The Spearhead Traverse May 14-17

1. The Spearhead TraverseMay 14-17 • Blackcomb to Whistler Mountains • Approx 25Km of Alpine Travel • One of the Premier ski tours in BC’s Coast Range!

2. 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…

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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!

7. 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)

8. Matt and the Fitzsimmons Range.

9. 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!

10. Here’s Tremor from the Summit of Shudder Mtn. Those are our turns from the summit!

11. 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!

12. 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…

13. 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!

14. 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…

15. Looking up the Naden Glacier towards the saddle over to the Curtain Glacier. That’s Mt. Macbeth’s East summit just above my skis…

16. 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.

17. 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!!!

18. Richard making the final approach to Macbeth’s summit.

19. The happy summit party - Mt. Macbeth

20. 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!

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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…

24. 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!

25. The boys and my view of the McBride Range and the upper Cheakamus valley from the “snowfa”! (top photo – Matt Gunn)

26. Near 5pm the heat calmed a bit and I was able to check out the view of Cheakamus Mountain (Photo by Richard So)

27. 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!

28. Freaky over exposed photo included for artistic merit!

29. Camp 3 on the Iago Glacier

30. Room with a view! That’s Macbeth’s summit in the background - “hey, weren’t we just there?”

31. 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

32. 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…

33. 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.

34. 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!

35. 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?

36. 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…

37. 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…)