Thursday 25 April 2013

Yet another one day spearhead


Daily Vert: 1900m
Total Vert so far: 65,000m

Nick hasn't been touring very much this season since he has been training for his CSIA level 4, but he said he's always been keen for a one day Spearhead so I decided to show him the way.  He was a little out of touring shape, but the time we got to Pattison I was worried we weren't going to make it... but to his credit he soldiered on and we finished in a respectable time of 8 and a half hours, and that included taking the long run down the Overlord glacier and then skinning back past the Russet Lake hut.  Well done bro!


Monday 22 April 2013

Mt Pelion, Tantalus Range


Daily Vert: 2350m
Total Vert so far: 63,100m

I've been itching to get up into the Tantalus for quite a while now, and as I am a poor ski bum I can't afford to get the heli in like most people do.  That only leaves one option- walk.  I knew this was going to be a huge mission, and we toyed with the idea of making it a 2 day event, but Steve was only available for one day, so we opted to go light and try and bosh it out in one day.

We left Whistler a shade after 4.30am, and were on the trail outside Squamish at pretty much spot on 6am.  Obviously there was no sign of any snow at first and although walking is usually fairly quick, the trail is super steep and not that well maintained, so we didn't really make a blistering pace to the snow line.  We weren't too bothered thou as we knew we had plenty of time.

We reached the snowline in about 2 hours, then walked on the snow for another half an hour or so before switching to skis.  We followed the marked summer trail the whole way.

After 4 hours of walking and skinning we eventually made it to the bottom of the glacier.  Only 1200m of climbing to go!

The terrain is huge, and there are plenty of skiable lines all over the place.  I doubt the north face of Mt Ossa (seen here) has been skied very often.  

Steve checks out the spines that Kye Petterson skis in All I Can.  At this stage we were making really good pace as the snow was firm but grippy and the route finding was easy.

North and East Face of Mt Ossa

As we got higher up the ridge the snow became pretty wind hammered and skinning was tough on the steeper sections, so we switched over to crampons.  To our dismay the wind crust was quite thin, and although it was impossible to get an edge with skis, we were punching though easily while boot packing.  Ski crampons would have been ideal but we didn't have any with us.

We still made ok pace while boot packing, but it was a lot more tiring.  After a few steeper sections we switched back to skins for the mellower final section.  After 8 hours and 2350m of climbing we decided to turn around when reaching the summit ridge just below the true summit.

Possibly the most aesthetic ski line ever. It looks way gnarlier in real life than in the movie.

My first time seeing the amazing views of the Tantalus range.

Mt Tantalus

Tantalus and the Rumbling Glacier

Some Gnarly peak

Steve skiing down the Glacier.  The glacier run down was pretty nice, about 1200m and some good varied pitches with a nice fall line.  The snow was pretty wind fucked thou.

Once back at tree line we skied down over all the pine needles as far as we could then endured the long slog back down the trail.  All told it was three and a half hours from when we finished skiing the glacier till when we got back to the car, including rest stops and transitions.  The total time for the day was twelve and a half hours, which didn't seem too too bad as I had mentally prepared myself for 14.  It was a lot of work, but overall I think I would say I preferred this trip to the other trips of similar effort, such as Wedge, Baker and Garibaldi.  There is definitely enough terrain to make it a worthy overnight destination, but walking down that trail with an overnight pack would be an utter nightmare!  Anyway, the Tantalus... it was awesome, get yourself out there somehow!



Monday 15 April 2013

6 hour Spearhead (ish)


Daily Vert: 1900m
Total Vert so far: 60,750m

Seeing as there has been a weekend since the last time it snow, I figured that there would be plenty of skin tracks all the way around the Spearhead, so today might be good day to try and set a good PB.
What I didn't count on was the strong winds last night blowing all the snow around and covering up every tiny trace of old skin track.

About an hour and a half in, I felt the trail breaking was really slowing us down, so I suggested we ski the Curtain Glacier instead, and come back in a week or so when the snow is faster.  But Vince has skied the Curtain before and wasn't that bothered about doing it again, and he was still confident that despite the trail breaking we could still crack 6 hours.

Here are some of our times at notable points along the route:
Decker/Trorey: 56 mins
Pattison south shoulder: 1 hour 24 mins
Tremor shoulder: 2 hours 9 mins
McBeth Glacier: 2 hours 57 mins

It appeared that an overnight group had been camping on the Naden Glacier just behind McBeth, so luckily we had their skin tracks to follow up the big climbs over Iago and to Benvolio.

Boot pack Ridge: 3 hours 2 mins
Top of Iago: 3 hours 34 mins
Benvolio col: 4 hours 17

At this point I was fairly hopeful that I might finish in a clean 6 hours.  Unfortunately I overlooked a few issues.  Firstly, the overnight group skied down Overlord instead of across it, so we had to break trail again.  Second, I'd forgotten how long the flat skin across overlord is, and third, in my exhausted state my transitions had totally gone to pot.  By the time we got to Whirlwind I let Vince go ahead so that he could finish as soon as he could, and I skied Whirlwind and Cowboy solo, for a final time of 6 hours and 18 minutes, which all in all I am pretty happy with, especially considering the conditions.

There are still a few areas where we could have saved time-
Most importantly next time choose a day when you don't have to break trail.....  
I feel like I lost some time between Decker and Trorey on that crappy ridge line.  Don't be afraid to stay further right- well away from the ridge, there are way fewer rocks that way.  Other than that our route was pretty good, I just need to be more on the ball with the quick transitions even when tired.

Trying to really push yourself all day definitely feels a lot different from just attempting to maintain a solid pace, but I'm sure in time I'll get better at maintaining that speed, and to do the full circuit in that time really opens your eyes as to what can be achieved in a single day.

The Curtain Glacier looking very cool

3 hours in and we finally find an old skin track.  Vince puts the hammer down.

Transition before the last proper climb out of Overlord and onto Whirlwind

Elevation Profile

Joffre Shoulder

Daily Vert: 1600m
Total Vert so far: 58,850m

Went on a trip with Lee Lau, his wife Sharon and professional mountain bike photograher Margus Riga to Joffre Shoulder, and what Lee calls the NPE couloir.  Pretty good considering most people are moaning that the season has fizzled out!

 Lee and our first view of Joffre
A better view of Joffre moments later

Super fun terrain in the lower basins.

Up we go

The scenery was epic.

Me and the Stoncrop Glacier/Mt Slalok

The same view without me puntering it up

Dope ice on the Matier Glacier

Lee dominates the final bootpack

Dropping into the NPE couloir

And they say pow season is over.  Pfft.



Heading up for lap 2

Our tracks on 'The Berlin Wall', the lower basin section.




Monday 8 April 2013

Shudder Glacier

Daily Vert: 2200m
Total Vert so far: 57,250m

The original plan today had been to go and have a crack at the Aussie Couloir on Joffre, but with 20cm of fresh wet snow over the weekend and sky rocketing temperatures that idea seemed a little too at risk from wet slides.  The back up plan was doing the Curtain Glacier variation of a one day Spearhead, so we headed up the lifts early and waited for the T-bars to open.  We got off to a good start, but having to break trail through 20cm of new snow was certainly slowing us down compared to last week.  

As we were heading up over Pattison there was a lot of whuphing and settling in the snowpack, which made us a little nervous, and we took the longer route around Pattison in order to avoid the steeper section on its north west shoulder, and continued to feel a few settlements as we crossed the Tremor Glacier.  The questionable stability and increasing cloud made me choose to abandon the Curtain Glacier and ski the slightly more mellow Shudder Glacier instead, which John Baldwin describes in his book as 'a superb mountaineering adventure'.  We'd been sharing the skin track with a nice couple who going to attempt to ski Hour Glass on Tremor, and then rap back around and carry on to the Curtain.  As we began our descent down Shudder the clouds seemed to be thickening quite quickly, so if you guys are reading this I'd be eager to hear how you got on.

Anyway, onto the pictures.

Runar drops down the Shudder Glacier

We laid our tracks close together to mitigate crevasse danger.

About half way down

Some cool ice features

Big turns in big terrain

Runar in his element

Close to the bottom.  You can see our tracks and also the tracks by 2 groups from Whsitler heli.

Goofy grin stoke

Looking back up at 1000m of Glacier

Once at the bottom we knew we had a fairly long skin to get back to Phalanx, but we were hoping to do it in about two and a half hours.  This turned out to be a wild underestimate.  Several hours of flat skinning past Billy Goat Lake eventually gave way to several hours to very steep skinning in order to gain the Phalanx bench at around 1750m.

The best way we could find to cross Wedge Creek.  Notice Runars ski hanging on a branch where it got stuck after he threw it across....


This is the view from near the bottom of the Spearhead/Phalanx confluence, and from here we could have traversed around to the poop chutes with very elevation gain.  I knew from previous experience thou that this would involve at least an hour and a half of annoying flat skinning, and would also involve skiing down the poop chutes, which is famously rancid at this time of year. We elected instead to skin the whole way back up the Spearhead and then ski down Corona bowl, which I estimated would take a similar amount of time, as it was less distance but more elevation, and I was confident that Corona bowl would be a better ski than the Poop Chutes.  It probably was better, and consultation of the map when I got home confirmed that horizontally we travelled less distance, but the additional elevation gain was significant, as was our fatigue, and from when this photo was taken it actually took two and a half hours to get to Corona.

 The last push up the Spearhead

Finally made it to Corona bowl.  6 hours after finishing the ski down Shudder.

All in all this is not a route that I would recommend to anyone else, and it takes it's place on a short list of tours that I am very confident I will never bother to attempt again.  The ski down the Glacier was nice enough- easily comparable to Cayoosh in length and steepness, but unlike Cayoosh, the Shudder Glacier does not drop you 20 minutes from your car.  Ski Cayoosh, or ski other Glaciers in the Spearhead range, but the Shudder Glacier is best left to Whistler Heli!