Featured Reports RSS2016-06-27T23:19:00+0000Cliff, Win, Connor, Bala, Oudi, Brian (me) climbed Bakers North Ridge. Leaving Saturday morning we met at the trailhead at 10am and headed up to set up camp on the football field below the Black Butte. We were joined by a second larger BCMC trip heading the Coleman Demming. It was a hot, hot weekend not a cloud in the sky. After a quick dinner and a lot of chit chat with the other group we all crashed about 8pm. 12:15am we rose to a beautiful starry night and set out across the crevasse fields. With out too much trouble we got across those as recent snow had them fairly well covered and the night being cooler the snow was firm. At about 6am we started ascending the North Ridge. reaching the the key ice step a single pitch going anywhere from a WI2+ to WI6 depending where you want to climb. Here the party split into two with Connor leading Oudi & Win up a classic WI4 and Bala taking the second team up a WI3 alpine route (rocks, bad ice etc.) We both topped out onto 50+ degree snow slope and did running belays to the top where we met up again. Solid leads by both Bala and Connor were impressive. From there we hiked down the Coleman Deming to get back to camp about 5pm. Sorted the gear and headed down the mountain. A couple of notes 1) When climbing with Bala please allot time for meet and greets. Everyone knows Bala, Bala knows everyone. (Will Gadd stopped to talk with us "read Bala" last trip) 2) Any BCMC member who happened to ski past us on the decent down CD. Next time be a decent mountaineer and pick up a hitchhiker 3) I don't care how much sunscreen/lip balm you have it isn't enough pack more. 4) be careful things dropped on the north ridge will slide to the parking lot (anyone need a left handed glove just 1) and just because it is dark out when  you get up make sure you grab your sunglasses (thanks again Connor)  Finally I would recommend any of these partners for any trip they are solid climbers and an easy going group.... Read more

]]>2016-06-27T23:19:00+0000A killer work week left me too drained to organize a trip. So Saturday morning I headed out from Vancouver at 8:30 AM - destination Watersprite Lake. With an avalanche rating of considerable in the alpine I was not sure I wanted to ski Martin Peak solo. The road was plowed to the Skookum generating plant. Above that, the south-facing slopes leading to Watersprite Lake winter route were bare of snow. I drove to 800 meters and parked about 300 meters short of the trailhead proper. There was enough snow on the road above that to discourage any adventurous 4WD maneuvers. It was just after 10 AM. Skins on, I was able to ski tour from where I parked. The winter route was in good shape. Some additional clearing of alder in the first kilometer would be of benefit but generally the route was covered and did not require any acrobatics to ascend. Of interest was that there was no evidence of mechanized activity beyond the trailhead. At 1000 meters, the snow depth was approximately one and a half meters of very dense snow. The previous week brought about 30 cm of powder which became denser near the top. It was not ideal for trail breaking but neither was it impossible. It took about 40 minutes to climb to 1000 meters from the parking at 800 meters. The next 70 meters took about 30 minutes as the winter route essentially traverses towards Watersprite Creek. As I approached the creek on the logging road I got a good view of the west ridge of Crawford Peak, which is above the notorious Watersprite Creek swamp on its north side. As my intention was to ski down the proposed Watersprite Lake summer route to the Darling Lake trailhead, it was more in keeping with my general aim than continuing up to the lake. Still, the trailbreaking up to the ridge promised to be a challenge but it is what I came for. I dropped off the logging road before the trail branched off to the swamp. It was a short descent of about 20 meters vertical to reach the creek. There was no crossing so I took off ... Read more

]]>2016-02-21T17:36:00+0000It was another great day in the mountains!   Surprisingly for a weekday there were 3 cars at the trailhead before us.  They didn't go our way to Cayoosh Mtn, Lazy Boy maybe?  It snowed a bit, and the wind was light the whole time.  And we had uptracks to follow from the weekend (?).    Going up from the lower logging road (no alders thankfully) we got a bit high on the rock slide before crossing through the trees, but the going was good.  It got a bit steep, we were side hilling a bit but it worked out ok.  Keeping right we crossed moraine and kept to the left side of the glacier to try to avoid any crevasses that may be inadequately covered.    It was -6 C when we started out at 8 am and it was -6 C at our high point (2350 m) at 12:30 pm (cheap $5 MEC thermometer).   We couldn't complain about the 30 cm+ fresh snow.   Poor visibility prevented a summit attempt, but we didn't care.  Skiing down the untracked upper section was like a dream, seriously.  A party of 3 watched as we tore up the fresh snow.    The rutschblock test we did (fun!) at 2060 m suggested an unyielding snow.  Nothing was moving!  Our probes went down 2 m.  After that, Sebastian discovered a break at 30 cm depth, but you had to work hard to get it to move a tiny bit (CTM 20 or higher).     Looking at the GPS track on Google Earth we did actually cross some crevasses around 2300 m if the historical imagery still applies.  But we didn't notice any dips or changes in the surface snow to suggest there were any crevasse issues and everything was solid.   Taking the shortest route back down, we ended up at the cabin.  We stopped to look inside, then back up to the logging road, and we were at highway level at 2:30 pm, it was a fast day!   Home at 7 pm for dinner.... Read more

]]>2015-12-16T04:26:00+0000Hi !  I'm relatively quite new on this website and Vancouver area. But here is a quick report on the Garibaldi area from a Sunday hike on blackTusk.  Bottom of the area a bit icy following the rain from saturday, few tree log on the track before the first intersection. The snow is getting quite descent after the lake area.Not much to say about snow conditions anyway, since there not many layers to talk about.  Here is few pictures anyway to get a better idea.       Cheers.Guillaume

]]>2015-11-10T06:52:00+0000This amazing area got my attention a year ago.  Looking over from Castle Towers last September, there was this absolutely stunning view of Phyllis Engine and the Sphinx Glacier under a clear blue sky.  I put that image on my screen saver on the first day back, and it was a daily reminder to eventually fulfill my goal of climbing Phyllis. This time promised to be another good one with just a few clouds above us and a good forecast for the remainder of the long weekend.  There were only a handful of vehicles in the Cheakamus parking lot on Saturday morning, and later on we encountered just one other group of three with the same objective as us.  Starting from the trailhead at 7:30 am, we made rapid progress trying out the newly constructed lower section of the Helm Creek trail.  We were wondering how much higher the trail will be re-built, and we thought that the remainder of the old trail seemed to be pretty good already.  Helm glacier was down to bare ice almost to the top, and crevasses were exposed and easy to avoid or jump over, so we decided not to rope up.  We probably could have gone without crampons as well because the ice was a bit crunchy, but we put them on anyway.  About halfway up Polemonium Ridge we decided to take advantage of a local patch of snow for water and camped at 3:30 pm. On Sunday we started out at 6:30 am.  The other group had camped at the top of Helm Glacier and were already an hour ahead of us that day, saying hi as they passed us on the way up.  But then we passed them when they missed the hidden scrambly section and tried to descend off the steep south side of Polemonium ridge.  We didn’t know at that point if there was another way down or not, so we didn’t say anything to them.  They seemed to be stalled on the ridge for a while, maybe they intended to rappel to the talus slope.  By the time we saw there was no easy way down for them on that side, we were too far away to advise them.  We watched them below us as we traversed up the sno... Read more

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