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!