Rainbow Heli Drop

Daily Vert: 835m

Total Vert so far: 32,100m

As Friday was Jessica's birthday we decided to go for a heli drop on Rainbow.  The usual agenda would be to ski either the East or North face and then exit via 19 mile creek to Alpine Meadows.  Most of the people on the trip had done these variations before, and that exit to Alpine is bit of a pain, so we decided to try something else.  I'd always liked the look of the big south gully on Rainbow that you can see very clearly from the Roundhouse on Whistler, and we had it on good authority from my friend Rob that there was very enjoyable terrain on the north flank of Tonic Peak, so we decided to combine the two.

Skiing the South Gully is all a matter of timing.  The whole run is one giant terrain trap as it starts out huge then funnels in on 3 sides to a pretty small gully at the bottom.  This means you only want to ski it when the stability is good.  The flip side of this is that as a south aspect, it does not maintain good snow for a very long time after a storm, especially during a sunny period.

On this particular day we were comfortable with the stability, and although we knew the north faces would ski better, we decided on the exploratory option.

The skiing turned out to be just fine.  It started off about boot deep at the top and got deeper and softer as we went down.  The entire run is pretty big and an fairly consistent pitch the entire way.  Good times.

After a quick snack in the creek we headed up the drainage in between Gin and Tonic Peaks. To get to the top of Tonic Peak is a fairly long was around horizontally this way, but the skinning is super easy, we barely had to make a single switch back the entire way.

The North Face of Tonic did indeed ski very nicely, although there are some big cliffs at the top that you have to poke your way around to get in.  Once back in the creek it was pretty easy to pick up the Rainbow lake summer trail and ski out to the Cemetery.

Runar and I looking over to Tonic Peak from the top of the South Gully

Looking back at the South gully (lookers right) from part way up Tonic

Postcard shot of Blackcomb from Tonic Peak

GPS track.  I forgot to turn on my GPS to this track was recorded by Travis, who skied the Ridge of Tonic peak on the way down instead of the main bowl. Both lines are good.

Steep Creek

Daily Vert: 2000m

Total Vert so far: 31,265m

I'm writing this a little while after the fact, so I can't really be bothered to embellish on the details, but Benoit and I went to Steep Creek, busted out 3 laps, and it was totally awesome.

The Steep Creek AK Spine wall... not super filled in so far this year.

 Shredding Pow on Peak 2318

Heading up for lap 2 with lap 1 in the background.

Looking south to Mt Casper

Big Terrain

Easy ridge walk up to Steep Peak

Sunset pow in Chute 56

Benoit gets it done

Easy ups and massive downs

Duffy Lake at Sunset

GPS track

Elevation Profile.  Epic day.

Casper Creek/Duke Couloir

Daily Vert: 1500m + 1000m
Total Vert so far: 29,265m

Thanks to our successful recon mission last week and some sunny weather in the forecast Runar and I decided to head back to Casper Creek and attempt to ski the Duke Couloir.  We decided to go for an overnight trip, and at the very last minute Vince decided that he would sled in with Matt Francisty and join us on the 2nd day.

On day one the weather was fairly overcast and it was snowing on and off all day.  Due to some poor route finding we accidentally skinned up the east flank of Vantage Ridge, but after finding some lines that looked quite good and discovering acceptable snow quality, we stayed there for 2 laps.

 Runar gets a sneak peak of Mt Duke through a crack in the clouds from near the summit on the east side of Vantage Ridge

Shredding back down in surprisingly acceptable snow

After two laps on the east aspects we moved over to the lower bowls of Duke itself, and skied even better snow on the north aspects.  We were also treated to our first good look at the Duke Couloir, which occupied our attention for the rest of the weekend.

The Duke Couloir from below.  The cornice doesn't look that big... right....?

Day one GPS track

Day one elevation profile

The following morning we met Vince and Matt at the end of the sled road as planned, and made fairly good time to the Duke/Vantage col, and then up the West ridge of Duke.  A word or warning here:  In John Baldwin's book (you know the one I mean) he states that there is a class 3 rock scramble part way up, but doesn't specifically recommend ice axes or crampons.  Based on our experience, and the fact that I read several trip reports of people being turned back from the summit while researching this trip, I would say the to reach the summit quickly and safely, and ice axe and crampons are almost a necessity. The ridge was extremely windswept and rimed, and the snow quality and climbability was all over the shop.  We did make it as far as the couloir entrance with out ice tools, but some parts were pretty sketchy, and there seemed to be a lot more of the same on the short steep section between us and the true summit.  In conclusion, bring crampons!  Anyway, despite the sketchy climb, the views were fantastic.

Mt Howard and its massive couloir and lower face.  Definitely keen for this one... 

Great view of (L to R) Howard, Matier and Joffre

An unnamed couloir on and unnamed peak in between Howard and Snowspider.  Rumour has it access is fairly easy from the Snowspider area to this peak, but I'd love to hear more about it if anyone has been there.

Skinning up the Ridge before it gets steep and sketchy.

Runar and Vince plan out our route.

Despite some slow climbing on the steep part of the ridge, we made it too the entrance of the couloir in around 3 hours from the end of the sled road.  We set up a quick bucket seat anchor and proceeded to check out the entrance.  Needless to say the cornice was CONSIDERABLY bigger than we anticipated....  the original plan had been to attempt to dig a small cleft in the cornice and then to slide in around the side, but after over an hour of digging we realised that it was so big, and the chute so steep, that we weren't actually getting any closer to the ground.  We only had 2 harnesses between the 4 of us,  but after a quick discussion we decided it would be possible for all of us to swap harnesses and rappel in over what remained of the cornice.

Runar getting ready to rappel. The cornice was still sizeable even after all the digging.  Photo by Vince Shuley

Chilling out in the bucket seat anchor.  Literally.  It was freezing in there.

I don't remember exactly what we were talking about here, but it was obviously very important... and also very funny.

Vince sets up on the opposite edge for some sweet shots.

After a few hours hard work Runar makes the first turns in the Duke Couloir. And yes, it was F**king steep!

Vince on the rope shooting Matt descend.

My first turn in the couloir. The top section was extremely steep, but the limited exposer meant full on pant pooping was kept to a minimum.

Matt grabs a shot of Vince as he descends. Photo by Matt Francisty

The snow in the chute its self was pretty variable, probably not helped by the fact we had spent a good few hours shovelling cornice debris onto to it, but the skiing was still pretty good.  The couloir was much narrower and steeper than we were expecting, barely 1 cat track wide most of the way down, but it was very exciting to ski something which doesn't see a whole lot of descents each year.  After the couloir we skinned up a short way and then skied the lower west bowls, where the snow quality improved dramatically.

Matt Francisty on the lower face. Photo by Vince Shuley.

Having the sled present made the exit even easier than you would expect and before we knew it we were back at the highway and on our way home.  Over all this was a great trip to a great area, that I would certain recommend it to someone looking for a fairly technical challenge.  The lower reaches of Duke also contain a plethora of fun lines that would make fast and fun laps when the snow is good.  Just remember to bring your crampons if you want to go for the summit!

Skinning up for a lap on the lower face.  Photo by Vince Shuley

Taking the easy way home.

Day 2 GPS track

 Day 2 elevation profile

Ps.

If you have enjoyed the photos by Vince Shuley, be sure to check out his photography website.

http://www.vinceshuley.com/

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.

Dean's Adieu

Daily Vert: 150m
Total Vert so far: 25,965m

Jess and I planned a quick Corona Bowl lap before I had to go to work, but as the weather came in and Jess was having some boot issues we skied back down Dean's Adieu from near the East Col.  The snow was untracked and nice and soft.

Casper Creek

Daily Vert: 1000m
Total Vert so far: 25,815m

Friday Lee invited me to join him an Sharon on exploring what was for them a relatively unknown area, Casper Creek.  At first I wasn't too excited, I figured that Lee has spent so much time in the Duffy, he must have all the high value routes pretty well figured out, and if it was an area he wasn't familiar with then it was going to be a lot of walking and not much skiing.  Fortunately that turned out not to be the case.  Although it is a very long approach into this zone- 7km on the flat, taking approximately 2 hours- There is a wealth of good skiing on Mt Duke, its lower bowls and the surrounding sub peaks.  We treated this trip mostly as a recon mission, skiing as far as the lake at the bottom of the West Bowl of Duke, doing a few short laps and then heading home, but there is definitely more terrain worth coming back for.

Sproat Again.

Daily Vert: 1450m

Total Vert so far: 24,815m

After enjoying Sproat so much on my last visit around Xmas time I decided to go back again right after the first snowfall Whistler has had in 2 weeks.  Despite having to break trail we made pretty similar time up the Rainbow trail, although we took a slightly different variation by continuing along the main trail for an extra few hundred meters before taking the sharp left to head up Sproat.  Although only slightly displaced from the previous route, this route is vastly superior, much less steep with much more space in between each tree, allowing huge elevation gobbling traverses between each switchback.  On the previous trip we had stayed in the open meadows below the west ridge, swung around the big cliff and approached the summit from the east.  Although this was fairly simple I thought that climbing the west ridge directly looked like it might provide a slightly quicker route to the summit.  On that trip Rob had voiced that he thought a long cliff band in the trees would prevent easy access to the West Ridge.  I was determined to find out today.  At first our approach was on the wrong side of the open glades, so we decided to climb out of the glades and then ski back down closer to the ridge.  While climbing up and skinning out of a steep gully we set of a small avalanche, which carried both Benoit and I a few meters down the slope.  The slide was about 10m x 10m and approximately 30cm deep.  It ran about 30m.  After noting the poor stability and adjusting our route accordingly, we skied a short way back down towards the bottom of the Ridge.  The snow was dispassionately heavy and the terrain rather flat.  It quickly became clear that Rob had been correct- the large cliff band above the tree line looks like it disappears in the trees, but in fact it persists, and it took us a good long while to find a spot where we could get above it. And even then it required some annoying boot packing and tree climbing.  Then once on the ridge it was still a long and annoying with lots of micro terrain to work around to get to the summit.  In conclusion... Go around the front... the West Ridge sucks!  Once at the top the visability was pretty bad, but we found the line we wanted to ski, although the snow was pretty heavy and disappointing.  The ski out was fairly uneventful, it's pretty easy from this zone, although we did lose the trail a few times as it hadn't been broken before us.

Benoit after being carried a short way by the class one avalanche on our skin up.