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!

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.

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

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!

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

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.