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!
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