Snowshoeing is fun but not meant for long traverses. However, with the Easter long week-end ahead, I was planning to do something challenging and something that I personally had never heard of, do the Spearhead traverse on snowshoes. I had already done the previous year, the Garibaldi Neve which had been a real success, especially by the fact that I had gone with a large group of skiers and they never had needed to wait for me.
My friend Matt had contacted me earlier that week stating that he was also very interested to go climbing for a few days and that the Spearhead traverse seemed a good option.
However, with snowshoes, you cannot take advantage of the backcountry pass therfore we would be required to go counter clockwise by starting on the Whistler mountain side.
When we arrived Saturday morning in Whistler, we realized that overnight parking was going to be impossible. At first, we were going to pay a $25 a night fee to keep the car at the Hilton but Matt remembered that his cousin lived in town and that we could leave the car at her place. This turned out perfect as she lived almost at the bottom of the Whistler Mountain slopes.
We left the car, went across the forest and ended on the slopes our snowshoes. This section was tricky as I knew that the ski patrol would not be happy to us on their turf with snowshoes. Luckily the section was short and fast to traverse. In no time we arrived at the trailhead of Russet lake.
We had started right after lunch as were planning only to go to the hut that day…only the hut. It`s still a very long way up there at this time of the year.. We crossed many friendly and unfriendly skiers on our way up and met some MEC employees right at the singing pass. The funny thing is that one of the girl was the one I had called about for a whole bunch of questions about gear rental.
We finally made it to the hut where another skier greeted us. As usual, the mountain spirit got everyone together, and dinner of noodles and cookies got us all quickly to the bed. The night was however very windy and snow kept coming through the slightly opened window which lead me to wake up covered in white powder.
The next morning we woke up early as I wanted to make it as far as possible on the traverse, ideally all the way between the Ripsaw and Tremor. Of course the goal was also to bag as many peaks as possible.
When we got out of the tent, instantly we knew it was going to be a good day. No wind, no clouds, bluebird sky and warm orange halo covering the mountain.
We packed all our gear as we were not supposed to come back and continue our traverse. The packs were a bit heavy but nothing crazy. However, because of the cold, I had no idea how much of my gas canister was left, which kept me a bit concerned on our ability to melt snow that night.
Our first goal was Whirlwind, fairly close to the hut. The trail was slightly broken into and it did feel a bit like a slog to make it up there. But the views on Garibaldi park and Rainbow mountain kept up motivated and full of energy. The way up to the col was tough but we were rewarded by a fun section right below the summit.
The top was beautiful and gave us amazing views on our future route.
I was originally thinking of doing the ridge directly to Overlord but it felt too tricky at this time of the year. We would go on the glacier and then around north before making it to the top. We had a fun run down to the bottom glacier and decided not rope up as the snow conditions at this time of the year are probably their best.
Once we had to start going back up towards Overlord, the powdery snow made it fairly difficult. The ascent was slow and harsh. About at the foot of the peak, Matt got too tired to go on and asked me if we could cancel this snowshoe attempt of the Spearhead. I was really surprised as it was still early in the day, we had made a great deal of distance and the conditions were perfect. However, if he felt uncomfortable going any further, there was no point of going deeper in the backcountry. He stayed at his location while I was going to attempt a few more peaks.
At first I tried to climb Overlord on the eastern face, but the steepness and poor snow quickly deterred me. Therefore, I decided to go the scrambles route which is the full south face. The wind swept slope made it easy as the snow was very hard. At the top, I could see Matt lower below making himself a snowwall to protect himself from the wind that had picked up.
A few shots, and I decided to head back to Benvolio which was less than a km away. On the way up to this summit, Iwas required to jump a few minor crevasses which was scary since I was alone at this point.
I quickly made it to the top of Benvolio which I considered to be the gates of the deep Spearhead traverse backcountry. Happy with my amazing views but melancholic that the traverse would not be for this week-end. I took a few pictures and looked at the route that I was supposed to do. It`s ok, this will be for next time.
I went back to join Matt, where he had setup himself a comfortable winter camp. We decided to go back to the hut, where at least we would have a warm night and I knew we would be ok with the warter melting situation.
We went back the direct way by going north of Fissile peak wich involved going down some mellow but none less impressive ice falls with deep crevasses.
Back, at the hut, large group of backcountry skiers had joined . From there, we enjoyed another friendly evening where we allowed ourselves to go late to bed since we knew that we would only have to return back to the car the next day.
The last day, instead of going back the way we came up, we decided to the musical bumps. This turned out very challenging as we constantly go up and down, up and down, up and down. It got fairly tricky once we made it to the ski area.
To avoid getting hit by a skier or get a ski patrol agent scream at us, we stayed at the top of the hills, right at the border of the resort. The only tricky past was the traverse all the way back to the main gondola back to the village. To manage, we stayed between the slopes but had to run fast when we had to cross them. We actually met some ski patrol/first aid guys, who seemed to be totally careless that we were on snowshoes.
Back at the gondola, we went down without showing a pass or being asked any questions. After 3 days in the beautiful backcountry, we were back in the village gong show, enjoying with everyone nachos and beer, I was happy but already missing the backcountry.
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