Chief Pascal

Daily Vert: 1400m

Total Vert so far: 39,250m

The mellow and accessible slopes of Chief Pascal make an excellent Duffy destination when the avi danger is high, so that is where we went today.  We parked at the Cayoosh parking lot, and after skinning along the south side road and up through the clear cut, we were near the summit and ready to ski after two and a half hours.  For our first run we hit the straight line chute just below the sub peak.  I'd looked at it from above on a previous trip and deemed it pretty gnarly, but on a second look it didn't look to bad... not very long at any rate, and the snow way excellent so we decided to go for it.  The chute isn't a steep as it looks, and with the excellent duffy pow we were able to dump speed quickly on the mellow run out. Definitely a fun way to start the day.

Runar and his DPS Wailers look down the straight line...

Steve at the bottom, stoked that we all nailed it.

After skiing a little further down the bowl we skinned back around the ridge and it was a quick trip up for a second lap.  The snow seemed stable, there hadn't been any signs of instability such as cracking, whoomphing or tree bombs, so we considered heading over to the steeper slopes on skiers right below the big cliffs for our final run.  A very short roll over of a slightly steeper pitch gave us an opportunity to test the stability a little more before committing to the longer slopes, but after this result we re-assesed our plans!

After that wake up call we kept it super mellow for our final lap and then skied back out to the car. The only drawback of this route is the 30 minute skin along the flat to get back to the car, but its a small price to pay for the fun and happy pow on Cheif Pascal!

Steep Creek

Daily Vert: 1400m

Total Vert so far: 37,850m

Despite the storm on Friday we decided to return to Steep Creek.  The avalanche conditions were extremely unstable, so we had to stick to very low angle runs, but photographer Vince still managed to bag these sweet shots.

Flute Laps

Daily Vert: 1100m

Total Vert so far: 36,450m

On a non-descript day at the end of February I met up with Claire and Janet for a few laps close to home.  I did one solo lap on the front of Flute, then after meeting up with the girls we did 2 laps on the back of Flute, one on the front of Oboe, and then skied back inbounds over Lesser Flute.  Fun Mellow pow all day.

Wedge NW Couloir

Daily Vert: 1900m

Total Vert so far: 35,350m

Woohoo!  On my third attempt I finally managed to Summit Wedge and ski the Wedge NW couloir.  Here is how it played out.

After a sneaky early upload with Blackcomb Ski Patrol we were at the gate and on our way at 8am.  If you work BSP and are reading this, thanks very much!  

We quickly climbed Dean's, and after a quick assessment of the route from the Spearhead col we skied down the Spearhead and into Wedge Pass.

After a quick sketchy creek crossing we were on our way up the south face.

The south face contains some hefty terrain traps and avi paths, but it is possible to stay on little ribs and ridges so that you stay out of them.

The South Face is massive and takes ages to cross.  It's so big you can barely spot Holly in this picture. Its actually a little bit ugly too... not you're usual picturesque mountain terrain.  Just a big ugly planar slope.  Crossing the south face here is probably the only bit I would do differently if I ever attempt this route again.  Once you reach treeline it is tempting to keep ascending as you cross the face.  It seems that this isn't the best way to do it thou, as eventually the face gets too steep to skin, even with ski crampons, and you end up having to boot pack in a diagonal in order to access the correct gully for climbing.  Instead of continuing to climb after getting above the tree line look for a very subtle bench that goes right across the south face.  You wont gain as much elevation but the skinning will be quick and easy, and then you can cross all the way over to one of the easy gullies on the lookers left.

After it got too steep to skin we switched over to our new Billy Goat Technologies Alpine Ascent Plates.  This was my first time using these and they certainly made boot packing through the facetted and variable snow much easier.

Holly on the ascent.  The worst thing about this bootpack is not just that it is so long, but also it is kind of boring!

View of Weart from the top

I was fucking stoked to reach the top.  I made the summit ridge at about 3pm, which was five and a half hours after starting the climb from Wedge Pass, breaking trail the whole way.

Stoked and ready to ski

The snow within the couloir was actually pretty disappointing, it was heavily wind affected.  But I didn't mind too much.  The line itself is super cool... really long, steep and aesthetic, and you can't always expect to ski the big lines in good snow.

Stoked at the bottom, but it's still a long way back to the car!

We decided to ski down the Rethel Creek drainage rather than cross over to the glacier side.  The sub alpine basin here is very nice, much prettier than the South Face.  This route probably would have been ok, but quite near the bottom we missed the logging road and spend about an hour in the creek longer than necessary.  But we made it, and I'm stoked to finally bag the biggest peak around!

Russet Laps

Daily Vert: 1350m

Total Vert so far: 33,450m

On an overcast day Runar and I decided to do some more exploring in a heavily skied area.  We took the quick route out to Cowboy Ridge and then skied 3 laps near by.  The first was in the steep bowl to lookers right of Cowboy Ridge. This was the only thing we skied all day that didn't have tracks in it already.  The bowl is steep and well protected, and has plenty of cool cliff features, unfortunately the laps are a little short- only around 100 vertical meters.  Could be an interesting way to add a bit of colour to touring in this familiar area thou.  We then headed over to Russet Ridge and skied one of the couloirs off the main finger, and then the gladed bowl below.  This bowl had a disappointingly large number of tracks in it. Despite this we still did 2 laps in the bowl, then headed back up for the standard run down cowboy, and were back in crystal for wings by 3.30.   Fun day.

Runar heads home off Cowboy.

Russet Laps GPS track

Elevation profile.  Lots of mini laps today.

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/