collapsed, the usual traffic was completely absent, leaving us with untouched, blower fall lines all the way down the valley. Mat complimented the fluidity of my turns as I caught up to him to debate our next move: take the longer, lower-angle pitch toward the valley bottom on the left, or sacrifice some precious elevation to cut far right into the trees for a slightly steeper pitch. We opted to farm some mellow turns through the slower, solar-affected powder before finally stopping for some much-needed lunch and water.

Conditions finally aligned to tackle a line I'd had my eye on for a while and bag both of our first couloirs. Despite us bonding over shared stories of redlining on the uptrack behind Margaret, and agreeing that "slow is smooth, smooth is fast," I completely underestimated the caloric demands of a second lap. My watch later logged a 4,200-calorie day, whereas the standard Hero's Knob loop usually sits around 2,300.

Taking the lead, I pushed up an old skin track as far as we could before transitioning to booting. From there, I wallowed through hip-deep powder, struggling to kick a decent staircase for Mat to follow. My new gloves kept the snow out, but my hands quickly sweat out from the effort and then froze in the cold, sun-sheltered chute. By the time we reached the top, I was in a full-blown bonk, my stomach in knots as I frantically panic-ate gummies while Mat caught up.

Just as we finished transitioning, Mat’s Step-On bindings refused to fully click in. He couldn't tell if the front clips were actually biting, and watching him violently stomp his board to force it definitely had me terrified he was about to tomahawk down the line.

Peering down from the top, we noticed tracks dropping into an adjacent chute to skier's right. However, it had clearly seen more sun, and since I didn't have a good sense of what the exit looked like, we played it safe and rode the line we’d just wallowed up. I felt right at home on the descent; the pitch rode very similarly to the Alphabet Gullies at Lake Louise. After watching so many videos of Krister Kopala bagging couloirs around the world, the little kid in me was giddy just playing make-believe in my head. The whole experience ended up being even more thrilling than I anticipated, and definitely makes me look forward to trying another one. I wonder if bootpacking plates would be overkill.

As you approach the valley bottom, carry as much speed as possible and snake through the trees as far as you can before transitioning back to skins. Pick your way through the undulating trees until you merge with the creek. Take it slow here and prepare for some awful off-camber split-skiing with the potential of falling into the water if you mess up. Cross the creek over the usual snow bridge (or whatever path of least resistance is available) where the terrain flattens out, then climb out to one final creek crossing before popping into an open meadow.

All in all, it was an epic bluebird day. We managed to give Mat the full mountain experience without any injuries this time around (a big improvement from last week, when he sliced his thumb on his board and we used my headband as a makeshift bandage to stop the bleeding). Experiencing those blower conditions firsthand has us totally fired up to come back and complete the full traverse. The untouched blower powder definitely left us excited to come back and tackle the full traverse another time. We spent the drive home brainstorming how to pack way more calories and queuing up some mountain biking objectives for when the trails finally thaw out.