Day 3 was a rest day but we decided to check out the Ramparts since they were relatively close. We figured that we should at least give our legs a workout for the long return on Day 4.

The night before, I left an empty bucket outside which was completely full of snow by morning. Because of that, it was no surprise when we noticed that our tracks from the previous afternoon were pretty much non existent the morning after.

Here's Bob negotiating a small boulder field to see if we could find a shortcut to Chrome Lake.

We ended up traversing a slope through some dense trees only to conclude that we took the proper route the day before.

A quick glance in the guidebook upon my return confirmed that we did in fact take the proper route all along.

Upon reaching the lower valley, we were greeted with the snowmobile tracks which led the way to the Ramparts and Amethyst Lake.

I thought it'd be smooth sailing from there but I quickly realized that it wouldn't be the case when my skis started balling up with snow!

The problem with double camber skis is that the up/down motion of the grip zone tends to accumulate snow when the conditions permit - and that was the case this day since I couldn't go more than 10m without having to stop to scrape off the snow. After half a km, I decided to stash my skis and start walking up in my ski boots. Not the most comfortable footwear for hiking but it was a lot faster than the alternative option.

Here's a meadow which was supposed to give us a glimpse of the Ramparts. Unfortunately, the weather failed to cooperate as we saw nothing but whiteness up ahead.

I decided to turn back at this point since the postholing was getting worse. Bob agreed to turn around as well since the views weren't exactly promising.

The return was fairly uneventful but the snow seemed to be getting worse.

Here's a sign which is located about halfway between Chrome Lake and Outpost Lake. I'm not sure how tall it is but I'd say it's at least 150cm tall.

On Day 4, we'd pass this sign on our way out and it'd be completely buried except for maybe 5cm ontop.

Bob got to the cabin first as usual but upon my arrival, he was nowhere to be found.

I decided to walk around the hut when I found him working on some snow which accumulated on the backside of the cabin.

The windows in the cabin were all boarded up for the winter but for some reason, the kitchen window was left unboarded. The accumulation of snow was pushing against the window and it looked to be a matter of time before it broke through.

Bob decided to do something about it as he removed an incredible amount of snow so he could swing the boards shut. If I had to guess, I'd say that he removed about 4 cubic meters of heavy snow - not including the path to access that snow. I helped out a bit and I also took photos to document this just in case he got buried alive.

After this was done, Bob moved onto the wood shed to replenish our wood supplies for the day.