Monday 31 December 2012

Cham Chutes and Finger Chutes, Dec 30th


Daily Vert: 750m
Total Vert So Far: 15,015m

After a successful pre-nightshift at work tour yesterday, we decided to do the same again today.  Nothing to ambitious (in terms of length), just one lap of Decker, hopefully via the Finger Chutes.  I've To get to Decker this time we went via the Cham Chutes.  For my money the most over rated lines in the Blackcomb backcountry.  Consistently rocky, no flow to speak of, and always, always rancid snow.    But this trip served to reinforce my opinion, and I'll be making an effort not to ski them again for the rest of the season.  We powered up Decker and popped over the cornice just 36 minutes after leaving the toe of the Glacier.  After a quick snack we headed over to the Finger Chutes.  I have skied this line once before, about 3 years ago, and I remembered it as being the steepest, scariest, and most exposed line I had ever skied.  Since then I have bagged quite a few other exposed descents, including Hourglass on Tremor, the North Face of Fitzsimmons, as well as Summit Chute and the North East Face of Fissile.  I was hoping that with my additional experience the Finger Chutes wouldn't seem quite such an undertaking.  I was wrong.  Despite 3 years of additional experience, the Fingers are still the steepest, scariest, and most exposed line I have skied.  I suppose Summit chute on Fissile comes close, as it is equally steep and much much longer, but none of the other lines even get a look in.  Previously I had skied the middle finger, which is more open but with more consistent exposure, and today we decided to ski the line on skiers right, which is narrower, but slightly less exposed once you are in.
Benoit went first and snowboarded down smoothly and calmly.  I went next and made far to many hop turns for my own good, essentially skiing it one turn at a time in order to prevent the accumulation of any sluff.  I doubt any onlookers would have been mightily impressed with my conservative approach, but I made it down safely and without incident. Another great day in the bag!

 Looking down the middle finger

 Clearly not my photo.... Found this on the TGR forums a couple of years ago and it really highlights the exposer.  If you know who took this photo feel free to let me know.  Who ever you are, props on a sick shot.  The tracks in this photo are down middle finger, today we skied the line on lookers left of this shot.

Finger Chutes GPS track

Finger Chutes Elevation Profile.

Chisel Couloir and 9th Hole Dec 29th

Daily Vert: 1050m
Total Vert So Far: 14,265m

The Chisel Couloir is one of Blackcomb's hidden gems.  Arguably its only remaining hidden gem.  Despite being located on the shoulder of Decker mountain, and regardless of the fact you can be standing on top of it about one hour after leaving the Blackcomb gate, this beautiful line sees surprisingly little traffic.  The mostly likely reason for this is that you can't see the line from any of the standard commuter routes in the area.  You can't see it from the Spearhead Col or from anywhere on the standard routes between Decker and Trorey.  Some people like to keep it secret, so if you want to ski it you'll have to find it yourself!  Anyway, enough geography... we skied the line today and it was quite lovely, I thoroughly recommend it.  After reaching the bottom we skinned all the way back to the top of Decker and skied the 9th hole, which also held excellent snow.  A great way for Benoit and I to spend the morning before heading to work at the Spag all night!

Total Zoo at the Blackcomb gate

Just over an hour later we find solitude and look down this steep line

The chisel from below (older photo)

Enjoying the views in Decker Meadows as the sun comes out.



Sproat Dec 28th

Daily Vert: 1500m
Total so far: 13,215m

Although not very high, Sproat is one of the most noticeable summits from Whistler village, mostly because aside from Whistler and Blackcomb is the geographically the closest.  Most of the limited reports I had heard about skiing touring on Sproat highlighted 2 main characteristics.  1) it is crawling with snowmobiles, and 2) the runs are short and flat and there is a total lack of gnar.  All of these assumptions proved to be quite wrong, and after a very enjoyable trip I will certainly be returning to Sproat again.

For the ascent we took the shorter, steeper of the two recognised routes, up the North East ridge.  The then swung around the summit to the east and approached with spectacular views of the ski resort.  We skied 2 laps on the north west flank, and spied a lot of far gnarlier terrain on the opposing face of Tonic peak.  We didn't see any sledders (although we saw lots of old tracks and did hear one at one point) and we ended the day by skiing out the creek between Sproat and Tonic, which was relatively quick and painless.



Friday 28 December 2012

Cayoosh Dec 27th

Daily vert: 1450m
Total so far: 11,715m

Cayoosh... A Duffy classic that has long eluded me.  It popped into my head as a possibility the night before, but the weather was longing slightly uncertain.  We decided to drive up there anyway, and if it was looking too cloudy plan B was to ski Chief Pascal instead.  The sky wasn't looking too bad when we pulled into the parking lot, so we decided to go for it.  It was pretty cloudy for most of the morning, but just before we reached the saddle between the East and North Glaciers we were treated to a full blue sky.  It wasn't to last however and as we attempted to skin up the steep face guarding the summit we quickly became socked it.  We decided to cut our losses about 20m below the summit ridge, and began to descend the North glacier.  Unfortunately we underestimated the number of crevasses on this route, and before long had to retrace our steps as we encountered a very large complex, the visability was poor and we had no rope.  So we climbed back to the initial saddle and enjoyed the 1000m run back down the East glacier.



Tuesday 25 December 2012

DOA, Dec 25th

Daily vert: 200m
Total so far: 10,265m

A casual afternoon stroll with Urpens to DOA before work on Xmas day.  The snow was rubbish, but DOA is always a nice line to ski, it just looks so cool!


Friday 21 December 2012

Musical Bumps Dec 21st

Daily vert: 1200m
Total so far: 10,065m

One of my favourite routes for a snowy day is taking the longer route over the musical bumps (not the shorter, flatter way you would go if rushing out to Fissile) and also taking in the slighter steeper chutes on Russet Ridge.  On this day the snow was considerably deeper than expected, although luckily it was surprisingly light, so we were still able to mince out some turns even thou the terrain isn't the steepest around.  We did however have to break trail for the entire day, and the ski pen was around 30-40cm, so travel was not the quickest.  This was especially noticeable when skinning back up to Cowboy Ridge from the bottom of Russet Ridge, when the ski pen was closer to 50cm.  The slow travel meant that we didn't get back on top of Cowboy until around 4pm, which was a little later than planned seeing as it was the shortest day of the year... and to make matters worse, to our dismay we discovered that singing pass had not been trail broken.  This was quite worrying, and our heads were filled with thoughts of a long and cold night in a snow cave as we slowly traipsed through the snow on the lower flanks of Oboe in the quickly fading light.  To our eternal glee, after about an hour we eventually found other tracks somewhere in between the start of the trail and Oboe creek.  Without headlamps (Rookie mistake) we made slow progress down the trail, but there was a bright moon and the trail become wider and wider and we got closer to the resort.  Definitely worth it for all the deep pow!

 



Monday 10 December 2012

Husume, December 9th

Daily vert: 500m
Total so far: 8,865m

Ahh... a quick morning tour to Husume... thats a good idea...  well, it was a good idea, but it turned out to be not so quick.  First of all the Showcase T-bar wasn't open, so to make sure we were making lemonade we did a little experiment- is it quicker to skin straight up the Showcase line, or to ride Horstman and then traverse over?  Turns out its about the same.  Although I then had to traverse from the Blowhole to the Blackcomb Gate with my skins on... which was very time consuming and annoying.  After that little delay we headed up to the Spearhead Col, but the weather was quickly deteriorating.  There were a few groups at the top, all of whom had more ambitious plans at the start of the day, but most groups were redirecting to Husume given the weather.  After skiing down Don't swill, which was pleasantly rock free, we noticed two blokes attempting to boot pack back up one of the other Don't Swill chutes.  The explained that they had noticed crevasses on either side of them, and thought it was likely that the crevasse carried on in front, but the light was so bad it was impossible to see it, so they decided to go back up.  Unfortunately they were having a nightmare of a time climbing back up, so we stood for a minute and considered our options.  By this time several groups had bunched up together, and one dude said that he had a rope.  We threw the rope down hill and lay it in the snow to help identify if there were any sudden changes in pitch.  There wasn't, so hoping that any snow bridges would support our weight we followed the rope down the hill.  This method worked quite well and it re-enforced the importance of having a rope in times of poor visibility, especially on a glacier.  There was now about 15 of us heading to Husume, and the two guys who had been trying to climb back up Don't Swill set the final boot pack.  The pace at which they did so compared with their speed up Don't Swill suggested that climbing back out of the Spearhead would have posed many many difficulties.  We all sat around for a bit at the top and let the guy who had the rope go first- not that it really mattered- the snow was totally wind fucked!


Saturday 8 December 2012

Vantage Ridge, Dec 8th


Daily vert: 1250
Total so far: 8365


The weather and snow conditions were looking great, so a relatively large group of Jon, Claire, Rob, Janet and myself decided to head up to the Duffy and score some pow close to the highway.  The day didn't get off to the best start- Claire overslept and was almost an hour late, and Jon forgot his transceiver and was unable to find another at such an early hour in Pemby.  Quickly forging a plan B, Jon drove my car back home, and I carried on with Claire, Rob and Janet to the Cerise Creek parking.

We headed up Vantage Ridge to the run called South Side (even thou it faces north) and were pleased to find the trail had be broken the whole way to the ridge line.  A quick compression test gave 2 results of CTN, which was very encouraging.  The girls took a break for lunch while Rob and I skied the sublime pow on South Side, then after skinning back up we carried on to Cheques in the Mail.  The top of this run was equally fantastic, although there was a little bit of bush whacking to get back to the road lower down.  The only drawback of this line compared to some of my Duffy favourites is the fairly long skate along the road to get back to the car, but the long runs of pow certainly made it worth while.




Wednesday 5 December 2012

Lesser Flute Dec 5th


Daily vert: 400
Total so far: 7115


On December 5th we rode Harmony chair and skied Harvey's, then crossed Burnt Stew and skied all the way to the bottom of Symphony.  Here we chatted for a while with a dude from Lift Maintenance who had got his sled stuck in the deep pow at the bottom of the lift, the skinned up Encore Ridge to Lesser Flute.  The weather was coming in and I had to get to work, so we skipped the planned lap on the 3 Sisters and skied back down the front to Symphony, then skinned up the exit road.  Nice walk, mellow skiing.

Tuesday 27 November 2012

7th laps. Nov 27th & 28th


Daily vert: 350 + 700
Total so far: 6715


A few days this week I boot packed up to 7th, mostly for additional cardio training and just because there wasn't really much else to ski.  Not much else to say about that really.  Later in the week I hoped to get out a bit more, but a big warm storm is rolling through, so going to be patient and hopefully get the goods once the weather settles down next week.  The forecast for the Duffy is looking primo!

Sunday 25 November 2012

Decker Trip, Nov 25th


Daily vert: 1275
Total so far: 5665


After yesterdays successful stroll around the Blackcomb Glacier, today we decided to head a little further a field and go over to Decker.  I suspect we might have been the first group of the year to make it out that far... (except for the group who were summiting Pattison ahead of us... but they came over from the lower 7th route... doesn't count).

We started off with the usual skin up the 7th road, then after keeping our skins on for the mini descent of the Horstman Glacier, enjoyed some nice turns on the Blackcomb Glacier.  We then skinned all the way to the Spearhead col, and enjoyed the nice sunny run down to Circle Lake.  After skirting around the edge of the lake (we weren't sure how frozen it was) we took the long route up Decker, right over by it's western shoulder, in order to avoid the very unfilled in crevasses on the usual glacier ascent route.  After a very enjoyable shred down Main Chute we skinned up one last time to the bottom of Disease Ridge, rather than take the lower traverse, as one of our group was a split boarder.  A beautiful sunset and very nice snow in Lakeside bowl made for a great finish to a great day.




Saturday 24 November 2012

Blackcomb Touring, Nov 24th


Daily vert: 840
Total so far: 4390


Woohoo, finally a regular sized day with some half decent turns! My original plan today was to go for a wander around Marriott Basin in the Duffy, but after an un-named accomplice stayed out too late at the GLC and bailed on the mission at 6 in the morning, I gave a swift call to local ski touring guru Lee Lau, and made alternative plans to ski on Blackcomb. The short version is that after skinning up Green line to the top of 7th Heaven, we skied one lap on the Horstman Glacier, one lap on the Showcase Glacier, half a lap on the Blackcomb Glacier, then skinned back up to the East Col (near the top of DOA) then skied out the Blackcomb Glacier. Snow conditions were completely different to yesterday. Ski pen was less than 10cm in most spots but foot pen was still around 50cm. We dug a pit at the top of the Blackcomb Glacier which gave 2 results of CTH 24 RP about 50cm down.

Heading up the road to 7th

Lee in his element

The big group heads up the Showcase Glacier

Big slots on the Blackcomb Glacier

Digging a pit.

Group stoke with one run to go.

Looking down the Blackcomb Glacier

Looking back at Husume

GPS track
Elevation profile

Thursday 22 November 2012

Red Heather, November 21st


Daily vert: 750
Total so far: 3550


Whistler Mountain has been open all week, and after a few days of lift assisted turning it was time to try and rack up some more vert. I decided that the Diamond Head/Elfin Lakes area would be a good objective, as it's fairly mellow, easy to access and I'd heard it is fills in quickly early on in the season. We left Whistler at around 8am, and after stopping to put snow chains on about half way up the Elfin Lakes road, we parked the car about 2km from the parking lot at around 9.30. As is often the way things didn't quite work out as we had planned! There was a LOT of unconsolidated snow which must have fallen over the past few days. Ski penetration on the Elfin Lakes trail was around 30cm. Once we made it to the tree line ski penetration was closer to 45cm. Foot penetration was over a meter! Needless to say travel was painfully slow and tiring! I had to be back in Whistler for work at 6pm, so at around 1.30 we decided to call it. The original objective of skiing Columnar Peak close to Elfin Lakes hut had gone out the window not long after we left the car. The secondary objective of skiing some lines of Paul Ridge was also now abandoned. We tried to make some turns on the frontside of Round Mountain about Red Heather shelter, but it was too deep and not nearly steep enough- we could hardly get moving at all! We skied back down our up track to the hut to finish off our food and then skied down the road to the car. On the way out we met at least 15 people heading up, none of whom seemed to have any idea how how lucky they were not to be breaking trail! There was a few groups of skiers with similar plans to us (but a bit more time), several out of shape snowshoers, and even a group of snowboarders boot packing! The most important thing I learnt from this trip is not to jump on this route right after a fresh snowfall. Even thou the road hadn't been plowed, by the time we got back to the car all the other vehicles had made the road far more drivable, and all the heavy trail breaking slowed us down by close to a factor of two. I'm not going to upload the GPS track or elevation profile from this trip as it is too pathetic, but it was another 700m of vert towards my lofty target!

Thursday 15 November 2012

Rethel Couloir. November 15th


Daily vert: 1700
Total so far: 2800


After last weeks semi successful trip to Cerise Creek we decided to try again... this time a little closer to home. I had heard from several noted sources (or read it on their blogs) that the Rethel Couloir can be a good objective early in the season. The thinking goes that the line holds snow all year, it's pretty high up and north facing so fills in early, plus the Wedgemont trail is actually easier earlier or later in the season when there is less snow.

At least so goes the theory. My ambitious agenda was for 3 hours to the base of the couloir, 2 hours up the couloir, 1 hour for lunch plus skiing, and 3 hours back down, for a total of 9 hours. Turns out I was a little off. It actually took us 3.5 hours to do the approach, 3.5 hours to get up (culminating in possibly the most consistently arduous 7 hours of my life) 1 hour for lunch and skiing, and 4 hours back down, making it closer to 12 hours in total. The walk back down the Wedge summer trail in the dark with frozen and slippery soil is not something I would wish upon anyone!

All in all this was another great day with around 1700m elevation gain, all of it boot packing. The only thing I would advise anyone else trying this route is don't try to cut a corner by heading straight to the bottom of the chute without going via the Wedge Hut. We attempted this on both the up and down and it wasn't worth it. It would have been much quicker to stay on the well worn summer trail, even thou it does take you a little out of your way.


Looking down the Rethel Couloir


Thursday 8 November 2012

Nov 8th. 1st Trip of the season.

Daily vert: 1100
Total so far: 1100

It has begun!  After months of preparation (well not really) today I finally managed to get some skiing orientated elevation gain under my belt.  A week of solid rain in Whistler ended with a sudden cold snap, and rumour had it that the Duffy had received in excess of 20cm.  The Anniversary Glacier in Cerise Creek seemed like a good spot for and early season mission, so at 6.30am on Thursday November 8th I picked Benoit up from his house in Brio and off we went.

There was a thin coating of snow on the summer trail right from the highway, but we stayed in our hiking shoes and made it to Keith's hut in around 2h15m.

The plan was to ski one or two laps on the glacier it's self, and after a short rest break at the cabin we headed up onto the shoulder towards Motel 66.  At around 2000m elevation, where we planned to ski onto the glacier, we noticed that the more north westerly aspects, heading back into the creek below Central Couloir etc looked to be well filled in, so we skied a short lap down there.  The fresh snow was quite deep and extremely light for these parts, but there was barely any base to speak off.

We then rejoined our skin track and headed back onto the glacier as originally planned.  This was slightly more disappointing-  The fresh snow was not quite as deep on this side, and the glacier was covered in huge chunks of old and frozen avalanche debris.  However we still managed to get a few enjoyable turns.

A slight error of judgement at this point found us trying to traverse back to the hut directly, which resulted in us cutting out a large portion of the glacier in order to slowly pick our way over barely covered moraines and bushes.  The better option would have been to ski the glacier all the way to the little lake at the bottom, and then boot pack back over the moraines to the cabin as you would do in summer.  Oh well.  We'll know for next time.

After another brief rest at the cabin we began the long slog back to the car.  We kept our boots on this time and (unsuccessfully) experimented with skiing every so often, but it ended up being better to walk.
The last 20 minutes saw us plodding along the last stretch of trail in the pitch dark, but about 2h30m after leaving the cabin we were safely back at the car, with 1090m of elevation gain down, 98,910m to go!



Route map for Nov 8th trip.  This was my first time using my Suunto Ambit GPS watch on a trip and I'm still getting the hang of it.  I think I had it set to only take a GPS co-ordinate every 60 seconds instead of every 1 second, which results in a few funny shapes and lines on the track.

Elevation profile.

Monday 30 July 2012

July 2012

For most people, June is not a month for skiing.  Once Blackcomb closed it's lifts at the end of May the majority of my friends were more than happy to hang up their skis and take out their bikes.  My obsession with skiing wasn't so easily quashed by a few weeks of sunshine thou, and I was confident that one last mission was still possible.  This time the local daddy- Wedge.  After a few weeks of waiting for a nice sunny window to align itself with my days off, we set off on a 2 day Wedge mission on the 6th of July.

 Approaching the Wedge hut around sunset.

Nick points out tomorrows objective.

After a 4am start we made good time up the Glacier.  This is the point where it all went wrong thou.  We could see that the NE Arete was already getting baked in sunshine, so considered booting straight up the NW couloir, which was the route we were planning to ski.  After a brief discussion we all agreed that climbing the arete and skiing the couloir would make a nicer circular route, and at around 2900m we were hopeful that the arete would remain frozen once we got there. 

About 5 minutes before turning around- so close to the top!  Once we crossed onto the more easterly aspect for the final push to the summit the snow turned to total schmoo.  We went from front pointing on our crampons to sinking up to our knees in just a few steps.  Being caught in a wet slide on that final face would not be pretty at all, so we cut our losses and turned around.  This was the first time I had turned around to close to a summit and I was pretty disappointed,  but my friends reminded me that in order to stay safe it is important to be comfortable with turning around, no matter how close you are to the top, and besides, the mountain will still be here next year!

So down we went.  And after a little nap and some sunbathing around the lake we enjoyed a few more summer turns before the long slog back down to the car.

Wednesday 30 May 2012

May 2012

In May we finally got some Sunny weather, and I made the effort to bosh out three local classics- The Garibaldi Neve Traverse, and the Coleman Demming route on Mt Baker and the NW face of Mt Matier.

The Neve traverse (often done as a multi day trip) took us about 12 hours car to car.  We were able to skin right from the parking lot at the Elfin Lakes end, but had to walk about 3km on dirt down the Rubble creek trail.

Sorry for the crappiness of these photos. I took them using my iPhone and I don't think it could handle how bright it was.


Vince skins past Diamond Head onto the Neve


Enjoying the looooooong flat section to the East of Garibaldi.

About to enjoy 700m of nice glacier skiing down to the lake... then the arduous slog back to the car!



The following week I popped down to Mt Baker for a summit attempt, which had been high on my list ever since seeing it from the Mt Baker ski area on a nice sunny day back in February.

On this trip I was accompanied by Holly Walker, who was using this as a last training mission before heading off on a 5 week Denali expedition.  This Trip took us about 12 hours car to car.  We were lucky enough to summit with clear skies, but we got socked in quickly and the entire descent was in a white out.  To ski from the summit back to the trail head in good conditions must be a real treat- the skiing just goes on forever!

At the trailhead, about 7am.

Approaching the top of the Coleman Glacier... still a long way to go.
Holly climbs the Roman headwall- the last section before the summit.
On the top.  Luckily the clouds held out just long enough....

I was very excited to have bagged a few classics at the start of May, but with 2012's deep snowpack I thought there might still be time for one more trip.  Mt Matier has always been high on my hit list, and conditions were still looking ok for a late season mission.

Vince crosses a bridge near the parking lot.  Was hoping for a little more snow than this!

From Motel 66 above Keith's Hut, Lee points out the best way up the Anniversary glacier.

Vince and Lee bootpack to the summit.

Success!

Very stoked indeed.  This run really did not disappoint.  Our timing was perfect and we hit the steep face in glorious spring corn.

Lee skis past the Aussie couloir and heads towards Joffre Lakes.  The snow was more than acceptable most of the way down the Matier Glacier, although it did start to get a little wet and sloppy for the last few hundred meters above the lake.  We were able to skate across the upper 2 lakes and ended up boot packing out the last kilometre or so along the summer trail.

Great day. Now which way to Pony Burger?