Transcript The Spearhead Traverse May 14-17

The Spearhead Traverse
May 14-17
• Blackcomb to Whistler Mountains
• Approx 25Km of Alpine Travel
• One of the Premier ski tours in BC’s Coast Range!
• We set out on a Wednesday
afternoon, catching the last lifts
up Blackcomb Mountain.
• Exiting the ski area from the
Blackcomb Glacier area, we
dropped onto the Circle
Glacier and set up Camp.
• Here’s a photo of our first
Camp – The Sun came out
shortly after our arrival,
although it was pretty foggy
when we arrived!
• That’s Blackcomb peak in the
Background, the Blackcomb
ski area is just over the right
hand corner of the photo…
• My companions for the Trip were Matt and Richard. Both are avid
Photographers and were taking pictures constantly! Here’s one of
Matt shooting Richard eating dinner on our first night.
• Unfortunately I forgot to
bring a Toque (This
makeshift Turban made
for a nice substitute).
Good thing it wasn’t too
cold, in fact, it was quite
mild through our whole
trip!
• The bottom photos is a
shot of our camp with
Decker Mountain in the
background – our next
day’s route took us up
and over the left side of
Decker.
• On day Two, we left camp
and headed over the
Decker Glacier – That’s
Matt and Richard up
ahead of me…
• We were very happy to
reach the top of our first
big climb! In the
background is Blackcomb
Peak and the Circle
Glacier where we had
spent the first night out.
•
Next we Continued skiing in a SE direction towards the Trorey Glacier.
Here’s Richard and Matt ascending to Trorey Peak. They made some
sweet turns down the face. Unfortunately, I stayed behind on this one to
tend to an approaching blister… Oh well, there would be more peaks and
turns to be had!
A short climb up the Trorey Glacier brought us to a col between
Mt.Trorey and Mt. Pattison. It also brought us our first views of the
Fitzsimmons Range and the second half of our traverse!
(Peaks L-R: Iago, Fitzsimmons, Benvolio and Overlord)
Matt and the Fitzsimmons Range.
• A short descent from
the S Ridge of Mt
Pattison brought us
down to the Tremor
Glacier, and the start of
a rather large climb to
the Tremor/Shudder col
where it is only a short
detour to the summits
of Tremor Mtn and
Shudder Mtn.
• Here’s some photos
from the summit of
Tremor, the highest
summit on the
Spearhead Traverse!
• Here’s Tremor from the Summit of Shudder Mtn.
Those are our turns from the summit!
• After summiting
Tremor and Shudder,
we traversed the
Platform Glacier and
passed under Quiver
Peak before emerging
onto the Ripsaw
Glacier where we
decided we would set
up camp…
• It was pretty hot and
we were all happy to
get a break from the
climbing!
• This position also gave us our first view of the
McBride Range. That’s Nevalis and Sir Richard,
the two big ones in the McBrides…
• Day three began with a quick traverse of the Ripsaw Glacier…pretty
straight forward except for the fact that only a week or so ago
someone fell into a crevasse!
• Here’s a sunrise shot of The Ripsaw out the tent door, pretty decent
real estate if you ask me!
•Day three began with a quick traverse of the Ripsaw Glacier…pretty straight
forward except for the fact that only a week or so ago someone fell into a
crevasse! Looking back over the Ripsaw Glacier to the notch where we set up
camp 2 – right under the small rocky bit at the top of the shaded area…
• Looking up the Naden Glacier towards the
saddle over to the Curtain Glacier. That’s Mt.
Macbeth’s East summit just above my skis…
• Once we reached the
saddle, we emerged
onto the Curtain
Glacier. Donning our
ski crampons, we
ascended the glacier
towards the summit of
Mt. Macbeth.
• A shadowy feature at
the top of the Glacier
suggested that we put
the rope on - here’s
Matt leading the way
over the bergschrund.
•Once over the Bergschrund, we ditched the skis and boot-packed our
way to the summit of Mt. Macbeth – certainly one of the finest summits
of the Trip!!!
• Richard
making the
final
approach
to
Macbeth’s
summit.
• The happy summit party - Mt. Macbeth
•
Looking from Macbeth’s summit towards Tremor Mtn (left) and the Platform
Glacier below the rounded summit of Shudder – yesterday we traveled left to
right – look closely and maybe you will see our tracks!
• From the true summit of
Macbeth, we followed our
tracks back to grab our
skis and head through the
notch just left of the rocky
East Summit of Macbeth
for a ski descent of the
Naden Glacier back to
our packs…
• Richard leading the way
back across the
bergschrund and over to
Macbeth’s east face and
the Naden Glacier.
• Once back at the packs, we all
agreed that Macbeth is a very
worthy side trip - and Matt and
Richard have the photos to
prove it!
• Finishing the traverse across
the Naden Glacier, we dropped
through a notch and down
Macbeth Glacier – that’s
Macbeth on the left wth a small
subpeak to the right – Couloir
Ridge. We passed between
these two and halfway down
the Glacier, at which point we
crossed the ridge running
diagonally from top right to
bottom left and descended
onto the Iago Glacier, where
this photo was taken.
•
After a long climb up the Iago Glacier, temperatures were really heating up.
Still early in the day, the warming temperatures threatened the safety of our
travel so we hunkered down at the tope of the Iago Glacier for an afternoon
of catching some rays and some light reading…
• About a half hour of exposure to the sun the heat of the
day came in strong… luckily some rocky pinnacles near
camp provided some shade!
• The boys and my
view of the McBride
Range and the upper
Cheakamus valley
from the “snowfa”!
(top photo – Matt Gunn)
(Photo by Richard So)
• Near 5pm the heat calmed a bit and I was able
to check out the view of Cheakamus Mountain
• With an early start
planned for the next
day, we headed off to
bed early, but not
before checking out
the sunset from this
small sub-peak of
Iago Mtn.
• Me, the McBride’s
and a nearly full
moon!
• Freaky over exposed photo included for artistic
merit!
Camp 3 on the Iago Glacier
• Room with a view! That’s Macbeth’s summit in
the background - “hey, weren’t we just there?”
•
With a big day planned, we’d left
camp by 6am to try and get as
much travel as possible in before
it got too hot again. Descending
from our Camp on Iago, we
reached the Diavolo Glacier – the
top photo shows the rocky ridge of
Iago. Our camp was just behind
this ridge. At 6am we dropped
over the ridge at a small entrance
near the middle of the ridge. With
a breakable crust over rotten
spring snow, this 700’ descent was
likely the most difficult I have ever
made on skis, ever! We were
sinking almost knee deep in the
rotten frozen crusty mank and
even resorted to making a few
kick turns on our descent!
•
But with the ugliness behind us,
we resumed ‘the slog’ and made
our way up the Diavolo Glacier
• Today’s Agenda included the summits of Mt. Fitzsimmons, Benvolio
and Overlord. Despite having three days of food, the warm
conditions were making for marginal (at best) skiing, but the
conditions were great for climbing – here’s the S face of
Fitzsimmons after our ascent of the peak on the right…
• After Fitzsimmons, we
summited Benvolio
(top) and Overlord
(bottom) before
traversing above the
Fitzsimmons and
Overlord Glaciers and
back towards Singing
Pass and the Whistler
side of the ski area.
• With the difficulties of the traverse behind us, we
decided that with the conditions for skiing being
less than optimal and a weakening of the high
pressure we had been enjoying, we decided to
make a break for the Singing Pass trail down to
Whistler Village. The Spearhead Traverse is a
true classic, and although many folks will blast
through in a day, taking the time to visit the
peaks along the way was a real treat!
• Looking back on our final descent of the Whirlwind Glacier, despite
the crappy skiing we were having with the warm temps, Whirlwind
actually had some ok spring corn, until it got REALLY heavy!
• Whirlwind peak (in the background) will make a great day trip from
Whistler next winter, anyone wanna join me?
Descending the 14 Km Singing Pass trail in
about three and a half hours, (and only
having to walk about 2 Km due to lack of
snow) we dodged mountain bikers as we
descended into a long weekend Saturday
afternoon in Whistler. Believe me, judging
from the looks we got, the tourists thought
we were crazy walking around in our ski
boots with skis and huge packs. Only in
Whistler I guess…
The End
• Many thanks to Matt Gunn and Richard So
for the fun times! (let me know if you need
some company on your future slogs…)