Fissile Peak, NW Couloir, AD-, October 30th 2011

Fissile Peak, NW Couloir, AD-, October 30th 2011 Regardless of what people think, October is a great month to go hiking and mountaineering. You just need the right clothes. Dean picked me up early Saturday morning in Burnaby as we wanted to make it before dark to the the Himmelsback hut on Russet Lake. We then, picked up Leigh in Squamish and were on our way to Whistler. There seems to be lots of changes in terms of free and overnight parking in Whistler Village, this is not a winter option, but we were able to leave the car in lot 4 next to the “berm”(as per their website) at no cost. Once we arrived, we started arranging our gear. We wanted to go fast and light... No rope, harness or protection. Just an ice axe (ice tools for Dean) and crampons. Cooking and sleeping gear....and lots of Gore-Tex. Indeed, we were expecting the worst weather for this week-end, but the call for the wild was just too loud to stay home. Thanks to the Whistler HD webcam, I knew that snowshoes were not yet necessary although maybe useful, the weight did not justify the option. The hike to Singing Pass (trail to the hut), did not start well (10:30 AM). We took the bridge (too excited to be focused) and ended up in the Whistler HQ area...back to square one... Having lost a good 30 min, we finally made it on the right trail, a very long straight line towards singing pass. As we were accumulating the km under our feet, the weather was clearing up. Through the trees we could see glimpses of Blackcomb mountain and Decker mountain. About 3 hours after leaving the car, we made it to Singing Pass, were we met the fast Ubishop from Clubtread. It took us another 90 min, to make it to the hut as the hill between the pass and the lake was a real obstacle since the snow was fairly deep. The advantage of the area is that it is so windy, there are many spots where the snow has been either blown away or frozen hard. By the time we made it to Russet lake, the weather had turned surprisingly pleasant, giving us a great view of our objective for the next day. We arrived at 4:30 PM to the hut, roughly 6 hours after our start from the car. We met two skiers in the hut which allowed us to entertain good conversations all evening. Tired from the week and the hike up, I went to bed at 6:30 since I usually shut down as soon as it gets dark. The night was warm but the hauling winds occasionally pulled us out of our mountaineering dreams. When I woke up at 6:30 the next day (yes, a nice 12 h sleep), the weather was very disappointing. Very foggy and raining, not snowing, raining. The wind was also strong, which kept the rest of my team in their sleeping bag. I manage to annoy them enough to get out of bed and ready, the motivation was growing fast. As soon as we got a glimpse of light, we were off to our climb. It had not dumped that much during the night, but we were in certain spots, knee high snow. We started traversing under Fissile Peak to approach the NW couloir and looking at other future potential new routes. The traverse to he couloir involved crossing several starting ice waterfalls and still active creeks. The snow managed to keep all of this safe (especially with the crampons). Once we arrived on the couloir, although in an almost white out, we got a good understanding of what was going to be the program. The actual couloir seemed to be fairly avi prone and had some debris that were very fresh. We decided to stick next to the rock as much as possible as no snow had accumulated above. Everything was also frozen which kept the crumbly peak well together. The climb was very wet and very windy. The snow was high but we didn`t struggle too much to climb. However, the crampons were accumulating large amounts of snow that had to be constantly knocked off. At one point, an avi exposed traverse had to be done to start going towards the exit of the couloir. It was mostly exposed to wind and a highly improbable avalanche. Dean started the traverse but got completely stuck by the extreme winds and spindrifts, he was completely blinded by the power of the mountain. It took him a good amount of time to get out of this situation where he was able to finish his traverse to make it to a safe spot, in the middle of the face, under a large rock formation. Leigh and Myself quckly followed. Hoerver as Leigh was making his attempt, a large spindrift came rushing down the slope. Not really an avalanche, more like a very cold shower for Leigh. Once we all made it to the oasis of safety, it was a fairly vertical climb to the ridge involving snow and easy rock scrambling. The ice axe was extremely useful and Dean`s ice tools were powerful weapons. Roughly 3 hours after leaving the comfort of our hut,we made it on the stormy ridge. I had thought, that this would have been the easy part, but the winds were so intense that each step was a fight against nature. We slowly made it our way up the ridge with the constant deceptions of it`s many false summits. However as we were climbing our way up, the mountain felt pity for us, and decided to open it`s views and spare the wind. About 10 min before the summit of our climb, the blue skies appeared. The last section before the summit gets slightly trcky, very little snow and a small maze around the rocks to find the perfect route. I traversed on the SW side to find an easy gully to the summit whereas Dean and Leigh went straight to a rocky arete. Once we were all three on the summit, the whole Garibaldi Park opened to us. The views were stunning, especially looking south. We had a quick lunch and tried not to loose too much heat. We walked back taking the standard ridge which is an easy class 3 scramble. It was interesting to see that the Norht Face already starting to accumulate some big cornices. We headed down a gentle snow, all the way to the Fissile bowl. The snow was fairly deep but everything looked very stable. We finally got off the mountain and crossed the plateau of Russett lake. Although we had left at 8 am, it was now roughly 12:30. We gave ourselves 30 min to get ready before we left back to the car. The return to Whistler was very pleasant and very fast. We managed to cover the 15.5km in three hours including a few breaks. The trail was in perfect conditions, plowed snow, soft on the knees and feet. Although, noon had great weather, when we made it back to the car around 4, the weather was now horrendous. But we could not care less... we had done the NW couloir of Fissile and had a beautiful summit.