Skins, Skis and Aching Knees
“I’m concentrating on Ice Climbing this Winter, not Skiing” I foolishly uttered those words to myself last Fall believing I would hold fast in my convictions. I truly believe that if you want to get good at something, not just passably capable, you need to pick one pursuit per season. I’ve consistently broken my own rule in this regard. I’m like that dog in the film “UP” that has all the intentions in the world of doing one thing only, until SQUIRREL! I see a SQUIRREL! Coming into Winter last year I wanted to work solely on my Ice Climbing. It was all going well for a while, we took a 5 day ice climbing course in Canmore, Alberta and we tried to go Ice Climbing near Lillooet, BC for a few weekends but the shiny new skis of my friends kept glinting in the corner of my eyes. You see, when I’d chosen to focus on Ice Climbing, my circle of friends had not received the memo. They’d all chosen to focus on learning to backcountry ski. I staved off looking at that Squirrel for a few trips, whilst I wallowed through the powder in my démodé snowshoes. But eventually I couldn’t take it any more. I caved. MEC, our outdoor gear mecca, was clearing out of all their Ski gear for their Spring stock and had slashed their prices. Myself and my other half went in and bought everything we needed; skis, skins, boots and bindings. We already had ski poles and avalanche gear but still, it was a big chunk of change to get going. After the dust settled and we had our newly acquired Alpine Touring Ski setup laid out in our spare bedroom cum walk-in-gear-closet we wondered “now what?” Our friends, who had been touring on their skis all winter, invited us on an overnight trip to attempt a couloir on the East face of Atwell Peak. We wouldn’t be skiing this gully, only skinning up to it and then boot packing our way up to the summit. Nevertheless, just getting to the campsite below the base of Atwell, ~32 kms return with ~2000m’s of elevation gain, would be a big undertaking, seeing as this would be our first time in the backcountry on touring skis. We were apprehensive but I knew that the first half of the route is a common trail for beginner backcountry skiers, leading to the Elfin Lakes Hut. If we felt like we were way out of our depth by the hut we could always temper our plans, stay at the Hut for the night and spend the next day practicing our backcountry...
Ice Climbing, The Rambles: A Photo Essay
Recently we drove a few hours North in search of good Ice to climb near the Gold Rush town of Lillooet, BC. We weren’t hopeful as the conditions over the previous few weeks had not been favorable. In the 11th hour we received word that The Rambles, an area about a 30min drive South of Lillooet, was “in” meaning the ice could still be climbed. We booked a cheap Motel in Lillooet, crammed all our climbing gear into the back of our friend, Adriens, SUV and were off. Myself and Spring both popped our leading an Ice cherries over the weekend and loved it. Below is some of the photos we took over our two days there....
One Year Ago: Slalok Mountain
Last December Leigh and I decided to take advantage of a good weather window and make an attempt of the NF of Slalok in the Joffre Group. This was going to be a day trip and it was going to be a long one! The alarm went off at 3:00am and shook me from sleep. I kept thinking it was too early to head out into the cold dark morning, but if we wanted to summit that day and still make it back home in time for a late dinner we need to get out on the road. Hesitantly we got ourselves up, dressed and ready to go. Stepping outside the moon seemed unusually bright, but the fact that we could see the moon would bode well weather-wise for the remainder of the day, so off we went. To save time we decided to skip eating breakfast at home (or making lunch) and go for the traditional Canadian experience and get a drive-thru Timmy’s. Unfortunately as we soon found out they do not serve breakfast before 5:00am, so we ordered bagels for breakfast and bagel sandwiches for lunch(as they didn’t have rolls ready for sandwiches)….mmm this was going to be a bagel filled day. Heading north up the Duffy in the dark the conversation often turned to how tired we felt, how dark it was, how cold it was; but we kept driving. Once pulling into the Joffre Lakes car park, knowing that the estimated temperature for the day was supposed to dip to -20c, we stepped out in the frigid cold and started to layer up. With numbing fingers we both looked at each other and Leigh said “Are you feeling it?” Deep down I thought about the comfort of my warm bed at home and how if we turned around right then I could be back in bed within 2 hours. But I knew I would regret not attempting the peak more than I would regret not getting back into bed, so putting on a brave face I said “Let’s just check it out, we’ll start feeling better once the sun comes up.” The trail to the upper lake was uneventful, just plodding along trying to follow the trail markers in the dark and continually moving forward in hopes of reaching the warmth of the sun. Upon reaching the upper lake we could see some ski tracks headed across the lake tending towards the shore, rather than straight across. It was still early in the season and wanting to save time but still be smart about it, we decided to makes tracks across the lake as close to the shore...
Hurley Silver Mine
Sometimes it’s nice to tag along on a trip and not really do anything to plan it. It’s too easy nowadays to completely destroy any discovery when exploring a new area by doing research online. Most places will have pictures of everything on the route, 360’ video panoramas, HD Satellite imagery available in Google Earth, with detailed reports describing every step of the way. (I’m aware of the irony of writing this and posting it online). This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes it’s nice to discover an area fresh without any previous knowledge of what to expect. So mid last week I received word that a friend wanted to explore the “Hurley Silver Mine” area and potentially summit “Hurley Silver Peak”. I’d remembered reading something about it, and vaguely knew it was off the Duffy Lake Road so I agreed. I’ve never been on a bad hike that started from the Duffy Lake Road. Saturday morning seen four of us heading North, past Whistler, then Pemberton and along the Duffy. We passed the pullouts for all the popular weekend spots for sledders and skiers and they were packed. Why wouldn’t they be, conditions were awesome and the weather was forecast for bluebird skies. I worried that our chosen area would also be overrun by skiers and sledders also. Nearing our parking spot I seen it was empty with only an old pickup parked up the road. My friend, Adrien, mentioned that we had to be dropped off at the parking area and that Ben, the driver, would need to park about a kilometer away as there was rumours that a First Nations man might vandalize our vehicle if we parked nearby. Turns out there used to be a proper, drivable bridge that crosses Cayoosh Creek which runs parallel to the Duffy Lake Road for a while, but it washed out some years back. Since then a new footbridge has been installed, purportedly by this First Nations man who lives on the opposite side of Cayoosh Creek, the side we’d need to cross over to before heading along the Hurley Silver Mine road towards our objective. He has been reported as blocking peoples attempts to cross this bridge. Whether or not these rumours are lore, past tense or true didn’t matter. It was better to err on the side of caution rather than risk a possible confrontation. We unloaded, moved the car a safe distance away, geared up, then quickly scurried across the footbridge and along the road. The footbridge instantly meant we wouldn’t be listening to the obnoxious sound and smell of sleds for the weekend. We...
Mt. Rainier
The highest point I had been too before I attempted Mt.Rainier was the summit of Wedge Mountain at 2892m’s, in Garibaldi Provincial Park, B.C., and I remember feeling a keen sense of achievement at having scaled that height. Just knowing that it was the highest summit in the park made it feel like more of an achievement for me, like I had conquered some invisible force, a force that as you reach higher becomes more and more oppressive. Rainier, which stands at just over 4300m’s (14,411ft), was now going to be the tallest mountain I had climbed to date. Despite the many mountaineering trips I had taken in the last few years, the trip to Mt. Rainier felt like something outside of the scope of anything I had known. This was a big mountain and it felt like it deserved a deep respect of it’s own. “….the most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings.” - John Muir As I stood at the Paradise visitor centre looking up at Mt. Rainier on that hot August afternoon, I couldn’t help thinking of how close it seemed. It looked no farther than a stone’s throw away. Rainier just stood there in all it’s glory, streaks of grey rock showing through the late summer snow, deep crevasses gouging the glacier that tumbled down within my view, brightly colored wild flowers dotting the grassy meadows in the foreground. Standing alone in all it’s immensity with no concern for the tiny creatures standing below looking on in awe; standing there thinking that we could somehow conquer this mass of stone and ice. But as usual the mountain doesn’t care that we are there or that we care to struggle and gasp our way up it’s flanks. It is just there, and it was in my own mind that I felt this sense of the mountains willingness to accept us, allowing us to pass and giving me the opportunity to test myself. I remember looking at the winding path that made it’s way in the direction of Camp Muir, comparing it to previous hikes in my mind, thinking it wouldn’t take long at all. The mountain after all looked so close, like a super-imposed image on a screen, but no matter how long I walked that image remained the same distance away. My sense of scale was becoming more and more obscured. At that moment I remembered a quote I had seen in an outdoor store earlier that year regarding the Himalaya, it said “everything is so much bigger and so much farther away than you can imagine”....
