Monarch Icefield: Preparation

Soon enough (too soon, or not soon enough, depending on if I have looked at the to-do list recently), we will head out to the Monarch Icefield. The idea is to fly in to the south end of the icefield and then do a "roving basecamp" style of traverse, where we have a few days in each location to hopefully bag some peaks and do some skiing before moving north to the next camp. It will be about 50km total with full loads, and 1 day of (most likely type 3) fun at the end.

I'll keep updating this blog post as the trip preparation progresses.

Food:

3 people x 3,500 cal/day x 14 days ~=140,000 calories...which is a lot of food.  Currently it is in a pile on the kitchen table.

Fuel:

I've talked about our winter stove setup before, but it's awesome.  Based on past trips we are very comfortable with 100 mL PPPD, which is about 30% less than what most people advise.  That is a huge weight savings with this length of trip, and more than pays back the weight of the accessories we use.  Plus, our water boils faster.  Check it out here.

Maps:

I've spent some (a lot) of hours on Photoshop merging together the relevant NTS maps for the icefield.  One thing I learned: the UTM grid is not one grid, it is many, with different origin points.  The center of the icefield is about where the grid switches, unfortunately, so half of the map is UTM Grid Zone 9, the other half is Zone 10.  I also overlaid John Baldwins routes and peak bagging recommendations from the bible.

Monarch Icefield Composite Map    (downloadable, but note this map is fullsize and 560MB)

Gloves:

Can a person take too many gloves?

Mt Baker Easton Glacier

Spring season is off to a good start.  Mount Baker is a climb that has eluded us twice now - the first time, more than 4 years ago now, we didn't do enough research on road conditions before heading out and effectively ended any chance of a summit before we put on our (very heavy telemark) boots. The second time, the year after, we got much higher before a specific lack of pointy equipment and general lack of HTFU ended the attempt.



So we put it on the backburner.  It's been a few years of getting smarter and faster, and this weekend the conditions looked right, so we just packed up and went.  It's amazing what those years of experience can do - we just cruised right up the mountain, summitted, had an excellent ski down, and went home.  It was delightful.  No discomfort*, no fatigue, no one used the word "epic".














Some beta:

We went up the Easton Glacier route.  At this point in the season the road was melted out up to the "no wheels past this point" sign, which is about 3.5km from the campground.  We skinned up the road and a few extra km towards the base of the Easton glacier, and pitched a tent before it got steep.

We didn't bother getting up too early, since we wanted to ski down on soft snow.  The route up the Easton glacier is well used by snowmobiles, and this weekend was no exception.  Aside from the mosquito-like sense of harassment, this does make for fast travel - we did not ever feel the need to rope up, what with any possible crevasses being thoroughly tested by these winter skidoos.  The last pitch adjacent to the Roman wall is pretty steep, and we ended up bootpacking to the summit - there is a looming crevasse below this, so an earlier arrival and frozen conditions might have required some more caution or protection.  In our case, we had perfect conditions for the climb.  The ski down was firm but nice at the top, amazing in the middle, and mushy/refrozen snowmobile gnar at the bottom, depending on where the shadows were.

Once back in the forest, the ski out proved to be the hardest part of the day.  It seems grooming season is over, so the snowmobile tracks were wall-to-wall, and a spectacular demonstration of how bad these pump tracks can get.  The road is also a little too shallow to glide down, so in addition to the quad workout you get a lot of poling practice.

Overall an excellent day and a recommended route (snowmobiles not required).

*sunburned nose excluded

A Stiff Kootenay Pass

With the avalanche forecast jacked almost everywhere this Family Day weekend, we headed down to the abnormally safe looking Kootenay Pass.  This meant fairly "stiff" conditions, but skiing is better than not.



We also used the opportunity to check out some future routes (my eye is on the Muffin) and boost our general knowledge of the area.  Plus, we found some good snow in sheltered areas and managed to put in a few short but fun runs.

Mt Macpherson (almost)

Traditionally Caroline and I try to celebrate our anniversary on the summit of something.  Something impressive.  I'm not sure we have ever actually succeeded (I'll blame typical late January BC weather), but we definitely have good stories from each attempt.

We had a great day out on Mt Macpherson this past weekend, heading up towards the Burnt knob and then continuing towards the summit.  We ended up turning back on the final bench when we started seeing some reactive slabs, but the ski down was untouched and some of the best powder I've had all winter.  With current conditions, I highly recommend this route - I'm not sure The Fingers will be in great shape with their exposure until there is more snow.

SMCC Bow Hut Training Camp

So, big news: I have managed to squeak onto Canada's National Development team for Ski Mountaineering racing.  I found out when I got invited to their first training camp of the year, held at the Bow Hut on the Wapta Icefields.  More info on the team and the sport in Canada can be found here:  ACC Skimo National Team

This was awesome news for me, and the camp was a great way to kick start a big training block heading into the season.



It was a packed long weekend.  I went in to the hut on Thursday with two others, and on Friday we were able to get in a few laps under Crowfoot mountain (we attempted the summit but were turned back by icy conditions)  Navigation was surprisingly tricky with extremely flat light and a shallow snowpack, but the runs that did exist were really good.  The second time down was even better, with a few tracks to give some depth to the terrain.





Saturday the whole group roped up and bagged Mt Gordon, straightlined it back down and then spent the remainder of the day putting in meters above the hut.  Again, not the prettiest conditions but really fun skiing.









Sunday we left our packs at the hut and skiied down to run a few more laps under Crowfoot before returning to the hut for our gear and making our exit.





Overall I put in about 5,500 meters in 3-1/2 days and had untouched powder for almost all of those meters on the way down.  Not a bad way to spend a few days.  Thanks to the ACC and the national team for the opportunity - I'm very excited.

Now I need to get back to training.

Mount Baker Attempt 2 of 3

Well.  Last year we tried to climb Mount Baker.  For a lot of reasons, it did not go well.  It barely went at all, really.  This year we tried to learn from all those lessons:

- ascend in the spring, so less snow issues, crevasses are still full, and tons of daylight
- make sure the access road is drivable before you leave the house
- allow a lot of extra time so that you can adapt to weather and other unforseen issues

We did all that.  We were feeling great.  Really prepared.

Then, the weather forecast lied.  3 times.  The border crossing took hours and hours. The access road washed out and was undrivable 3 days before we got there.  The same rain that washed out our planned access road also washed most of the snow off of the secondary access road....except for a big, deep, undrivable patch 2 km before we could start skiing.  We finally made a break for the summit when the fog lifted, only to discover that the forecast had been wrong yet again, it was much colder than we expected, and we no longer had appropriate gear to ascend safely.

So next year, I guess.

A more formal trip report:

Maps: National Geographic 1:100,000 "North Cascades" (MEC) and USGS 1:24,000 "Mount Baker" (shows complete Heliotrope ridge route, does not show the complete Easton Glacier route)

Access:  Heliotrope ridge access road is shut within 1km of the main highway.  Totally impassable, and the locals do not estimate a quick fix.  Look here for updates (#39, Glacier Creek road).  We ended up using the Easton Glacier route, access is just past Baker Lake (FSR's #12 and #13 off of Baker Lake road).  At this point this season, the road was almost drivable right to the trailhead.  If we had been 5 days earlier, we would have parked 3km away and skinned the whole way.  As it was, we parked 3km away and had to walk 2 of them due to lack of snow.

Route:  We followed the well used snowmobile route up to the easton glacier moraine.  Protip:  bring a case of beer to bribe a snowmobiler for a lift.  This section is long, boring, and full of snowmobiles.  Try to avoid melting snow for water from here, unless you like motor oil aftertaste.

We camped in the moraine at about 853975 (truncated UTM: see section 3 here for details).

We were planning on getting to high camp the next day, but barely made it out of the moraine before soupy fog rolled in. With zero visibility and crevasses on the mind, we spent the rest of the day in the tent.

The next day started at around 4am. The Easton glacier is very straightforward, with a huge, nearly unbroken highway right up to the summit cone.  At this point this season, the crevasses were either non-existent or almost completely filled in.  While we ascended with ropes on, another party did not and we were very confident to ski down unroped. On this day it was much colder than expected, and the previous days mush had turned to ice.  Without crampons, we ended up turning around at ~2600m - the final route up the summit cone was significantly steeper than the rest of the glacier and the icefall below did not look like a fun place to slide into.  We made it out the same day without difficulty, although as soon as we were back in the moraine the temperature raised by about 30 degrees.

Finally out of the moraine.

After a day in the tent, the clouds cleared on Sunday night.

Early morning start, but the sun was up at 4am.

Skis and skins not much use: ski crampons would have been useful.

Heading up the Easton highway.  Our final route would have been to the right side of the summit cone.

Not a bad backdrop.

Full set here.

Mount Baker Winter Ascent: Epic Fail

Every year for our anniversary we try to plan a trip to the mountains, and try and summit something.

The first year we went to the whistler backcountry.  Our "summit" wasn't an actual summit, and our "sunrise" was behind some clouds, but it was a great trip.

The second year, to the Callaghan valley.  This trip was not so good.

This year, we figured we would go big.  Mount Baker.  Not much bigger around here, anyways.

We started with a master plan.  And like always, it was much too big of a master plan.  My team at work was taking Friday off to go skiing at Whistler and we'd been looking at going to Mount Baker to ski tour for the weekend.  Why not do both?  Ski Friday, get up early Saturday, head to Baker, bag the peak Sunday morning in time to head home for work on Monday.

This sounded great, but meant that we spent the whole week packing, planning, re-packing, researching, shopping....everything but Triathlon training.  And we hit Friday completely exhausted.  We spent most of Saturday recovering, and then got up early on Sunday to head out.

[Note: this trip is usually done in the summer, to avoid extra gear and the typically bad weather on Baker throughout the winter.  This weekend had unseasonable amounts of sun and sky forecasted, so we decided to go for it]

First lesson: the access road is gravel in the summer.  In the winter, it is a groomed snowmobile trail.  This added 7-8 miles of skinning uphill on an access road to our day.

Second lesson: snowmobilers do not offer rides.

Third lesson: as the route is a summer route, the bridges over creek crossings are actually taken out over the winter.

Fourth lesson: crossing a creek in winter ski touring gear is difficult

Fifth lesson: not only are the bridges taken out, but all signage and trail markers are as well.

All in all, we ended up travelling 22 km, climbing almost 800 metres of elevation, and crossing 2 creeks.  We made it approximately 800 metres past the trailhead.

Maybe next year we'll book a helicopter or something.