Wednesday 30 January 2013

Spearhooker

Daily Vert: 800m
Total Vert so far: 26,765m

Another half day tour with Steve before work.  Last week we went to Decker so the plan this week was to check out the Phalanx area.  I mostly prefer avoiding the Stairmaster and taking the longer route to Phalanx by skiing the whole way down the Spearhead and then skinning up and around.  This also gives easy access to the hidden bowls in between the Phalanx and Spearhead Glaciers, which may or may not be called Spearhooker, or possibly Secret Bowl....  Perhaps if there is a guide from Whistler heli reading this they can help me out on that one.

Anyway... the snow on the Spearhead was a little wind effected but not too bad.  The 2nd run was similar at first but once we got to around tree line the snow was much much better.  The thing that really makes or breaks this route is the snow quality on the Poop Chutes, but fortunately for us today it was pretty good.

The main drawback of this route is that all the skinning is at the end- and it is a long and flat boring skin, especially if you finish you runs as far to the east as we did.  Next time I go to this area I will stick to the main route down Phalanx, which cuts about 30 mins of flat skinning off the return time.
Steve making turns on the Spearhead

 Steve looks back at our (flat) tracks on the lower section of the Spearhead


 Looking back up at the far skiers left variation of the Warrior Couloirs

 Mt James Turner in the distance

Looking back at Spearhooker/Secret Bowl/Phalhead/Spearlanx.... what ever its called... 

Standard Husume shot from the top of the Poop Chutes.

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