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...
Pelion Mountain: Pupils of Chiron
Pelion Mountain, like most of the peaks in the Tantalus range was named according to a Greek god theme… It was by legend one of the last holdouts of the race of centaurs in the Archaic era, and was where Herakles (Hercules) was tutored by the wise centaur Chiron, who was known for his learning. - bivouac.com On Saturday, the 12th of May, Dean along with Adrien, two climbing friends of myself and Spring pulled up outside our place in Squamish around 9am. Our goal for the weekend would be Mount Pelion in the Tantalus Range. From the pickup spot we could see bluebird skies over Alpha, Omega and Thyestes, the stoke was high. Myself and Spring quickly loaded our gear into Deans Jeep and headed out. We started out on the Sigurd Creek trail shortly after 10am. We’d be snow pitting it so we didn’t have tents. Nevertheless, I’m sure each of our packs weighed around 50lbs at least with all the heavy metal you need to carry for mountaineering. We tried to move as fast as possible on the trail. We got within 700m’s of the first checkpoint, a lookout at ~900m’s elv. before the snow started. Thankfully it was still early enough in the day that the snow was still firm and held our weight. We would not be as fortunate on our return trip. I was glad we were still under the tree canopy for another few km’s. The heat in the open was stifling. We roughly followed the summer trail and in no time at all we were at the Sigurd Creek crossing. Good news! The bridge that had been in disrepair in seasons past was still intact. Bad news… we had no way of using it due to high snow banks. We contemplated a few options, but I think everyone wanted to use a snow bridge of some kind if possible rather than expending the energy to try and make a means to cross the creek. We followed the banks of the river for a while upstream before we came to what seemed like a recently collapsed snowbridge. It looked iffy I won’t lie. It was compromised underneath by the running water and softening up quickly in the sun. Dean crossed it first to test it. Then I, as I’m the heaviest in the group. This was referred to as “Leigh-proofing”. The bridge passed my test and everyone else crossed without incident. In no time from there we were below the glacier between Ossa and Pelion. We headed up to climbers left of of the glacier and onto the NW ridge. At...
Mt. Baker, N. Ridge: Anatomy of an Attempt
“At one point or another we’ve all cited percentages or experience levels and shrugged away risk. Given reasons for why it can’t happen to us, why it won’t happen…” I lay awake, semi in and out of my sleeping bag. It’s hot. I’m trying to sleep as I know I need to be awake and alert again in a few short hours. I want so bad for the temperature to drop, so that I can sleep, so that the snow underneath my tent and for miles around me will firm up. But there’s no wind, no sound, just dry, dead air and the dying light of the day. I’m listening to a podcast called “The Dirtbag Diaries” on my mp3 player. This episode is called “Anatomy of an Accident”. In it the author details a near fatal accident he had high in the mountains in a steep icy gully, he examines the simple mistakes he made during that trip early on that had a domino effect eventually leading to his accident. “Geez, this is the last thing I need to be listening to right now!” I say to myself. I hear a serac calve off Colfax in the distance, the impact shatters the silence across the entire mountain. It’s not the first serac we’ve seen or heard fall this day. “Maybe this is exactly what I should be listening to right now…” I let this episode finish and then try to get some sleep. It’s fitful, it never seems to get dark outside, the temperature is always uncomfortably hot and before I know it, it’s 2am and time to get up and ready. I give Dean and Adrien a wake up call. Spring is already up. Everyone moves in silence, boiling water, eating whatever calories we can paw at in the dull light, getting our harnesses on, prusiks dressed and checked, clipping all our gak where ever it will fit. We split into two rope teams of two and head out into the eerie glow of the near full moon to cross the Coleman Glacier. Only minutes have passed and we’re already jumping the first of a plethora of unavoidable crevasses, ice axes at the ready to arrest any sudden snow bridge collapses. I think to myself “I didn’t even need that coffee this morning, this is enough of a wake up”. At times it feels like tiptoeing past sleeping giants. Huge pillars of broken ice the size of houses, yawning crevasses the depths of which my 100 lumen headlamp can’t even attempt to see to the bottom of. As I inch across one of a few 3 foot wide...
