Day 1: 4360′ climbing, 0 descending, 10 km

After a frantic night packing (it always takes longer than I think) my alarm went off at 4:30 AM (in hindsight, I might have considered car camping near Marblemount like Devin and Tom did) and I scrambled to get out the door for 5 AM to make the two hour drive to the ranger station in Marblemount where we were meeting.

There I met our guide from Pro Guiding Service, Chris Simmons, and fellow clients Tom and Devin.

We spent some time getting everything sorted out in the ranger parking lot while it drizzled rain. I was happy for us to take as long as possible in the hopes the rain would subside. Fortunately it did!

We left a few cars at the Marblemount Visitor Center and then drove the Cascade River Road for about 18 miles which is as far as we could go until we ran into snow.

From there we had something like six miles of road travel before we headed up into the mountains. Unfortunately the road wasn’t totally snow covered so travel was a mix of skinning and hiking with a few partial and full transitions.

At mile 24ish we headed up the Boston Basin Climbers Trail to about 3700′, then continued onto 4600′ where we then went up between Midas and Morning Star creeks (you need to cross over above 4200′).

The weather on the way up was variable. Mostly cloudy, sometimes a little drizzle, towards the end though near white out!

We set up camp at the knob at 6482′. Surprisingly, we weren’t the only ones there! We ran into the Smileys and their friends. Turns out that Chris knew them and we’d end up spending the next couple days together.

To save on weight we camped in a BD Mega Light Tent. This style of tent is floorless, kind of a cross between a normal tent and a snow trench and after three nights (one of which was really windy) I can say I highly recommend it!

Day 2: 2250′ climbing, 4250′ descending, 7 km

We woke up at 5am and I poked my head out thinking it was cloudy. Once I left the tent I realized I was just looking at the slope across from us and it was in fact a beautiful clear day with great views of Johannesburg and Sahale.

We set out at 7am for Shark Fin Col. Snow conditions were perfect. 6″+ of light snow. I was sure jealous of the party heading up to Sahale and then skiing down. They had perfect powder skiing in May!

When we reached Shark Fin Col we headed up the left side and found the snow to be “balls deep”. Given that it was so light we struggled to boot up the couloir and had to resort to shoveling it out. Mark said it was his first time shoveling out a couloir :).

At the top of the couloir we rappeled off the summer climbers rock down something like 20m. Here’s Mark setting up the belay for his 60m rope:

Here’s Tom heading down:

Sadly by the time we got down we found that the fresh powder had already started to warm up. Regardless we got some good tracks in:

We stayed above 6600′ and then headed over to Forbidden Col. There we found the couloir snow conditions warm and we kicked off a few small wet slides. While this Col was a little less challenging, it was still challenging. I was the second one up and found it tricky given that the rock was super fragile, easily breaking off. Folks behind me got short roped depending on their experience.

Next up it was a huge descent down to Moraine Lake.

Here’s a photo courtesy of Martin Volken. Our tracks are on lookers left.

The path we took was to ski down to the Larch tree. From there we skied the fall line. (If the slope gets steeper than 30′ you’re going the wrong way.) We ended up heading a little too much skiers right. The other group went far skiers left but had some exposure to the hanging glacier.

We setup camp on the north-east side of the lake. Nice bonus of this camp site was fresh water from the lake.

Day 3: 2450′ climbing, 0 descending, 7 km

Another 5 am start time!

We started the day off by skiing across the lake then headed up to Inspiration Glacier.

The conditions started off very firm requiring ski crampons. We also had to boot a few steeper sections.

In terms of snow conditions, closer to camp and around 1 to 2pm pinwheels were pealing off the skin track.

After setting up camp just west of Klawatti Peak we had planned to head up Austera Peak but felt the wet slide hazard was too great so we relaxed and practiced crevasse rescue.

Our highlight of the night was when we checked in with Martin, owner of Pro Guiding, he said he’d be doing a flight over the North Cascades in a couple hours. Sure enough, two hours later a plane comes flying by! Sadly, no beer was tossed in our direction :).

Day 4: 2450′ climbing, 8100 descending, 13 km

Another early start!

The day started off with us descending into McAllister Basin. We stopped descending around 7000′ then headed up to Tepeh Col. Then did a quick traverse across to east ridge of Eldorado. Here we stashed our packs and stormed up the 1000′ feet to the summit of Eldorado.

Turns out the summit of Eldorado is a little pointy and we ended up booting about the last 100′. I was a little nervous but survived :). It was surprising to see that the group ahead of us and skinned almost to the top and then did a ski descent from the top. Ballsy. But I’m glad we booted up the last bit and glad we roped up going down.

After a celebratory lunch we skinned across the Eldorado plateau, then skied across the Rousch Creek Divide at 6150′ and had snow to about 3800′ feet. Which is where we packed up our skis and started to boot. The first couple hundred feet was pretty steep and sketchier than a lot of the skiing we did! Just thin moss over steep rock.

Fortunately at 3500′ feet we picked up the Eldorado Climber’s Trail which I certainly wouldn’t have recognized. Fortunately Chris did. But trail is a generous designation! I lost track of how many trees we had to climb over and under. Here’s Devin going under one:

And to exit back to the road we had to navigate a couple downed trees as bridges:

Total:: 12,400 climbing and descending, 38 km

Foot issues

I’ve suffered through sweaty feet for years now. For day trips it really isn’t a big deal and for multi-day resort trips not a big deal as long as I dry my boots.

For multi-day ski trips though I’ve been really challenged by them. I’ve tried sleeping with my liners, using hand warmers, sunning them when I get to camp but nothing has worked.

For whatever reason on past multi-day trips it has been only a huge inconvenience. On this trip though, after probably 50 days in my boots this year, my feet reacted really badly. Maybe it was the new sock I tried on day 2 or maybe my feet were just tired but after day 2 my feet had some hot spots and my big toe was kinda sore. I put some Compeed patches on em and soldiered on. After day 3 my feet were getting pretty raw. On day 4 it was real painful getting going in the morning and just terrible booting down.

After getting home I posted about my general sweaty foot issues on Turns All Year where someone pointed me at vapor barrier socks which I promptly ordered. Can’t wait to try them out and wish I discovered them sooner! Now I just hope I don’t lose my big toe nail…

• My photos
• Chris’ photos

At the top of his list was a Shusksan attempt via the White Salmon.

While recovering from my previous attempt he called me up in a panic having seen Andre’s photos posted to Facebook moments before.

I assured him that we had not summited and I was still stoked to go out and get Shusksan.

So on Saturday morning I picked Shawn up at 6 am on Saturday April 14 and we headed off to the Mount Baker ski area.

Conditions were nice up until the ski area where we encountered rain in the parking lot :(. So we hung out for a bit waiting for everyone to arrive. Skiing with us were three other clients, Ma href=”http://www.proguiding.com/content/our-guides”>Dave Jordan our “regular” guide, Solveig Waterfall and her husband Seth Waterfall tagged along.

Doing Shuksan in two days, with our camp at 4500′ made for a leisurely day which is always nice!

It also gave us lots of time to try our hand at building our first snow cave.

The snow cave did take us a long time to dig out. I’m sure we’ll get faster once we have the measurements down and have a little more experience with it :). Instead of doing a full snow cave, we covered our big hole in the side of the hill with an Integral Designs Sil Tarp. To protect our sleeping bags from the snow we used bivy sacks.

Once the snow cave was setup we hung out with the group, ate dinner, drank whiskey and chatted. With three guides, there was certainly lots of stories of epic adventures. It didn’t hurt that Seth had summited Everest twice :).

As is usual on these trips, once the sun started to head down we all headed to our respective tents and tucked in for the night. I don’t mind crashing early, just means some quality reading time (Kindle app on my iPhone).

Sleeping in the snow cave went pretty well! Though I probably should have borrowed Andre’s 15′f bag instead of his 30′f bag… I was a tad chilly with all my clothes on in it.

We had a 5 am wake up call!

While making breakfast I was boiling some water I experienced my first Jetboil flare up. The thing turned into a flamethrower! Good thing we weren’t in a tent. Though it did cause the snow cave to fill up with water vapor. We couldn’t see a thing until Shawn made our fresh air opening a little bigger :).

Other than that, it was uneventful getting ready to depart.

Before leaving camp I checked the weather forecast which called for partly sunny and light winds.

Yeah right!

At around 8000′ Seth called a halt to things as crevasses were starting to open up and with visibility so shitty it was hard to see what was up. We tried to wait for the clouds to clear but after much sitting around it didn’t look like we were going to get the partly sunny conditions we needed, or even just not really fucking cloudy, in order to wind our way through the crevasse field. Sadly the call was made to head back down.

I was pretty bummed but what can you do?

Fortunately we did get some good skiing in. Here’s Seth ripping it up:

Sadly as we were making our way down the skies did part.

But we weren’t about to turn around. So frustrating!!

Though I’m sure had it been partly sunny as we were going up the Hanging Glacier I would have been totally freaked out :).

To save ourselves the grief of skinning up the clearcut from the toe of the glacier to the ski area we pushed a high traverse across. This worked much better.

After post-trip food and drinks at Chair 9 in Glacier, at which Seth convinced me Everest was totally doable, everyone headed back to the Seattle area while I pointed the Cruiser north to Whistler.

Trying to tackle it in a day meant a super early 4 am wakeup and 4:45 departure from Seattle. (I had talked around down from 3:30 am :)).

When we got up to the Baker ski area we found the gate to the White Salmon day lodge closed, not too surprising since the ski area was closed for the day. However, this meant a decent walk in from the road.

Things started to get interesting pretty quick. First the snow was super mushy. I believe schmoo is the technical term. Then as we were skinning through the trees to get over to the glacier I slipped while skinning downhill, pitching forward and cutting my head on my damn whippet.

Only a few minutes later. A little shy of descending with my skins on, I took my skis off so I could jump down a few feet. I failed to secure my skis and the both went for a little ride. Fortunately not too far. But then when I jumped some snow dislodged which then sent one ski for a ride out of sight. Frustrated, I booted down to find it, only to find a waterfall between me and the ski.

No problem. We brought rope.

Andre setup a rappel from a tree and down we went 25 meters.

I look much too excited here for the disruption I caused to our ski tour.

Forty five minutes later… And with me now carrying the rope, we resumed skinning from the toe of the White Salmon Glacier realizing that a summit attempt was definitely long gone. Regardless, up the White Salmon we went!

The snow pack was definitely funky. Our poles would go in half way without any effort. It was warm. Small little wet slides were releasing as early as 9 am and lots of evidences of releases the days before.

The view of Shuksan while going up the White Salmon Glacier is very impressive with the hanging glacier seemingly spilling off the top. What’s even crazier is that someone skied the Hanging Glacier the weekend before. Just incredible! And all the time every thirty minutes you’d hear a rumble as the glacier shed snow and ice.

Continuing up, at ~6700′ or so feet you get incredible views of Mount Baker.

Hard to believe we summited it less than a year ago.

At about 7000′ we pulled the plugged but not before looking down upon the Lower Curtis Glacier and marveling at the lines people had skied and up at the Upper Curtis Glacier.

The descent was pretty straightforward. Up top was reasonably enjoyable. Down low it got super sloppy.

We were going to try and do a high traverse back to the ski area but without much effort I triggered a small wet slide about six inches deep ten feet across:

This convinced us to stick to lower angle terrain and kill the traverse which goes under some steeper terrain.

Now by the time we got to the bottom of the glacier and started to head back up the trees, through an old clear cut, we were kinda tired. The snow in the trees was super mushy with the snow pack pulling away in sections. Let’s just say it was the hardest 700′ feet I’ve skied. By the time we got the top we were wiped. There must be a better way!

Fortunately the food and beer at Chair 9 refueled us for the long drive back to Seattle.

We vowed we’d be back!

We started from the furthest out Alpental parking lot. And first things first we stashed the beer behind this water thingy. Then it was off to Chair Peak.

With few clouds in the sky, the sun finally out, it was hot! Even though I was in an Icebreaker t-shirt with my pant vents wide open I was still dripping in sweat. And silently suffering because I was a little tired from my day before :).

After cresting the col we found the snow on the north facing slope to be awesome. Still dry. Not a lot of tracks. It was ours to tear up.

Jonn-E took a great shot of me:

We had a great ski down to the NE couloir.

Which led to Snow Lake.

It was a long skate ski to the north end of the lake :).

From there we skinned up to Chair Peak Lake. Just above the lake we stopped for lunch.

Then it was up then down to Melekwa Lake. Then up to the west side of Chair Peak.

As we hit the crest I hear “hey there Goyer!” as my Spearhead Traverse guide Forest came up the other side.

After some chit chat we click in and start to tear down the Bryant Couloir but find it filled with lots of avi debris.

Back at home I was surprised to see we had only done 4600′ of vertical. Felt like much more :). And I suspect Runkeeper’s calorie counter for skiing isn’t functioning properly!

Update: Here is Jonn-e’s trip report.

(Photo from Pro Ski’s awesome Snoqualmie Backcountry book. A must have book.)

Hell yes!

The Slot had achieved mythical proportions in my head as the coolest couloir around and was high on my todo list. With avi conditions finally in the moderate range and weather looking not bad, this past Friday seemed like a great time to go do it.

To get up to the Slot we took the same route as I had taken two days before. Fortunately the snow conditions improved and it wasn’t as icy but still was challenging (I only fell twice :)).

Somewhere around 6000′ feet I was still slogging towards the top when Andre called out that we were there.

The entrance looked freaky! Mainly because it is so steep at the top. Feels like there’s a 2000′ foot cliff that you’re right on the edge of.

I was kinda freaked out so I took my skis off and carefully booted over to the edge. I didn’t want to slip into the Snot, the neighboring couloir which looked gnarly.

At the top of the Slot we were transfixed by the entrance to the Snot. Someone had apparently cut a hole in a cornice and slide slipped down ~100 feet above a massive amount of exposure. One wrong side slip and you’d be a goner. We couldn’t believe someone entered it that way.

After relaxing a bit, I had a quick bite to eat and we transitioned into downhill mode. After carefully slipping down into the entrance it was clear that Slot, while looking pretty intimidating, was totally skiable.

And actually, the skiing was awesome! Someone had skied it the day before, but we were the first to ski it that day and it got a little refreshed over night. Couldn’t have asked for better conditions.

After skiing it and totally impressed with ourselves, we marveled at the lines coming out of the Snot. While marveling we saw a foursome come down the Slot. We marveled to them about the Snot lines and they informed us that they were the owners of the lines! Turns out they had roped up, cut an entrance in the cornice and then skied it. I remarked that it looked a little hairy! They said the alternative to their crazy ski entrance was to rappel in but you’d need two 60m lines. Or you’d need to go back up and fetch your one 60m line. Andre and I figured that if we were to ski it we’d boot up instead :).

As they geared up to then ski the Crooked couloir, we departed for the ridge to head down.

Remarkably the weather went from this:

To complete white out in mere minutes:

Once we gained the ridge we debated downing the Crooked couloir (the other group had definitely got the idea into our heads) but decided to head down instead. We skied the Phantom Slide Path, same line that I had skied Wednesday.

I’m psyched we skied the Slot but stoked to knock of the trifecta of Slot, Snot and Crooked in a day :).

On Wednesday I picked up Scott who wanted to hit up Snoqualmie Mountain. I was psyched since I hadn’t skied Snoqualmie Mountain yet.

You start Snoqualmie Mountain at the Alpental maintenance lot. Simply cross the road and head into the woods.

We both found the skin up challenging to say the least because the conditions were very firm! While Scott had issues with his skins staying on, I, after falling a few times, fell again but started to slide downhill. Let’s just say I really regretted wearing only a t-shirt and no gloves because when you fall 25 feet with no protection it really hurts. Scott had an easier go of things when he put his ski crampons on. I, wished I had brought my ski crampons. And then the tip of my Dynafit Speeskin broke! Fortunately zip ties saved the day. Looks like I’ll be needing to buy a Dynafit Speedskin Fix Long.

At 5200′ we got out of the woods and I thought things would get easier. But we still had 1000′ feet of hard skiing, kicking in every step.

After lunch at 6200′ I was expecting the descent to suck but it was actually great. The dust over a hard layer was very skiable, we just had to dodge all the old frozen wet slide debris. Lower down things got heavier and wetter.

Weather was nice. At times sunny, then cloudy, then snowy then back so sun. No rain.

After a bunch of days heli skiing, resort skiing, backcountry skiing, the jacket is holding up perfectly. Still looks brand new! I love the big hand pockets, styling, weight and durability.

Improvements I’d like to see:

• Bigger internal pockets
• Ability to route a cable from the chest pocket inside the jacket
• Symmetric zip with two chest pockets instead of one
• Loop to hang the jacket from :)

The other jackets I considered were the Flylow Quantum and the Patagonia Primo.

Usually I’m too hot, or too cold.

My new system is an Icebreaker 200 t-shirt and a REI Packable Fleet Jacket. The Icebreaker provides some warmth and the Fleet is nice and light but yet blocks any wind.

I had considered other running jackets like the North Face Hydrogen, North Face Better Than Naked, Patagonia Nine Trails and Arc Teryx Accelero but hard to beat $50 at REI.

Update: I have my eye on the First Ascent Sirocco jacket. Might upgrade for the hood :).

I’ve tested them inbounds and on a couple big ski adventures. I love that I can wear them in -10′c with no long underwear bottoms and still be warm and when you start working hard on the uphill because the side zips shed lots of heat.

Pros:

• Lots of pockets
• Side zips for the uphill
• Beacon pocket

Cons:

• Mediums were too small for me and large a little too bit

I went with grey since everyone normally wears black pants. Also figured they might be a bit cooler (temp wise) than black.

Plus I scored a sweet deal. Only $135 on Amazon (MSRP is $200).

The Spearhead is a 34 km traverse that starts from Blackcomb and ends on Whistler. It typically takes one to four days, though the record is an unbelievable 4 hours! We had intended to do it in four days but because of possible incoming weather we did it in three. And fortunately for us it was sunny every day and only started raining once we were having beers at the end of the trip :).

Here’s our approximate route cribbed from John Baldwin’s excellent Whistler map:

I first heard about the traverse last year while summiting Mount Baker and given all the time off I have this spring seemed like a great trip to do. Especially since it is cheaper to drive to Whistler than it is to fly to Zurich/Geneva to do the very well known European ski traverses like the Haute Route.

Being new to ski mountaineering and not having any friends game for taking time off to do it, I did the trip with Pro Guiding. Forest McBrian was our guide, Levi from the shop joined us as a tail gunner guide and the was one other client with us, Greg.

We were supposed to do it earlier in March but the trip got postponed due to bad weather. That didn’t stop me from heading up to Whistler for some resort skiing. While their I peaked my head over the top of Blackcomb and checked out the Spearhead Glacier and Decker and was blown away. I had no idea there was so much terrain surrounding Whistler Blackcomb. I couldn’t wait for the trip to start!

Day 0

I drove up the day before and had a nice night eating wings at Earl’s and staying at the Listel (no outdoor hot tub though!).

Day 1

We met at day lot 4 at 8 am where you can indeed park overnight for free (it was not clear you could and parking at hotel starts at $16/night.)

From there we “trekked” to guest services to get our backcountry pass which lets you get a ride up the mountain for about half the price of a regular lift ticket (you do need to show them your beacon, shovel, probe, skins and ID).

Then it was a ride up the Blackcomb Gondola to Excelerator chair which was a trick riding with a 45lbs pack! Then up Glacier Express chair, then up the Showcase T-bar. At the top of Showcase you then boot to the Blackcomb Glacier where you skin up to the East Col and the adventure really begins!

We skied and skied and skied. Seemed to be mostly uphill :). We crossed numerous glaciers. Saw incredible peaks and by the end I was thoroughly exhausted. Normally I’m not the slowest guy but with this group I was and it felt like I was really suffering. In hindsight I should have brought an extra liter of water and ate more. In terms of ski descents, there really wasn’t any. Most of the skiing we did was traversing or skiing in firm conditions. Sadly no real epic turns.

We setup camp on the Ripsaw Glacier where only one other group was camping. The Ripsaw Glacier is basically the furthest point out on the traverse so we had essentially completed half the trip in the first day.

While our guide Forest and Levi dug out a snowcave with tarp, Greg, the other client, and I setup my MSR Hoop tent and spent the night melting snow and reading my Kindle iPhone app. I did have a little mishap when my Nalgene bottle wasn’t screwed on tight and about 500 ml of water leaked out. I did my best to spoon out the water but my bag did get a little wet. I don’t know if it was the wettest or because I left my extra sleeping pad in the car, but I had a chilly night and didn’t get much sleep :(.

Day Two

Forest gave us a very early wakeup call of 5 am with intended departure of 7 am which we more or less made. We then set off for the Himmelsbach Hut.

While we still skied a good amount uphill we did have a great ski descent down the Overlord Glacier.

At the hut we were pleased to discover that there was room for us. No camping! Plus park services had just dug out the outhouse for the first time that season and someone else had dug a hole in the lake so no boiling snow all night :).

Half of our group was tuckered out and called it a day. However, Forest and I weren’t and decided to tackle Fissile Mountain.

We approached from the south west, first skiing, then booting, then scrambling up loose scree for the last
couple hundred feet.

The ~2000′ descent down was awesome. We skied the north-west face which is listed at 50′.

Back at the hut we hung out, made dinner, drank Jameson, heard about the proposed Spearhead Huts project and heard about how another group helped out with a helicopter rescue of someone who blew out their knee!

The guys warned me the hut was pretty basic. Which it is. But it definitely beat camping in the snow. I think we had about ten people in the hut that Sunday night.

Day Three

We had a leisurely departure. Wake up time mainly dictated by when it got loud in the hut.

We skied up the Singing Bumps instead of skiing out Singing Pass. Taking the bumps out takes you up to the summit of Flute back in the resort area. We then skied down to the Burnt Stew trail and took that over to the bottom of Emerald chair and then we simply skied down. Forest must have legs of steel since we did the 6000′ descent with basically no stops :).

Back in Whistler we dropped our gear at the car and hit the Brewhouse for wings, burgers and beers. So tasty!

Conditions

Two full days of sun! And on the third day the clouds only started to roll in as we were well on our way to re-entering the ski area. During the days the temps seemed to range from 0′c to -10′c. At times I was wearing a t-shirt, and other times I was wearing every piece of clothing I had :). Though I did get by never wearing my long underwear bottoms or big ski gloves. Snow conditions ranged from bulletproof icy snow to boot top pow.

Conclusion

I’m so glad I did the traverse. Great way to see the backcountry for both Whistler and Blackcomb. However, after now doing my first big traverse I don’t know if I’m in love with traverses. I think I’m more of a find a cool line and go get it kinda guy.

My photos