Mt Currie, Owls and Mt Weart ski expedition.

Daily Vert: 1700m + 700m

Total Vert so far: 67,400m

Early on in this season we started making plans for big and creative spring trips- the kind of trips that would really stand out over relentless laps on local classics like Fissile and Cayoosh.  Last week's mission to the Tantalus was one such trip, and I've still got my fingers crossed for the McBride traverse later in the month, but this week it was the seldom seen and seldom skied North Face of Mt Weart, and the Great White Owl Couloir.

Geographically these peaks are quite close to Whistler, but access is quite difficult, and adding to their obscurity is the fact that they can't be easily seen from any of the local touring hotspots.  You can just about catch a glimpse of the Owls from Currie, and you can kind of see the north face of Weart from all the way over on Ipsoot, but thats about it.

The plan went through several iterations as we considered logistics, participants and secondary objectives, and the options of skiing in from Blackcomb, a heli drop on Rethel, a 4 day base camp and ascents of Wedge and Mt James Turner all fell by the wayside as we settled on the idea of a two day trip with a heli drop on Currie to begin with and the north face of Weart and the Owls Couloir as the twin objectives.

The first day started off well, the weather was looking good and Blackcomb Aviation dropped us a little way down from the Summit of Mt Currie on Hibachi ridge.  We started making good time on the traverse over to our proposed campsite, despite the deteriorating weather.  We weren't too concerned about the increasing cloud and fog as the route finding was fairly straight forward and it was forecast to improve in the evening.  More concerning was the fact that Steve's Salomon Guardian binding snapped in half about an hour into the trip, leaving him unable to use the tour mode on his skis.  Luckily the binding still functioned in ski mode.  Steve might now be one of the only people in history to complete the Currie Wedge traverse in winter by bootpacking almost the entire way!

Near the start of the Currie-Wedge traverse

Heading up to the Moe-Weart col in deteriorating weather.  Good thing I spent days studying the route on Google Earth before setting off!

Setting up camp on the first afternoon, hoping we are in the right spot.

Despite the poor weather and broken bindings we made it to the Moe-Weart col with out too much trouble, and found a nice sheltered spot to set up camp.  By this stage we could barely see 10 feet through the clouds, so we hunkered down in our tents and waited for things to improve.

At about 5.30 in the afternoon the clouds started to break and we could finally see our objectives of Mt Weart and the Owls.  We were fairly confident that the weather would continue to improve, but as it wasn't a certainty we decided for the narrow couloir over the open face for our evening mission.

Steves gets his first view of the Owl couloir

Boot packing up.... yes, it was very steep.

Ben dominating the last section of the climb

Sweet view of Wedge from the top

It took us about an hour and a half to climb the 500m couloir, and the snow on the way down was chalky, grippy and consistent.  A real joy to ski.  The couloir is one of the steepest things I've ever skied, I estimate in the region of 55 degrees.  The only lines of comparable steepness that I can think of would be Fissile Summit Chute, Decker Finger Chutes and the North Face of Mt Cheakamus.

Anyway, after this extremely enjoyable ski we skinned (or in Steve's case walked) back to camp and checked out the awesome sunset before cooking dinner and turning in early

Sunset

Steve and Ben check out the sunset from behind Mt Moe.

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The following morning we woke up to a beautiful sunrise at 5.30am, and made our way over to the North Face of Mt Weart

Sunrise from inside the tent.

The campsite looks a lot more appealing than it did the previous afternoon.

Checking out the North Face of Mt Weart

It didn't take us long to get over to the foot of the face, and before long we began the boot pack.  To our surprise the snow on the face seemed like it was going to be even nicer for skiing than the couloir had been, but it made for slightly slower boot packing.  We spent a little while roping up to cross the bergshrund at the bottom of the face, and despite the deep snow was made it too the extremely windy summit in about an hour and a half

Me on the summit of Mt Weart

The ski down was awesome... Quite deep and sluffy at the top, then soft, chalky and not so sluffy once it opened up.  It was super steep and long and sustained.  One of my all time top 5 runs for sure.

Runar rips the face

Shot of the Owl Couloir for posterity

Me and the owl

After packing up the camp it was time to head home.  We sat around for a little while in order to watch Matty Richard and Kye Petterson ski Weart as well, which was pretty cool, and then we headed over to  the Weart-Cook col to ski down.

Heading home

Ben and the Armchair Glacier

The ski down the armchair glacier was a surprising treat to end the day.  Very long with a nice pitch, and more by luck than judgement we hit it at just the right time so the south facing slope was on just the right side of too slushy.

Steve skis down the Armchair in front of Wedge

We skied past the Wedge Hut and down towards where the summer trail enters the woods.  We managed to keep our skis on for a little while, but before long we had to walk.  All told it took us 2 hours and 10 minutes to get back to the parking lot including breaks and transitions from the time when we entered the woods.

The final stretch

That last bit of walking was a bit of a pain, but we were all still buzzing from the great skiing in the morning.  Its so warm now that big trips might be over for the season.  I'm going to try and squeeze in a few more if I can, but if not we really went out on a high note!

You can see a few extra pictures from the trip in my facebook album:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151572393367436.1073741832.504557435&type=1

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!

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!

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.