On April 21-23, I traversed the Spearhead again. At the beginning of April I did it in one day with my dad and I was very excited to return. This time our team was my mom, my dad, my sister(Anna) and I. We had a late start and were at the top of the Blackcomb glacier at 11:45. We climbed the first hill with a crowd, there were 15+ people hiking up to the east col of Blackcomb. On the col my mum and my sister marvelled at the view of the mountains.
I pointed out to Anna where we were going to that night. I described where Mt. Decker, Mt. Pattison and Mt. Tremor are. It took us one hour to ski from the col to Decker lake. This was due to the slushy conditions and the getting used to skiing with heavy packs on. My dad and I were carrying all of the group gear plus our own personal gear(sleeping bags, sleeping mats etc.). I was carrying the gear for training, I will be carrying much larger amounts on Mt. Logan. I had never skied down a slope that steep (though it wasn’t steep) with a forty+ pound pack on, but I needed to practice that too. While skiing down the slope I fell twice, the first I just tipped over, but the second I somersaulted. Luckily those were my only falls for the trip. We skied the unnecessary distance to Decker lake because the end of the glacier is beautiful and my dad thought that we would appreciate it. Once on the lake we took some pictures and ate a snack. Going up Decker we were passing over debris from a cornice fall, that had fallen since our last visit. It was not older than three weeks, but probably older than a week. At the top of this climb we could see far because of the great weather. It was awesome to start the traverse with sun. Skiing down the short couloir took a while. It was tracked and the sun made it sticky. For the Pattison climb we would be going around the longer right way. Last time we took the steeper shorter route. However my dad thought the gentler slope would be better for my family. This climb was extremely hot. The sun radiated off of the snow and onto our skin. I remembered how I burnt my forearms the first time I did the Spearhead Traverse. It had been the closing weekend of the first mountain in 2015. So it was the same weekend as this year(Whistler mountain is now closed). It had also been very sunny and I had pulled up my sleeves. I had a burnt my right forearm. This memory ensured that I wore liner gloves and kept my skin covered. This climb was very slow. My dad had told me at the beginning that I would need to be patient. I breathed through my nose the whole climb and we sat down to wait when we were close to the top. Once we reached the top of our climb the view was incredible.
My dad explained that this was where one of the Spearhead huts was planned to be. I had brought my camera(a Canon Rebel T6). The photos would be much better than my dad’s small point and shoot camera could take. We boot packed up the short steep slope and skied down to our camp site. That ski was the best yet, it had hardened a bit because the sun had left it. We put up our tent and my mom and sister were quick to go in. I stayed out with my dad and we melted snow for water and made dinner. After dinner my sister came out and was amazed by the colour of the sky. She looked out at Mt. Wedge and took photos. That night was fairly windy but there was no snow. I had a pretty good sleep and was ready to start again in the morning.
It was highly overcast, this was good weather. The sun wasn’t out but visibility was still good. When you are in the mountains, you always need to wear sunscreen. Even though it was cloudy, I still wore a sunhat with side flaps, sunglasses and sunscreen. The day before I burnt one part of my face where I missed sunscreen and it blistered.
Going up the Tremor climb we went faster than yesterday because we knew the weather was going to get worse. We planned that if the weather was really bad Saturday morning we would turn around. It was good at the moment so we kept going. That day we were expecting to see two groups we knew pass us. Some family friends and my dads clients for Mt. Logan this year were planning on doing the traverse in a day. We were at the top of the Tremor climb at around 10 am. It was fairly windy so we put on our shell layers and started towards the ripsaw. We could see just to the other side of the Spearhead and spotted a group of six skiing under Overlord and up beside Fissile. They were making good time for their last day on the traverse. Going across the Ripsaw and the Naden glacier took quite a while. My mum and sister weren’t comfortable with the terrain, snow conditions or the weather as it started to snow. By the time we reached the top of the ski that lead to bottom go the Mt. Iago climb, it was very cloudy. My mom had wanted to stop on the Macbeth glacier to camp, but since it was only 1:30 we continued. This ski was steeper than the others and the visibility was bad. My dad lead and I was at the back. We followed him down to the small ridge that went to the Iago climb. On this ridge it was very windy. It was gusting to 60 km/h. The ridge could be deadly if you fell, but it was not very likely. My mom and Anna were pretty scared. This situation made me feel alive. When you are in a dangerous situation and you are scared or nervous, you are much more likely to make a mistake. If you use the nerves to clear your mind, you will be much safer. On this ridge my dad showed us how UV rays come through clouds. This ridge took along time to cross due to everyones nerves. By the time we reached the base of the climb my mom and sister were very tired. This climb felt very long to me. I was in the back and all I could see was the track and people in front of me. At the top we couldn’t see anything so it took a while to find a route to descend. My dad found one and called us down. We took off our skins and my dad headed to the top of the short couloir. Then he realized that it wasn’t the right one. He said that we could walk down it and it would be fine. It was narrow and rocky. My dad carried our skis down most of the way. The wind was gushing up through the rocks, Anna compared it to a waterfall. Once out of the rocks the wind died down, but looking at it the wind and snow was being forced through a small area making it highly pressurized. Skiing down Iago is the steepest slope. We followed my dad and arrived at the bottom. The only reason we knew it was the bottom is because we stopped gliding. We couldn’t see the rocks at the top of the slope.
We set up the tent and my dad set up a kitchen in the vestibule. He dug a hole for his feet to go in, he sat in the tent. We played cards and ate dinner. Our friends contacted us via our InReach to tell us they had turned around at Mt. Pattison, we had assumed as much. That night our tenting spot wasn’t totally flat and I was leaning into Anna. Outside the wind was blowing really hard. Even though I new better I thought that our packs outside might be blown away. In the morning Anna said that she also thought our stuff would be blown away. After eating breakfast we saw that the clouds had lifted a bit. We could see Checkamus mountain and in the other direction, where we had descended the day before. I remembered that the next climb had seemed fairly short last time, but I knew that today would be much slower. After packing up, the clouds were coming in again. We knew that today would be cloudy with some sun. Going up this climb it felt like an oven. We were wearing our base layers and it wasn’t sunny, but it was so hot! The heat was trapped under the clouds. This climb was probably my least favourite of that trip. When we reached the col of Fitzimons and Benvolio the wind was refreshing. We skied one at a time under Benvolio. We skied over lots of cornice fall debris, but we couldn’t see if there was still some cornice above us.
Just before we reached the notch below Overlord we stopped and ate. After taking our skins off we traversed around to the top of the steeper section. I went down first and the skiing was the best of the weekend. It wasn’t sticky or crusty and I was glad to have some enjoyable skiing. After traversing through some cornice fall debris I stopped and we put our skins on. While climbing up the short pitch to the Fissile – Whirlwind col the clouds parted. We could see almost all of the Spearhead. I was really glad that Anna and my mom could see how far they had come. We rested for a while after taking our skins off. I pointed out how pretty Mt. Garibaldi and Checkamus glacier are. Anna loved that view. While skiing down Whirlwind I took pictures of her. I did not like this skiing. I turned slowly because the snow was so sticky.
When we reached the bottom of the very short last climb I didn’t stop. I side stepped the climb. It took less than ten minutes. Because putting skins on and taking them off takes so much time, I was ready to continue before the rest of my family. We reached the top of the Singing Pass trail at 3. We knew this would take a while because of the snow conditions and because my mom doesn’t like the trail. We still took the trail because we thought it would be quicker than ascending Oboe and Flute. It took us two hours to go down the trail. By the end my feet were hurting a lot. When you are at the end of a trip you allow yourself to hurt because you know it is almost done. You don’t need to down play it anymore because you are almost there. We skied down to GLC and ate some delicious apres. The lesson I learned from this trip is that no matter how cloudy it is, put sunscreen on.