Sproul removes the tape from his webcam after agreeing to a chat over the interweb in these socially challenging times.
Through tape residue I make out a blurry figure sitting in a camper with black cats jumping around.
“I was right, all the adults were wrong,” Sproul laughed. “Being a ski bum, that’s a good thing, but we all got to survive you know,” he said.
Sproul stumbled upon Revelstoke on a pilgrimage from Colorado, seeking more of that fluffy stuff. After spending a day in Whistler, the powder hungry friends realized they weren’t looking for another resort look-alike. Ironically they headed towards Banff instead. Too tired and hungover to drive on, they pulled over for a catnap in Revelstoke, a town they’d never heard about before.
When Douglas unzipped the tent the next morning he was greeted by blue skies and snow capped mountains, even though it was mid June. “I couldn’t believe it. That was literally it,” Sproul said.
Print is not dead
“I am a mad scientist, you know over the top. I used to note my heart rate, what I ate that day, what the weather was, where we went, vertical feet, the whole thing. I had posters covering my walls with that stuff,” Sproul said.
Getting older, Sproul shifted his focus to the five senses, instead of other people’s information. After studying to become a mountain guide and reading everything he came over, he realized there were gaps in our generation’s understanding of the mountains.
Sproul tells a story of mentoring a young aspiring guide who almost fell into an obvious crevasse, eyes locked on the GPS. “This is going on with phones a hundredfold right now. These books are a part of my answer to that. It’s just me here after 20 some years of keeping track of this stuff and realizing I should share this beta,” Sproul said.
He admits that apps are amazing tools, but that they have limitations when it comes to navigation. “I can navigate with a map and compass in the dark, by myself for kilometres on end. I have never been lost, ” Sproul said.
“Print is not dead,” he said, comparing maps to small phone screens “dummies” blindly follow into dangerous situations.
The game changer
After six years, thousands of hours of field and office work, and several dreadful interactions with strangers in parking lots asking for feedback, the third edition of Sproul’s ‘Rogers Pass Uptracks, Bootpacks & Bushwhacks’ is finally here.
The one-man show of an art piece has 173 new routes and is divided into two smaller books (Rogers Pass South and Rogers Pass North) for an easier load to carry around for those Dynafit gram hunters.
But wait, there’s more. After years of cropping and shrinking landscape photos to fit into portrait layouts, Sproul had a eureka moment that could change the guide book industry forever.
“It’s like the square and the circle thing. I don’t know why it took me this long to figure it out,” he said. Inspired by landscape photography books, Sproul realized that even though it was more expensive and hard work, his next guidebook had to change its format to landscape to capture those crucial details.
Connected by a high quality spiral binder, the book can easily be laid down and passed around, and chucked into your backpack for easy page reference.
The book is a part of a bigger plan, with smooth cross-referencing to last year’s Rogers Pass ski route map, making navigating these vast mountains just a tad easier.
Sproul is proud to say that the waterproof and sturdy book is 100% made and printed in Canada. “The whole made in China thing pisses me off, all our stuff is junk now that we have to buy once a year. I don’t cut corners at all. I get the most expensive everything because that’s the only shit that’s good. If you want quality you gotta pay for it,” Sproul said.
“I like to keep my ego in check, but it’s frickin’ incredible. I am super stoked on it,“ Sproul said.
Close call kickstarted push
Sproul had a near-death experience in the bush building his cabin this summer.
“I don’t ignore those kinds of things. Right then I packed my stuff, drove back to town, and I have been working ever since. I am way over 150 days in now, with only a day and a half off, because I collapsed on the floor for two hours. I have this drive. It has always been there and I like it,” he said.
The mountain man has gone a summer without climbing and so far a winter without skiing, but he says it’s all worth it for the inspiration he gets back from people.
“I am getting ready for a big break here. It’s a part of this push to get back to my soul because a fair bit of that has been stripped, it really has,” he said.
The worst possible timing for a fundraiser, so why not?
The author sweated out the timing of the guidebook’s fundraiser for a long time seeing how the pandemic was emptying people’s pockets. “But I concluded this is exactly what the ski community needs right now,” Sproul said.
It’s common knowledge that you are not supposed to do a Kickstarter in December because of Christmas, the stats are out there, he said. “I am crazy man, I thought that’s exactly why it’s gonna work,” he said.
“It’s just another big mountain to climb,” Sproul said.
Support Sproul’s Kickstarter and get the latest Rogers Pass guidebook and map here. The Kickstarter runs until Jan. 15.
*Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated Sproul was a mountain guide.
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