In the footsteps of Elves: Brunswick Mountain, NE Gully
“Will I set my alarm for 5am or 6?” I thought. “Suppose I better set it for 5, there’s no where to park on Georgia St in Vancouver if he’s early and I’m late.” My friend, Dean, was going to be picking me up at 6am across from the Vancouver Art Gallery on Sunday morning. I’m not going to say he’s usually late, more, he’s playfully liberal with punctuality. I appreciate it though as I’m seldom wholly ready on time either. I’d be heading out sans Spring, my better half, as she would be running the BMO Marathon. We agreed that she did not want me to burn a weekend waiting around at the finish line. So, Saturday, myself and Spring headed into the Big Smoke of Van city. We checked into the Four Seasons as they offer a runners rate for those in the Marathon. It’s funny how quickly cities and fancy hotels have moved out of our wheelhouses. Walking into the lobby with my mountaineering pack received skewed glances to say the least. So Sunday morning rolled around. Luckily myself and Spring needed to be up around the same time. The weather outside looked amazing so I got ready, wished Spring good luck (not that she’d need it) and headed out. As I took the elevator down, with a throng of runners, an older gentleman was staring at the metal accoutrements affixed to my pack. As everyone vacated the lift in the lobby he put a heavy hand on my shoulder and leaned in to say “Good Luck Sir, it looks like you are about to do something serious today.” It was kinda weird, but I said “ok, thanks!” and left. I was a few minutes late so I rushed down to the road. About a minute after I got there I seen Dean coming up Georgia towards me. Karmically, I felt the day was starting out good. We made good time to the trailhead. Dean wondered why I was not staying back to see Spring at the finish line. It’s understandable, but we just don’t roll like that. New experience trumps sentiment almost always. Later Spring would tell me that as she ran the Seawall in Vancouver she looked over at the North Shore mountains and pictured me climbing. As I looked out over the Howe Sound towards the glittering skyscrapers of the city I too pictured her running. Anyway, we arrived at the usual parking spot in Lions Bay and geared up. We headed out and made quick time up an old road. As we hiked Dean regaled me with stories of how he used...
Empetrum Peak: A Photo Essay
For most people seeing a forecast of straight sunshine through the weekend would be reason enough to jump up and click their heels. It usually would for ourselves also if it wasn’t for the unseasonably warm weather pushing the freezing level way up. Freezing level is important to the Spring time Mountaineer. Ideally a Mountaineer wants the freezing level to be at least at the elevation of the beginning of the route to ensure the snow will be firm and relatively stable to move across. With the freezing level way higher than any of the mountaineering routes we had our eyes on we changed our plans. Empetrum Peak had been on my mind for a while. The peak itself is relatively benign and getting to the summit is pretty straight forward from most aspects. Some mountains are interesting in and of themselves, while others, like Empetrum, are interesting, at least to me, because of the vantage point they offer on other mountains in the vicinity. Empetrum sits just North of the ubiquitous and aptly named “Black Tusk”, a volcanic plug that is an icon of Southwest British Columbia. From this vantage point you can see Mount Garibaldi, directly to lookers left and Mount Tantalus, directly to lookers right of the Tusk, both iconic mountains themselves. I planned for us to spend the night on the summit to see the sunset and sunrise. Being North of the Black Tusk would allow us to see it’s West face painted at sunset while it’s East face would be dark, and then vice versa at sunrise. From a photographic point of view I really like this stark contrast of light and shadow on mountains. One consolation of the high freezing levels was that the temperature on the summit of Empetrum Peak was forecast to be mild with low winds so myself and Spring chose to sleep out under the stars in bivy sacks and forgo bringing a tent. I find a tent to be a mental crutch sometimes, a little piece of civilized space that we bring out into the wilderness with us so that we can escape the wild when we feel at our most vulnerable whilst sleeping. Whenever possible I try to bivy as that connection with nature is never broken. Through the night I’d stir awake and be free to gaze across at the silhouette of the mountain ranges in view and the countless stars above me. The security that is lost from not having a tent is more than made up for in the sense of freedom that is gained. We made two new friends on this trip, Jess and Hailey....
Chivalry in the Mountains
This post may ruffle a few feathers but it’s written with the intent to start a conversation rather than create an argument. I want to be very clear from the outset that I’m not saying people shouldn’t be chivalrous. I am saying that a male should be equally chivalrous to other males as well as females when it comes to being in the Mountains. The Modern Western male is all about gender equality. However, some men still make caveats to this equality. They feel it is necessary to hold on to the old gender roles that they tell themselves “benefit Women”, we like to call this “Chivalry” or “Gallantry”. You might say that if it isn’t hurting anyone then why stop? The male wants to do it and the female appreciates the kindness and attention. In a normal social context I’d wholeheartedly agree. Facing the elements and risking your life in the mountains is not a normal social context however. The problem is that in an arena (eg. Mountaineering, Climbing) were a female needs to be equal to a male not only socially, but mentally and physically it does hurt them. It stunts their progress. Progress a male easily makes because nobody is trying to be “nice” to them and inadvertently holding them back. My wife, Spring, is strong. She can run farther and faster than me. Carries a greater percentage of her body weight than me on her back when backpacking and rarely complains about the cold even though, as a female, she feels it more than males. But, even though she has all of these qualities, she frequently confides in me that she doesn’t want to feel like she is a “burden” on the male members of our groups. I often questioned why I don’t feel this way. If I’m slower than some in the group I accept it. If I’m faster I make allowances for those that are slower. I carry my share of the weight and look after myself. Why would Spring feel she could be a burden on the males in the group? Then I seen it. At times some males in groups we would be in would offer to assist or help Spring way more than they’d offer to help other males (even the ones that appeared slower or weaker than her). When we’d take turns carrying our ropes up a mountain some males would insist that Spring should not have to carry it. Now, I know all of these males meant well and our society has brought men up to feel they need to be like this to be a “Gentleman”, and, like I said, in a purely...
Rohr lives up to name. Everyone surprised.
“Ugh! That Whiskey Jack ate my loogie” Cody sat on the remnants of the column of snow that he’d dug out to do a Snow Stability test. A persistent weak layer that had formed near the beginning of the month was lingering. The column had serendipitously split just high enough to make for a nice high perch to sit on as he scarfed down some calories. Spring joked “You look like a King on his throne…yeah… *low voice* Winter is Coming!“. Much to her chagrin nobody, but I, got her Game Of Thrones reference so she let it slide, no pun intended. Cody, living up to his net nom de plume as “The Camel”, hocked a loogie into the snow beside him. Within seconds it froze solid, within a few seconds more a keen eyed Gray Jay swooped down and flew away with that frozen morsel to a nearby branch to devour it. Slightly disgusted but amused by this scene it had at least taken our thoughts away from the weather for a moment. A low ceiling of cloud hung close above us, winds were picking up and it was intermittently hailing and snowing. We’d made it just above the treeline and from here on out we’d be climbing further and further into the clouds and the reduced visibility they promised. This wasn’t the Spring day I had imagined. This felt more like a day during the depths of Winter. Once again this troupe had been caught on the hop in the unpredictable weather of the shoulder seasons. We packed up again and continued on. I couldn’t help but laugh. The last time the four of us, myself, Spring, Ben and Cody, had been out in the mountains together was last Fall. We had attempted, and reached, the summit of Mount Frosty. Back then we had gauged for warmer Fall weather. What we got however was the birth pangs of Winter, with temperatures below -15’c, a biting wind, and a fair amount of fresh snow on the ground. Frosty had lived up to its name, it was in fact very frosty. Fast forward through Winter and finally, in the beginning of Spring, all our schedules aligned so that we could get out again together. In town the weather had been warm, it hadn’t snowed at sea level in months and, at times, it felt more like Summer weather than Spring. So, when I was packing for Mount Rohr, I packed for warm, Spring conditions. What I got however was the death throes of Winter. As we traversed above two lakes heading to the base of Mount Rohr we’d get...
Joffre, Matier and personal milestones
On Easter long weekend, a year ago in 2012, we wanted to do something that would test our ability but would also be enjoyable and mostly fun. A few ideas had been thrown around. The Garibaldi Neve traverse? The Spearhead traverse? All of which seemed like a lot of hard work. We decided to do something a little bit more laid back, have a campsite we wouldn’t have to move for 2 nights and bag some reasonably close mountains with only moderate amounts of elevation gain. We decided on doing Joffre Peak via the Aussie Couloir and Mount Matier via its northeast spur . Fast, light parties can easily bag both of these peaks as a day trip car-to-car, but we decided to spread it out over 3 days and 2 nights. We’d consider doing other mountains in the vicinity also depending on where we’d get to build our camp. Information we received on the way in would ultimately dictate our camps location, more on that later. We arrived at the Cerise Creek Trail Head after 11:30am on the Friday. It was going to be a relatively lazy day so we didn’t push to get there super early. As I swung my ~40lb pack onto my back and started out on the trail I thought how relaxing this weekend was going to be. The weather was awesome and the trail in was nice and broken so we could move at a brisk pace. As we hiked in I started to think back to around the same time of year in 2010 and how much things had changed. Two years ago almost exactly from that weekend I was packing the last of my items into my suitcase and getting ready to leave Ireland for good and move to Canada. I look back on that person and wonder who he was. He was over 70lbs heavier and his interests could be described with one word; sedentary. He’d never touched a glacier, words like couloir, bergschrund and randkluft were unknown to his vocabulary and he could barely climb a few flights of stairs without getting winded. A relaxing holiday was lying on a beach in Thailand, sipping Margaritas and munching on crocodile samosas. Anyway, I continued to think back for a while, and before I knew it we were outside Keiths Hut near Cerise Creek. I’d initially thought to just stop for a second outside it, drink some water, then continue on but I remembered that I was bringing my, then, new MSR Reactor Stove with me and I hadn’t even bothered to test it out yet to see if it was working. So...
