Mount Hood July 18th 2010

Ingredients:

2 very motivated climbers with a bit a of non-sense
A car
A whole bunch of gear you won t need
48 h
Lots of gas
An appetite for Fast Food
Coffee
About $100

After climbing Mont Blanc 2 weeks ago (with Bonn-Tien), I felt I still needed some high elevations as I always love to be high. I had already climbed Baker so it felt like a natural transition to attempt Mount Hood. The weather has been fantastic these last weeks and the reports about the South Route of Mount Hood were excellent. It was necessary to take the Old Chute variation but the level of difficulty seemed to still be in my range.

Looking for a partner (rare at this time of the year since everyone is out of town), I posted a thread on the VOC trip board, and after 24 h got a response from Mohammed, which I had met on my February Sphinx trip. He was even more motivated than I was to climb this summit as this was his first American volcano. We talked about the dates and the logistics and set the departure for Saturday morning at 6:30 am. Unfortunately Bonn-Tien was going to miss out on this one as she decided to ditch me and go tubing near Princeton. I understood as she has been climbing all spring and summer and was probably tired of snow and ice. But I just can t get enough of that white stuff!

Mohammed arrived exactly on time Saturday morning. We had a very smoothed border crossing and were in the USA at 8 AM. Once we arrived at Seattle, the weather got clouded which got me a bit nervous but also surprised as the weather forecast was excellent. Fortunately as soon as we arrived in Oregon the weather was super sunny and we had great views on Mount Hood, hopefully we would get to see Mount Rainier and Mount Saint Helen on our way back. There was a lot of traffic but we still managed to make it to camp by 16:30, roughly 10 hours after our departure, including breaks and border crossing. We went to the tacky touristy Timberline Lodge which was fairly dirty and crowded. In the summer lodge, there is a climber’s registration room, where we put in all our information and picked up our free permits. Those permits are to be put on your pack. They have all your information and reminded me as a body tag, something that would allow them to identify me if I were to fall off the North face of Mount Hood.

We found a cool camp ground about 1 km under the Timberline lodge, quite small but very convenient, although we had to pay $16 for the night. We setup camp and skipped dinner as we were still full from a late all you can eat Chinese buffet lunch. We roughly went to bed at 19:00, a bit late since I spent an hour speaking with a Washington climber to plan a trip to Mount Olympia.

As soon as I hit my sleeping bag, I collapsed, dreaming about my morning peak.

I naturally woke up at 23:30, ready to attack the ascent of Mount Hood. I woke Mohammed up and we both start putting on our climbing clothes. It felt cool and I was worried to get too hot, but the coldest part of the night is usually around 6 and we were going to climb 1800m. We left our tent and sleeping gear and drove to the Timberline parking lot. We put on the harness and the helmets, while leaving the crampons in the bag packs. To be safe we had brought the AVI gear (as I had done on Mt Blanc) and also a 30 m rope. I don t know where the moon was but to me it was a moonless night. In the beginning you walk up this ski slope that has no interest at all, going through some snowboarding ramps. The really annoying thing about this part is all the CAT machines working around and having a hard time to follow the climbers trail. The CAT machines are annoying because they are super bright and just blind you while you are climbing.

After about 2 hours we made to the top of the ski resort, where people can actually get dropped off with a CAT machine… We were glad to be here, it was still pitch dark but the snow was just perfect, not too hard and not too soft. At this point we put on the crampons and we were heading into the backcountry. I had heard that this was the second most climbed mountain in the world, but I was very surprised to see how little people were around. We could only see three groups in front of us. We surely didn’t complain as this was a pleasant surprise. From the top of the ski resort, it was basically a long gentle slope all the way to the hogsback where the “mountaineering” part actually starts. On our way up, the smell of sulphur is actually very strong, there was lots of wind but it really didn’t help. It was almost an annoyance the smell was so strong, and I use to take the Parisian metro everyday so you can imagine….

Our timing was perfect as we were starting to get some light at the hogsback, we could see the bergshrund, and it was at least 10 meters wide. Luckily, there was an easy way on the left towards the Old Chute wall. We had to pass through some avalanche debris that had fallen a week before, the slab was quite big and I was glad it had fallen late in the afternoon when the top is empty of any climber. We started the final slope following some good boot steps. The ascent was very gradual and getting steeper and steeper. I took some picture mid way but unfortunately drop my camera cap lens down the hill… As it got steeper, the crampons and ice axe were getting more and more handy. I would say the steepness got to about 45 degrees but the boot steps made it feel like climbing a ladder. I had decided not to rope up as there was no risk for crevasses and the fact that we were not going to use any snow protection, it was a bit risky but not that bad. I finally made it to the ridge and the view just blew my mind.

On the North, Mount Saint Helen, Mount Rainier and Mount Adams, on the south Mount Jefferson and the Three Sisters. But the most mind blowing view was the huge pyramidal shadow of Mount Hood. When Mohammed joined me on the ridge, we started our small traverse towards the summit. We knew the ridge was very narrow at one part so we were mentally prepared for some exposure. Indeed the ridge at one point gets as wide as 50 cm, we still didn’t rope up… and got lots of adrenalin going through us as there was a 700 m drop on the north side and a 200 m drop on the south side. However the narrow part is very short and we quickly made it to the wide summit slope. After climbing for about 5:15 min we finally made it to the top. Again the views were fantastic and the feeling of accomplishment was incredible since we had left Vancouver less than 24h ago. We were fairly lucky as we had the summit to ourselves for about 10 min, but only a few climbers joined us. After taking some shots, enjoying life, we started heading down. We went back through the narrow ridge and made it to the top of the Old Chutes. I had to put my camera bag in my bag pack as it was very inconvenient to see my steps down.
Going down the Old Chute was probably the mort nerve wrecking part of this climb. The snow was still very hard which made it difficult to stick the ice axe. The beginning was extremely steep and therefore took a lot of time to go down. When I started feeling comfortable I used the pick of the ice axe which seemed to hold quite well. Once we hit the bottom of the slope it was an easy way back to the car. We made it back to the ski resort and gently went down all the way back to Timberline Lodge. The heat was back and we were glad to have summited early. We were back to our camp at about 11:30 and went for a 90 min nap. We woke up and drove straight back to Vancouver. Luckily we didn’t feel too tired but dreamt all the way back about our accomplishment. When we arrived in Seattle, we were blown away by Mount Rainier, just sticking out of nowhere, saying “Climb me....if you dare”
I thought to myself “Let me work on that...”

It had been a while that I hadn`t climbed with Russ. We finally found a day where were both available and the weather was looking gorgeous. This would be my last preparation trip before my trekking in Switzerland and my Mt Blanc ascent, I had to do get the best out of this hike.

Russ picked me up early in the morning and we went in the direction of Harrison hot springs to climb the popular hike of Sollicum peak. We made it faster than expected and got to the logging road fairly quickly. We noticed on this Saturday a large amount of ATV ready to hit the FSR around. We parked the car and started our ascent, at first on active logging road through a clear cut. This section is actually accessible for 4wd. But the magic starts right after. We entered the forest and the trail was surprisingly pleasant being and old logging road free of any bush. We had a small cut towards a higher logging road, where I unfortunately got stung by some poison ivy. We continued on the trail/logging road for quite a while gaining distance and elevation a smooth pace. After 2 h of hiking, the trail leaves the easy trail to become a more generic BC trail, small, shaded and buggy. We encountered snow in a creek and starting 1200 m, it was a continuous snowfield. We lost trail and decided to navigate with my GPS. We had to contour some bluffs and crossed a large open area before getting to the ridge. Once on the ridge, the views were splendid, Mt Baker, Old Settler, Clark, Recourse, etc. However I was extremely surprised by the smog coming from Vancouver, I would have never imagined it being so thick. The snow was very wet and in some parts fairly deep. I fell in a few holes but nothing scary. We finally made it to the summit and enjoyed a well deserved lunch with magnificent views. We headed back down and on my way I fell in a hole waist deep, enough to give me cold sweats. Overall a fantastic hike, highly recommended.








The video and pictures says it all!!

Fun on Slollicum from AdrienHD on Vimeo.

Contributor to Cairn Publishing!!

I edited a KMZ file (Google Earth) which indicates all summits and trailheads of the great Scrambles in SW BC. Matt Gunn approved it and decided to put it on his site, first page!!!


In return , he nicely accepted to link this site to his site!! Thanks Matt!!

His site HERE

Squamish Valley to Callaghan Valley Traverse

Finally, I got to do an adventure again. Since Baker I hadn`t done anything too crazy since the weather had been cloudy and rainy, what a bad end of May. I managed to do Fromme in a morning, Hollyburn (same route as the 103 hikes book) on a cloudy day and been up Cerise Creek for some mountaineering training than actual mountaineering.
I believe that the month of June is very unpredictable for the weather forecast. The week-end forecast had changed 10 times from rainy to sunny to rainy back to sunny, how can you make plans! I understand the location and why it is so hard to predict, especially with global warming changing all the weather rules our meteorologist learned at school. With my usual over optimistic predictions, I just decided that the weather was going to be great all week-end long regardless of what I would hear from the weather network. If I was wrong, I would already be outdoors anyways...
Originally, with my Supa Krew, we wanted to attempt (#3 this year) Mount Garibaldi. Unfortunately Ryan had to be on the island the week-end and Todd wanted to climb Rainier. So I and Len were stuck together. I offered to rent a car and go hang out at Elfin Lakes and perhaps attempt Little Diamond Head as we had never bagged it.
However, when I called Len, I was told that the VOC was planning a traverse. I had heard much about these traverses, and I have always been timid to be part of them as I am an unfortunate snowshoer. But Len is a great guy and easily convinced me that I should be part of the adventure. I was very motivated but a bit scared that I would not be invited since the skiers might think I would hold them back. So I posted a message on the VOC board about my situation, like “Sorry guys I m a snowshoer, but I m not too slow...”. Len, who has converted to skis, nicely commented on the board that I had never been a burden on the ski trips we had done together. Immediately the responses were very positive and I and Len got invited in a car group, we were going to be car group B, the group starting from the Squamish Valley.
It is always great to do trip with VOCers as I meet them time to time in huts, in Squamish, on the mountain, they are just every cool spot you can imagine. Our group driver (and surely leader) was Piotr who had organized the trip for everyone, his girlfriend Anne (also from France!), Ran (who I had met on several trips already) and my loyal friend Len. Bonn-Tien was meanwhile climbing solo 4000 s in the Moroccan Atlas Mountains.
They picked me up at 6:20, the kind of schedule I like, at my place. We headed to the Timmies in Squamish where all three car groups would meet up to talk about final logistics and camping spots. We were altogether at around 7:45 and with coffee, observed the Callaghan area map (BTW!! Clark Geomatics Callaghan Map is out, got just after this trip, I love it, $15 at MEC!!). After a brief discussion, group A headed towards the Callaghan lake and we headed, with group/car C towards the Squamish valley with for objective: High as possible on S-500. Pietr has a great 4x4 so the trip was really good even up S-500, there was quite a wash out that he managed perfectly. At about 900m the road seemed really decommissioned and the alder was getting thicker and thicker. Group C had a tough 4x4 and did not seem disturbed by the thickness (CT and VOC member: Jbest). We were cutting down the alder and tried to minimize the damage on the vehicle. However at about 975 m we decided to park the vehicle. We put on all our gear, the skiers had to add the skis on their backs and myself just the snowshoes and we headed in the bushes. Jbest had been here a few weeks earlier and the conditions had completly changed, they had parked further down but did not have to bushwack once. Our situation involved at least 500 m of alder fighting . Fortunately we quickly got to snow level which stuck the plants to the ground, plus the weather was actually getting really nice (it had started quite foggy in the morning). We had started our hike around 11 and by noon we were almost at the end of logging road. We put on the skis and snowshoes and headed off into the forest, parallel to the creek at the bottom of Ring Mountain. After reading several trip reports this month on Ring Mountain, we were extremely motivated to bag this mountain as the views on the summit seemed extremely promising. We crossed the creek as high as possible, beyond Ring Mountain actually, to head back west towards the tuya. When we arrived at the bottom of Ring Mountain, I realized the mission to be accomplished, 500 m slope with the slushiest snow I have ever been. Anne took the lead and found us an easy way to climb. The sun was now hitting hard and we felt like in an oven. We zig zagged our way up, me having a really hard time with my Denalis snowshoes. Sometimes I would just go straight up as I would ruin their ski tracks. At about 1950m, we emptied our bags and kept some water and AVI gear to climb the final 150m. Those 150 m were really, really long.
I was already feeling the water run out. I would walk 25 steps and would have to stop for a breather. Everyone around was suffering (well maybe just most of us). It was hot, the snow was horrible and it was steep. Finally after an hour struggle, where I felt like fainting several times, we made it to the summit plateau. Of course like many VOCers, we all looked for the true and fake summit bumped. From the top we could see 2 VOCers who were on the Callaghan-Ring Col, we waived at them and I envied them since they were much closer to camp than I was. The way down was a lot of fun though, even if I had a small scare by falling in a hole (just an odd rock formation) We picked up our stuff where we had left them and looked at what were our options. Our goal now was the Callaghan glacier, where we would sleep. It was already 5 pm and seemed miles away. But Pietr was a great leader and kept the spirits high by telling us we still had plenty of light and we would get there in no time.
We decided to stay as high as possible by traversing Ring Mountain. However, when the first skier went down he launched a significant wet slab. This reminded us to be extremely careful and to keep our distances.
At the level of the col, there were the remains of a gigantic avalanche with massive ice blocks, like the whole mountain had fallen off.
We took a rest at the col and start layering back up. We were at about 1700m and camp was at 2250, we weren’t there yet. The climb to the glacier was long but enjoyable, as we talked and joked on this long way up. When we arrived at the glacier, because I was on snowshoes, I asked Len to rope up, I had already fallen in a hole today, I didn’t want to fall in a crevasse. Once on the glacier, it was just another 15 min to camp. When we arrived (I was the last one with Len, because we had lost a bit of time because of my roping up). I noticed group A was not there. We were a bit disappointed because it is always great to be all together. I and Len quickly headed for a small peak next to camp to watch the sunset. The sky had cleared up, and not one cloud in sight. We could see from Mamquam, to Currie, Overseer, Ashlu and it s huge glacier fields, we were in paradise. The sunset was amazing and I had a thought for Bonn-Tien maybe watching the sun rise on the Atlas Mountains. As we were on the small peak, we noticed some skiers coming from the East, it was group A! Veenstras , Roland Burton, Doris and Gili! They had made it, we would have plenty to talk about. We came back to camp, set up tents and snowalls. The evening was cold for me because I was hungry and exhausted. I talked to the group A to find out what I was to expect from tomorrow. Basically a long walk on the glacier but also a 7 km walk on the Callaghan road. I went to bed with a full stomach which allowed me to have a rather warm night, which gave the good rest I needed. In the morning, we all woke up at 7, put on minimum gear and headed up to climb Mt Callaghan. I was very surprise to realize it was really a quick walk away. It took us less than 30 min from camp to summit. I took the chimney which was a lot of fun, some preferred to go on the side. We were 10 VOCers on the top, I like to be alone on summits usually, but these people are such a great company that it only makes the summit even better. Climbed a rocky tower next to camp and then We quickly headed back to camp and exchanged car keys. Packed up and on our way to finish the traverse. The way down was a bit tricky, the weather was not as good as the first day and we even had a small white out. We went down the glacier. But at one point we faced a very steep slope, we wanted to take the ridge that was going east but because of the whiteout we decided to follow the tracks of group A.
So we went down on the slope, for skiers, it was a difficult task, for me it was crap.... I took off my snowshoes and boot down in a slushy snow. As I was going down I realized I was getting myself under some big seracs, in this weather, it was a stupid idea. I tried to stay on my left as much as possible but when I ended at the bottom of the slope, there was a half buried bergshrund; I was unroped, heavily packed and already tired. My friends were waiting for me way in the front, in a safe spot. Adrien you are on your own here. I quickly traversed to end up under the seracs but where the bergshrund was fully covered. I took my ice axe with both hands, and jumped over where I supposed the bergshrund was.
Fortunately I landed far and din t fall in any crevasse. But I still had the seracs above me. So I wanted to wait no time as the only exit to those situations is move you butt fast!! And the fastest way was to slide on my brand new Gamma AR pants... Well I slid, and within 5 min, I felt my bum very wet. I was surprised because those pants are very water repellent. Well not when you completely rip them... I was pissed, but I was not going to let myself bothered, I know the repair service and I knew they would do a great job ( I don t live in Burnaby for no reason...) .
We got off the glacier and I was managing to keep up with the skiers by taking less breaks. However I really struggled on steep slopes as my Denalis would have no grip at all and I would fall directly in the snow... just a bit of a pain. When we arrived just high above Callaghan lake, we went down a cool gully, that was a highway to the lake. Not to steep, perfect for me. The group A had gone on the north side of the lake and said it was really shitty so we were going to contour it by the south, we didn’t t know what was there but “maybe shitty “ is better than “shitty”. When we arrived at the lake, we realized that there was no way we could cross it. We headed toward the south and actually, besides the beginning, stayed on the lake banks, a mix of snow ice and sand made them rather safe and convenient. We did a great timing as we managed to go from one end to the lake to the other in less than an hour.
At the tip of the lake, we realized we would have to cross the Callaghan creek, knee deep. At this point we didn’t care anymore and just crossed, my feet were already soaked. We found out the next day there was a bridge a 100 m lower...
The 7 km on the snowed up road seemed to last forever. But when we saw our car, this made us realize we had just finished an amazing trip. We were exhausted but happy, the real VOC kind of trip. We drove back to the Shady Tree, and I ate my burger with a giant whole in my pants. We exchanged the gear from one car to another...some girls took some pictures of us???
The traverse was amazing.....but I am looking now into skis..The VOCers made their point...

Cerise Creek Fun and Pain

I had already been twice during May in this valley, located about 3 hours from Vancouver! I guess I have just fallen in love with this place, because of the beauty but also the protection it gets from the west as Matier and Joffre tend to block the clouds. This time, I wanted to climb Joffre via the Aussie Couloir. There had been several recent trip reports about this climb therefore I assumed that it was a good time to climb it. The group was really great, Len, Ben, Sarah (a fantastic Kayaking guide) and myself. The plan was for us to leave early Saturday morning for the Cerise Creek trailhead, sleep at the col and ascend Joffre early on the Sunday morning. Well I managed to pick up everyone on time. However the weather did not look promising and would probably slow us down. We made it in a fairly quick time to the trailhead, with of course a short stop at the Squamish Timmies. Immediately I noticed that the snow level had significantly dropped. We started off taking the usual winter-summer trail, but in the forest we decided to stay west of the Cerise Creek. When we hit the logging road, we put on the snowshoes and skis and started a short slog towards the summer trail, on the west side of the creek. However, I decided to have a look at the creek junction with the logging road, since maybe we could still take the winter trail. Unfortunately the creek was way too high for us to cross it and we didn’t feel like getting wet the first 2 hours of our week-end. Len and Ben had a hard time crossing some unsnowed waterbars as the skis were not helping at all. Once we got back into the forest, we realized that the summer trail was really not ready and we would have some difficult creek crossing. We had to cross a sketchy log bridge, that Len fantastically crossed with his skis on. After about an hour in the forest, Ben broke his tele ski binding, which we believed would significantly slow us down. However we managed to fix the problem with a strap, a nice MacGyver fix. We crossed the creek on a rather good snowbridge only to find out we had to cross another one a few meters later. By then we were back on the winter trail. We got through the forest and realized that it was not possible anymore to follow the winter route as the creek had opened up under the snow. At this point of the day, we had already hiked 4 hours although we had hoped to take only 2 hours to the hut. We went back into the forest, went up a steep slope to come back again to the creek. At one point, I felt that the east side of the creek would be the better way to the moraine. I crossed on a sketchy snowbridge, and just before shore, I went right through the bridge. Luckly, I had the reflex to fall forward, wich spread my weight on the bridge and prevented a total collapse. I followed the creek bank while the rest of the group was on the other side. At sufficient altitude I crossed back to the west side. We were finally at the moraine, after almost 6 hours of hiking. We realized that the Joffre attempt was too late to start and that we were too tired to go much further. We decided to camp right at the moraine. We setup camp quickly, and although it started to rain. We took the rope and went to train our mountaineering skills on the moraines`steep slope. Trained our crevasse rescue skills, our belaying skills, rappel, anchors, snow picket placement, etc. We hadn t climbed a summit or explored new places but we had some very useful time on the mountain. I realized that the snow pickets could not take much weight if they were not very deep into the snow.
We had a lot of fun running down the 45 degrees slope, with little risk. Sarah got to train her avalanche rescue skills.
We finally got very humid and decided to head back to our tents. After a good dinner we went to bed. I had one of my coldest nights this season. The air was not that cold but it was extremely humid. I kept waking up, bothered my the humidity chilling my bones.
The morning was actually pretty nice, a lot more sun and good views from around. We packed camp and made it out. Ben decided to carry his skis on his back. The way back was a little bit better than our way in although that we tried to cross another snowbridge. Len was successful with his skis, but when Ben tried, he went right through. He also managed to not fall in the creek, but when he pulled out his legs from the hole, we could see a very deep creek running very fast, a bit scary.

The way back took us only 4 hours and we tried to stay as much as possible on the winter trail. It was though a full summer trail through the clear cuts, no snow left at all.

It was really nice to hang out with my friends this week-end. We didn t do anything crazy but it was well worth it to enjoy Cerise Creek in somewhat “winter conditions” But I would really not recommend going there for the moment, it would suck...

Hollyburn Mountain- 103 Hikes Style

I had already climbed this mountain in 2008 with Bonn-Tien, but the views had been nil as it was a really foggy summer day. I decided to re-attempt it but going through the 103 hikes way. I left my place quite late at 8:20 and was downtown by 9 am, almost missing my connection for the British Properties. Usually you need a car to this hike, but I found a short trail from the bus stop to the Cypress look out. Within 15 min I was at the trailhead stated in the book. The trail I took seemed to have been the wrong one but it didn’t matter much to me because it was heading towards the summit. Once I arrived on a private road, I got a bit lost and had to go back on my steps. I finally found a trail between some cabins and soon realized there was a mini town installed at the bottom of the Cypress slopes. Dozens of cabins, most of them fairly old with outhouses, set up along this trail. Finally I made at the level of the Hollyburn lodge and from there took the cross-country ski slopes all the way till the top. At this point there was tons of snow left on the slopes. I was wearing shorts but no gaiters so my feet were getting wet. I made it to the summit and had some good views on the south. I was proud of my timing as I had taken 30 min less than expected. However the way back down was very painful since snow was getting into my boots on every step. Instead of retracing my steps, I took the Baden Powell trail, but since I wasn t too sure how to cross the British Properties, I decided to stop my adventure at the first bus stop. I managed to get home by 4:30 pm, a nice short hike that was my 35th day in the outdoors this year.

Mount Fromme in a morning.

We woke up early on Friday morning as I had to be at the office at 2pm. We managed to grab a bus at 7 am and we were at the trailhead by 8 am. It was a smooth climb up as we made it all the way to the trailhead on our bikes. This time I really wanted to make it to the top as I had failed this summit already 3 times!! The climb was again difficult because there is little marks and it is actually very steep. We had to bushwhack a few times, although with the snow it was not much of challenge. But because of the steepnees, we had a few uneasy steps. We finally made it to the summit with some nice views on lynn valley and Vancouver. We knew the best was to come, 1100 m descent back to the bus which is almost at sea level. Unfortunately, it started to shower on our way back which generated us some nasty brain freezes… We made it back to the bus station by 11:30, we enjoyed a summit in half a day.

Mount Baker May 2010

This is it!!! We crossed the border, just a few km away from the trailhead to Mount Baker. A day that I have dreamt about so many times. A dream coming true! Almost too good to be true. But the beginning of this story has very deep roots. Like most Vancouverites, Baker is much more than just a volcano.

I moved to Canada in January 2006, one of the rainiest months Vancouver had ever seen. I had been told to be prepared; nobody can be prepared for that kind of weather. I started to live at 500 Dunsmuir Street, a hostel for travelers on a low budget, a few steps away from E-Hastings. Coming from the Alps, my first impression of the most liveable city in the world was not that great. The first 10 days had been extremely tough as I was not finding a job as quickly as I hoped. But one day, the bank I currently work for, gave me a call and asked me to come in for an interview. I remember it was on a Friday, and the weather was a cold sunny February sky, the first sunny day I had seen in Vancouver. The office was located at central city so I was going to take the Skytrain for the first time to Surrey. Of course I was focused on what I was going to say during the interview, and reading over and over my resume. When the train passed Edmonds station, and started curving towards 22ndstreet station, I had my first glimpse ever of the beautiful mountain. I could not believe my eyes. This reminded me immediately of Mt Fuji. I couldn’t believe that I had never heard about this mountain before. It seemed so majestic and so huge but at the same time in the backyard of this city that I considered quite big. It was like having Mont Blanc a stone throw away from Paris. I think it is on that day that I fell in love with Vancouver (my love got deeper and deeper as I discovered the North shores and the Sea to Sky Mountains). I got the job that day, and I am still part of that company which also allowed me to become permanent resident therefore climb this mountain last week-end.

Fast forward to 2010. I had monitored the weather forecast all week long, and on Thursday I sent to my expedition team the green light that this week-end was offering good perspectives of summiting on Saturday. The crew was composed of me, mighty Bonn-Tien, Todd (Garibaldi attempts, Rohr, Mt Burwell) and Ben (Rohr, Vantage). I was confident that this was going to be a great team for what I thought was a big challenge. Todd had excellent alpine skills, Bonn-Tien is a steam-engine and Ben (who was on a mountain the first time of his life last January) has balls of steel…

We all slept at my place on Thursday night, so we could get some kind of early start on Friday morning. I picked up my very small rental car at Enteprise who doesn’t over charge when you travel to the States. We left my place at 8:30 am, made the Sumas border crossing at 9:25, had of course go through the border office since the car was super packed and the passengers were 2 French, 2 Canadians and a Millet red backpack. But everything went fine, and the border agent was relatively nice with us.

And then we were on our way, the road towards Glacier was straight forward but I wanted to use my handheld GPS just to be sure. For some stupid reason it took over 20 min to get a signal, we laughed that it was maybe not compatible in the US (yes we are gear geeks…).
We made to Glacier around 10:30 and had two stops; one at the grocery store to eat some tasty bagels and another one at the visitor center to pick up poo bags (Leave no trace! Pick up your poo when alpine or glacier travelling)

We were almost there, took the small backcountry road and went almost all the way to the trailhead. We stopped at the last intersection before the trailhead, a good elevation. It took us some time to get ready, spoke to a guide and his client; they were getting prepared for Denali in a few weeks. The weather was gorgeous and the view on Baker was amazing. At about 12:30, we left the car and headed towards the forest. Fairly quickly we met some climbers and skiers coming down. As a BC climber (like many of you) it is hard to resist talking to someone on the trail, so I had to ask some questions about the conditions, and tips on climbing. People were really nice, but all those Americans seemed so equipped, wands, plastic boots, double ice axes, I was impressed.
Originally, I wanted to wake up at 4 am and summit early in the morning to avoid any spring Avi risk. But after talking to several climbers, we decided that midnight would be a good wake up time, with a summit around sunrise.

We got out of the forest, and the Mt Baker magic started. We started off with a gentle, but tiring,slushy slope where we caught up with a group. We quickly passed them and caught up to a second group, at the last slope before the glacier. Lots of traces of wet slap avalanches in the area which was a good reminder about the reality of this warm beautiful weather. Before we knew it, around 16:30, we were the first ones on the glacier so we could choose our prime spot for camping. We found the remains of a camp with good snow walls and relatively flat ground. We knew this area was free of crevasses so we set up our 4-season tents. We enjoyed the views and the sun, while melting our snow and preparing dinner. Suddenly we heard a loud crack, and a huge avalanche started on the north side of Baker, far from any of us. The noise was impressive but the vision was amazing. The avalanche was least a size 3 and lasted well 20 seconds. I tried to film it, but nothing turned out of it. Because of the location of where this had just happened, we did not feel too worried about it. Especially that we were now planning to climb at night.

We got to bed at 18:30 and tried to get some sleep. I managed to close my eyes for a couple of hours, but had to wake up to see the sunset on Vancouver. I took some amazing shots and I was very happy to see that it had completely cleared up since had been a bit cloudy earlier in the evening.

My Suunto beeped at 00:00, and it was now dark in the tent as it was a moonless night. I felt a bit drowsy but the cold got me quickly back on my feet. I rushed to cover up myself and got out my tent to set up all the gear. Bonn-Tien quickly followed behind, and Todd and Ben were ready to attack the summit. We had some coffee and banana bread which warmed us up. The other camps were also waking up as we could see little lights afar. However no one was yet on the route. After an hour of gear preparation, knotting, layering, un-layering, eating, snoozing, peeing, etc, we were all roped up and ready to go. We started up the glacier with our powerful headlamps, put on powerless mode so we didn’t t suck up all the juice. The beginning started rough with a 30 degree slope and the tracks seemed all messed up. I and Bonn-Tien had decided to take the snowshoes, which seemed to have been a good idea. We passed the last camp and wished them luck and safety. We were two ropes of 2, a safe solution since one team good help if the other had a member fall in a crevasse. It was really dark, but that was fine since we could see the lights from Vancouver. I was surprised to see the contrast of lights between the Canadian and the American side. After walking for 2 hours, we took a quick snack break at 2700 m. I think we were gaining about a 100m every 15 min, a fairly good speed. At about 4:30 am, there was enough light for us to turn off the headlamps. This is also the time we made it to the ridge. So far, it had been an easy walk, with ropes and snowshoes but nothing technical. The ridge was a bit steeper, but not enough to take off the snowshoes. We were all exhausted but so excited about the ascent. We finally made it right under the Roman wall. We had heard so much about the “crux” of the climb. Luckily the conditions were perfect and the steepness was not that great. Todd and Ben unroped but we just put on the crampons, as Bonn-Tien s safety is my priority. Although technically very easy, doing the Roman wall was physically challenging. Bonn-Tien and I took a long time to go up this wall that seemed to go on forever. However our reward was to see the pyramidal shadow going all the way up to Vancouver Island as the sun was rising. An amazing view. I was a little bit nerved out by the huge blocks of ice and rock above us, but not seeing any recent debris, and because of the shadowed cold temperatures, I felt reassured. As the sun hit the summit, we put our first step on this beautiful nipple of Earth. We knew we would have to walk another 500 m before the actual summit, but the clear views gave us wings for the final push. We almost ran to the small peak and celebrated our success by embracing each other.

Took many shots and a video and away we went ; now it was a long way down towards the base camp. We had been very lucky as we had the summit for ourselves, and the Baker crowd was only an hour behind us. On the way down, we met an amazing individual, Kurt, an American from Bellingham who hitchhiked all the way from Bellingham to Glacier, got dropped off 12 km from the trail head at 10 pm the night before, after work, and climbed straight to the summit till 8 am. And as we were speaking, he was on his way back with no intention of stopping, all of this solo!! I told him to contact me through CT as he wants to climb more in BC, so Kurt if you read this, please send me a private message, and let’s go climbing!
At about 12 pm, we made it to the tent, I crashed inside but the rest of the group tanned in the sun, it was beach mood on the Coleman glacier. After 2 hours of well deserved sleep, we headed back down in a slushy snow. A small village was forming on the glacier, it had been a wise idea to climb on a Saturday morning, we had avoided the mass.

We safely made it back to the car, had a stop in Glacier again and left the USA to go back home...
For some reason I have been feeling bittersweet these pass days. The climb had been perfect; I actually did not wreck or lose any of my gear, which is becoming rare... I think I had dreamt so much about this summit (which is amazing), maybe feared it a lot (less than a year ago I would have taken a guide for sure) and simply starred at it for so long. Knowing that I had done it without much of a battle (compared to my previous one with Matier), made me feel a bit nostalgic. I m climbing Mt Blanc this summer and I hope I will get a challenge. The conditions on Baker were great and perfect for a summit ascent. It was also a shock to see so many souls on a mountain, making me feel almost in an amusement park... Sorry for killing the myth, they are just the feelings of a BC hiker, who is use to bushwhacking, remoteness and summit uncertainties.

Mt Matier- May 2010

Video is now available --> http://www.vimeo.com/11654399


So far 2010 has been a great outdoor year. As always I try to check off some of the 103 hikes, some of the Matt Gunn scrambles (much harder to do with all that snow) and now I am looking at the Alpine Select book.
After two failed attempts of Mt Garibaldi this winter, we had decided to look for something different, not easier, just different. 5 days earlier I had gone to the Cerise Creek area with Bonn-Tien, Len, Ben and James, we had had an awesome day climbing Vantage peak, and like the name says it all, we had gotten an incredible view on Matier and Joffre. Since I worked on the following Sunday, this allowed me to take Thursday off and attempt something big, something like Mt Matier.
Weather forecast looked great so it was easy for me to convince Bonn-Tien and my friend Ryan (The Sphinx, Garibaldi attempts, Mt Crickmer…) to attempt the famous Mt Matier.
Although I had two days of availability, we could only do this in one day, Bonn-Tien had to work at the hospital on Friday and Ryan had other things to do. So I left the office around 15:45 on Wednesday, rushed to the rental agency (the mighty Jeep Cherokee is in for repairs), picked up a super fuel efficient Subaru ( $32 of gas for Vancouver- Cerise Creek return!), went back home to pick up all the gear, then traversed all Vancouver to Pick up Ryan and Bonn-Tien and another beacon…I was hoping to leave Vancouver around 17:30 (completely unrealistic) but we were over the Lions Gate bridge almost at 19:00!! In my unrealistic plans, I was hoping to be by the trailhead at 20:30 and get an hour of slim light, sometimes I m a bit too much in lala land. At 20:00 we were eating a burger in Squamish, all three of us getting mentally prepared for a late night hike, second one this year.
After an easy drive passed Pemberton, we crossed tons of dears and stopped on the road to watch a big black bear on the side. It was quite frightening to see how passive he was in front of us. I wondered if he would react the same way if we would have been on snowshoes.
It was 22:30 and we were finally at the Cerise Creek parking lot. We quickly packed and strapped, started heading our way towards Keith`s hut. I was very excited as I had seen the hut in September from the outside but never had the chance to go inside. Since I had done this hike a few days before, I had all the gps track in case we got lost. But we followed some well marked tracks and it was quite easy through the forest although we got a bit lost when we hit the large creek bed. Overall it took us two hours to get to the hut. It had been a nice and easy night hike and the fact I knew the distance already made it ok to deal with. At the hut, we saw a few mice run around which was a great reminder to hang our stuff. As I knew the next day was going to be a big day, I rushed to bed while Bonn-Tien and Ryan were checking out the stove and all the amenities of the hut.
The night was cold…. Although we had started a small fire, it didn’t t last long. I tried this new technique to keep warm (new to me). I simply opened my sleeping bag and let Bonn-Tien with her bag closed go inside mine, this immediately heated her feet, I felt quite warm after 5 min. However, my therma rest slipped under me and ended up sleeping on the floor, too drowsy to notice it. However I did notice it in the morning when my back was killing me. I finally woke up at 7 (instead of planned 6) and started preparing the packs while Bonn-Tien and Ryan were finishing their night. I peaked outside and was thrilled to see an amazing blue sky just above Joffre and Matier, today was going to be a good day…

I packed up the food and the gear, prepared the crampons, but the hardest thing was trying to get Bonn-Tien out of the sleeping bag. The “wow! Amazing weather” “It s a summit day!” shouts did not do much, finally she came out when I threatened her we would climb without her, she doesn’t like missing out on those things…
After a quick and warm breakfast, we started our epic climb. We started climbing on the easy ridge north of the cabin. At first the snow was extremely hard and crunchy so we couldn’t even sink in it. But it got hot really fast, and we quickly had to remove our layers to the point we were all in t-shirts within 1 hour. However this resulted in a much heavier snow, a play dough snow. We finished the ridge on a bump that seemed the top of the world. We took a good break and analyzed where we were heading to. The beginning was not good, right under the south face of Joffre, with already tons of avalanche debris. This is the traditional route, so we looked at the face, there was very little snow left, the rock was bare. We descended under the face and accelerated the pace, our short term objective was a big rock at the beginning of the glacier where we would rope up unexposed from falling debris.
We quickly made it to the rocky platform and I got my 30 m, 8 mm rope out of my bag. While we were roping up, we started hearing and seeing large amount of snow falling from Joffre onto the slope we had just passed, sketchy… At first Ryan was part of the cordée, but since he was on skis and we were on snowshoes, it didn’t t work to well as we were going more direct and he had to zig zag. So he unroped and me and Bonn-Tien stayed together. I wasn’t too worried about him falling in crevasse as the glacier was really full. I was happy to be roped simply for the principle. Anniversary glacier is a steep glacier, and we were getting so hot. Surprisingly, it clouded up late in the morning and the shade was welcomed. This gave us some extra confidence since the air was cooling and reducing the risk of a wet slab avalanche. But going up the glacier was tough, I was counting my steps, I could do about 50 in a row. Bonn-Tien was doing great but I had to break trail in this play dough and it was exhausting. We finally made it to the col by 13:00, fairly late. Immediately it got chilli and we put all our layers back, Ryan was a bit behind, so we settled for lunch. It was amazing to see Joffre from so close and Slalok on the side. I understand why so many parties camp of there, a place of choice!
Ryan finally joined us, he had a quick break and we started heading up Matier. The climb at first was very similar to what we had just done but after 45 min we had to stop and put on the crampons, the fun was about to start….
We left the snowshoes and the bags right under the North face of Matier and started kicking ourselves steps, at first it was an easy slope but it got quickly steep. Bonn-Tien had actually never done this kind of climbing before, but I never under-estimate her capabilities and was confident that her taste for adventure would overcome the difficulty of the situation. I had brought 2 snow pickets that I planted when there was tricky parts. Unfortunately the weather was getting bad, not the general weather but we were caught in a cloud, this did not worry me as I knew that it would just be temporary. We grabbed onto the north-western slope and got all the way to the ridge. Bonn-Tien was a little bit nervous but was holding good. This climb seemed forever and I was starting to get tired. Ryan was still unroped and had no crampons. At the top of the ridge, there no more climbing involved but a traverse. Most of the ridge is not steep but there is a bit of exposure on both side. At this point, there was no more exposure, no more summit, no more cold or hot or snow, it was just myself and the team and the skills. It was all the focus on each step I did, where I placed my snow pickets, be alert if one of us slips. At one point the ridge became steep again with a very nice drop 300 m below. Ryan decided to stop because he had no crampons. I was disappointed but understood him. But a minute later, he asked to rope up because he had realized the snow was softer than he had thought, I planted a snow picket and was glad he was going to make it with us. A few minutes later, we all arrived at the summit, we were on top of Mount Matier!! Such a tiny top that made us feel in a haute-montagne movie. The view was fogged up towards the south but we could still clearly see Joffre and the northern mountains. What an amazing feeling, every effort was worth it, we felt like the most privileged people in the world at this point. We did some quick summit shots with our huge smiles, Ryan had a frozen beard and Bonn-Tien had frozen hair while most people were starting to wear t-shirts in Vancouver. We decided to head quickly back to the hut, the traverse went a little bit faster but our descent of Matier was still slow as we wanted to be careful going down, alternating between facing and not facing the mountain. When we made it back to our packs, the tension eased and we took a bite as I was starving and getting really tired. We put back our snowshoes and rushed towards the cabin as it was already 17:30. Going down the glacier was a delight, although a slippery delight but was effortless. We unroped, and traversed under the sketchy south face of Joffre, it was lot colder now and we felt more confident about what was above us. However our tracks from the morning had disappeared under the debris… We made it back to our safe house, the ridge. Ryan had decided to ski down the glacier, but it seemed to take forever because of the snow condition, he was having a hard time. We observed him from our ridge bump going down. We waited till he was out of the debris zone and he decided to go back on the north of the moraine. We just took the same path we had taken in the morning. We finally made back to the hut, after 12h on the mountain; we ate a bit and waited for Ryan. An hour later Ryan made it finally back, he had to back track and gone through the initial morning trail. We made tea and hot chocolate, packed the camping gear and headed back towards the car at 22:30… Unfortunately my headlamp broke and I had no more light... So I had to orient myself on Bonn-Tien `s light coming from my back, fortunately it was the 4th time I was doing this trail this week so the orientation was rather easy. After 2 hours, we made it to the car. It was 00:30 and I had to safely drive back to Vancouver. We stopped at Pemberton and got some food, took a coke hoping it would keep me awake. By the time I made it to Whistler I was dying of tiredness after 15 h of hiking… We stopped at the Husky and I had a “Monster” energy drink that tasted like gasoline. It helped a bit, all the way to Brackendale but I started feeling bad again after, feeling that the road between Squamish and Vancouver would be worst then a naked walk in the desert. I stopped at the 7/11 and had the darkest coffee they had to offer. This worked really well, all the way back home. Bonn-Tien was raving in her half sleep but Ryan was also fighting to stay awake to keep me company. We were finally back to Vancouver and the ride back seemed to have been just a dream where time and space did not matter. We dropped off Ryan and I was back home with Bonn-Tien at 5 in the morning, we could see the first rays of sun…Felt like summer, felt like the day when I came back from a great party where I had met Bonn-Tien. We brought all the gear back to the flat laid it down in the entrance and passed out, all that caffeine just couldn’t t do it anymore and we had just climbed Matier...

Vantage Peak

I`m a sensitive climber….Last week we had to turn back on Brohm Ridge as we were trying to ascend Mount Garibaldi. The huge avalanche we had just heard had been a very convincing argument. We had just walked in the fog and snow for 8 hours with huge and heavy packs, just to turn around without a single view. We had a much nicer day climbing The Chief the Sunday but I just need my weekly dose of alpine. Therefore, even if I do not regret one second turning back on Brohm ridge, I was a bit frustrated about my last week-end.

This made me look at the weather forecast anxiously all week long hoping for a beautiful sunny opening on the week-end. I started looking at the weather forecast as early as Tuesday, and of course, things looked great for Saturday and Sunday. I was very optimistic because I was planning to climb Baker those days. But as the week went by, the weather was looking worst and worst. Sunday seemed to be a write off so Saturday was only good for a day hike.
Pemberton seemed to be the best option although on Saturday morning, the weather looked terrible in Vancouver and there was 70% chance of showers in the Pemberton area. Didn’t matter anymore at that point, I needed my fix, I needed a summit bad and I had 4 people counting on me to bring them in the mountains.

I woke up around 5:45 am on Saturday and looked out the window where I usually can see the North Shore Mountains, this morning it was more like the North Shore fog… However when I looked south, some patches of blue sky were reminding me that there is a world beyond the clouds.
I hopped on a bus at about 6:30 and made it to the car rental agency. I picked up a car and headed towards Main Street to pick up the super crew one after one. I picked up the last person around 8:30… Yes I left Vancouver for a Pemberton day hike at 8:30 am, an embarrassment to the early morning person I am.
However the traffic was smooth and being 5 in rather small car with a pair of skis on top of everyone makes the trip rather fun. We had our usual pit stop at Tim Hortons in Squamish, but it was already 9:20 am… still a long way till Pemberton.

After Whistler it was really clear blue skies towards the north but thick black ones on the west, I really wanted a nice day and get some good pictures, so I was getting a bit nervous about how the weather was going to be. I tried to stay optimistic in the car as I told everyone that I had looked at the Pemberton airport webcam and had seen a wonderful blue sky, also the reports said it would clear up during the day. We saw two small planes in the Pemberton valley which was also a good sign.

11:30, finally made it to the trailhead!! Such a late start but such a great area! We got excited fairly quickly because we could see Vantage Peak completely cleared.However Joffre and Matier had their summits clouded up. We quickly put on the snowshoes and the skis and took the Cerise creek summer trail full south but took a turn into the clear cut after 500m. I had taken this summer trail earlier in September but this time we stayed on the east of the creek almost the whole way. I think the winter trail is much more direct and more gradual with better views.

The snow was very soft and even with snowshoes we sunk in quite a few spots. Although it was fairly cloudy around us, it seemed we were in a bubble of blue skies, and it was just delicious. We crossed a skier who told us that the area was fantastic today and that although there was a soft layer of snow, the conditions were really nice. All of this got us pumped up to do our summit. We hit the logging road after crossing the clear cut and after 10 min went into the forest on the Cerise creek alpine access trail (such a cool name). In the forest, it was a much easier walk and we got to have some nice views on Vantage when we were going through some open areas. After 2.5 hours of walking, we arrived at the large cerise creek opening where the tree don t usually grow tall. This was very nice as you walk right next to the creek and ascend towards the moraine. We noticed some skiers at the top of Anniversary glacier and envied the accomplishment they had just done, probably Matier... When we arrived just under the moraine, we went on our left towards Vantage Peak. We knew now that it was going to be all alpine till the summit. From the bottom of the moraine we followed some other ski tracks and started to evaluate the terrain for our ascent.

I didn`t feel like taking the scramble summer route which starts on the far right of the ridge, for two reasons:
• it was a longer route
• the ascent to the ridge seemed steep and exposed to avi risk

So we basically headed for the middle of the ridge, 2 bumps under the summit. Originally I wanted to take a slope on the left of the first bump but after analyzing the steepness we decided to go right, much more gradual. We finally hit the ridge, 2 bumps to overcome and the final summit push. The first bump that I had originally feared turned out to be much easier, the hidden side was not steep and there was plenty of good holds. But I did underestimate the second bump, much steeper, and the snow on the base layer made things very slippery. At the middle of this bump, we had to take the snowshoes off and I took a hold of my ice axe, it was definitely getting trickier. However we managed to boot up all the way up to the top of this bump and had a good break. It was about quarter to 4 pm and we still had to do the last push towards the summit, we were all breathing hard but still motivated to conquer Vantage Peak. After a good break, I took the lead to find the most appropriate path to our final reach. The beginning started not too steep but fairly quickly after, there was some short steep sections, very enjoyable sections. We had to climb some short rock faces (5.5 max) and needed the ice axe on some steep section requiring a good grab. We were finally 30 m below the summit where the thin ridge started. And it was quite thin! I ascended via a rocky loose face but the rest of the team went through a snowy section. I preferred my way because the top was not as exposed, the other way led to a short step but you ended on a 1 m wide ridge with a fairly exposed left side. And the north face had quite the cornice, not a good place to hang around at this time of the year.

But we all managed to get pass this crux, at different levels of comfort but with all a huge smile as we were going to make it to the summit.

4:35 Pm, latest summit ever, but on time: Summit! And the best weather we had all day. We were just astonished by the beauty of the area. We realized that our lucky weather was mostly because it was a western wind and that all the clouds were getting stuck on Matier and Joffre. We could see that the Wedge area was under heavy rain and snow but we were just on an island of sunshine at 2235m high. We did a quick summit video and the traditional VOC summit picture.

We had a quick lunch/ dinner break and about 4:50 pm, started to head down. Lots of fun glissading on our bums or avi shovels. The weather was just getting better and better and at the end Joffre and Matier were cleared up!
As usual we went much faster on our way back, cutting through the gentle slopes.
We finally made it back to the car at 7:30 pm, 30 min before schedule. Had a quick bite at Pemberton and brought everybody back home before midnight. I had to wake up at 6 am the next day to bring back the car to not get over charged. Who cares, it was raining on Sunday so I just went to the office. (I m not crazy, I m taking sunny Thursday off -? to follow).

The video !! --> http://www.vimeo.com/11453424

Brohm Ridge or the Chief?

TR by fellow climber Len Goff.

TR: Misadventure on Brohm Ridge

The adventure for me started at 4:30A.M Saturday, flying down Main St. on my bike with a full pack to catch the Greyhound bus. My climbing partners - Ryan, Todd , Adrien , and Bonn-Tien - had all gone to Squamish the night before to sleep at Ryan's uncle's place. Ryan's uncle has done many serious climbs in the Coast mountains and the Rockies, as well as even had a go at K2, so we like to visit him to absorb some of his alpine karma and patch up any gear lackings before a trip. I however had decided to stay in Van and settle for 3 hours of sleep Friday night.

The goal of the weekend was Mt. Garibaldi via Brohm ridge, which the same group (minus Bonn-Tien) had attempted back in late January. Our first attempt suffered from a combination of bad weather and bad-fitting boots, which ground our valiant assault up the ridge to a halt. We had camped at about 1900m only to turn around the next day. This time though, we hoped that a combination of being able to drive higher up the logging road, having well fitting boots, representation of both sexes, and the chance of good weather Sunday would make it happen. We were wrong.

I got some sleep on the bus, despite the driver's insistence on blasting 80's hits the whole way. The others picked me up in Squamish, and we quickly began taking care of business. Of course, step one was an all-star breakfast at Timmy Ho's. We then accidentally explored several of the local logging roads before getting the car parked at 900m and beginning the long slog at about 9AM. It was just below freezing and snowing steadily. Our driving had been stopped by a few cm of the new powder, so we had to carry our skis (Ryan, Todd, and I) and snowshoes (Adrien and BT) for a ways until we got a nice base to travel on. The precipitation was coming down as snow but melting on our steaming hot bods as we made our way up. We stopped for a long lunch and around noon at the Black Tusk snowmobile lodge (i.e. alpine mansion with satellite TV). We shot the **** with the few snowmobilers who were up there, and kept trucking. We quickly gained the ridge and were cruising along through what had turned into a driving snowstorm and biting wind. This was the second time we had been along this route in a whiteout, so we knew basically where to go and were making progress.

By about 2:30, we made it to the mighty Mt. Brohm, a tiny bump in the ridge. We were feeling good about our timing. While we were by no means going fast, we were in a good position to make it to the Warren glacier and maybe even cross it to the 'shrund before dark. The weather was supposed to be getting good in the morning and everything was aligned for a successful trip. I even picked up some trash so the mountain was presumably impressed by us as we lightly tickled one of its many long arms. We stood there snacking and reveling in our progress when all of a sudden there was a thunderous noise. Like a plane flying right overhead. But it didn't go away like the planes do. For no less than fifteen seconds we stood there motionless and listened to a massive avalanche coming down somewhere. Where it was we had no idea, as we could only see about 50m into the whiteout. But it sounded close,and every second I imagined it coming crashing down out of the white like a tsunami and carrying us away. Eventually after what seemed like forever the noise came to a rolling stop, and we began a period of silently exchanging nervous glances with each other.

It didn't take long for us to decide that the snow symphony we had just heard was our cue to turn around. Most likely, the avalanche wasn't anywhere along our route; maybe it came off the steep slopes of Brohm ridge, or the big south face of Garibaldi. But it just seemed unwise being up there, no less climbing a 45 degree summit cone the day after hearing that. In a sense it was no surprise, with wet snow falling on the mountain all day. The lesson was clear: the avalanche conditions had been listed as low to moderate, but that same day we heard a huge untriggered avalanche. Things can change fast.

Disappointment that Garibaldi and rationality had thwarted our attempt to climb her set in but quickly passed. We were happy that our timing had been right. If we hadn't heard the avalanche, we would have ventured on into likely unsafe terrain. If we had been farther along the climb, it would have been dangerously tempting to continue. So, we were basically happy to be alive as we made out way back down to the car. As we descended the final bit, the snow stopped and the sun began to break out. We made it back and in high spirits packed the car and lashed the skis onto the roof. Our original plan was to bivy high in the alpine, but instead we were going to go get drunk in Squamish and celebrate not dying. I took my final pre-waterbar piss and settled in cozily between Adrien and Bonn-Tien in the back seat. Ryan turned the key of his Jeep and .... nothing happened! Apparently Ryan's trunk, which is a bit misshapen from a few too many backcountry mishaps, hadn't fully closed that morning and the light had been on all day. His battery was drained and we were alone at the top of this logging road with a good six km back to the highway. It seemed like our tents might be getting used after all. The jeep was an automatic, so we couldn't get a rolling start and drop it into gear.

So we were pretty much down to walking all the way out, or trying to descend as much of the road as we could without power steering or power brakes. Both steering and brakes are pretty desirable on a switchbacking 15 degree slope. But, we decided to try. We said our prayers and started rolling down the hill in neutral. The e-brake got a lot of use, but Ryan handled the car well. On a few of those steep hills we maxed out our braking capability and weren't exactly slowing down, but they were short and my screaming wasn't too distracting to keep us on the road. When we made it back to the level of Cat Lake the road flattened out and we had to push the jeep along a few sections. By dusk we finally made it to within sight of the highway. Just then, a man in a big truck who was headed to a backcountry bonfire beerfest turned onto the road and we flagged him down. He gladly gave us a jump start and even left his cigarette on the ground as a token of friendship.

Our big Garibaldi attempt had turned into a minorly epic daytrip, and we were knackered. I think I got to use about 10% of the things that I hauled up that ridge in my backpack, but that's life. We went and got some well deserved beers at the Watershed, crashed at Ryan's uncle's place, and spent Sunday drinking coffee and hiking up The Cheif. Sometimes trips don't work out as you plan, but we played it safe and we get to live to see the next weekend. Stay tuned for attempt number three.

Campbell Lake

When you think it s easy that it might be difficult, what my farther always says. Well this illustrates well what happened that day. This was a middle of the week hike and we didn t feel like going to crazy so we decided to head to Harrison Hotsprings for this 5hour hike. As you see on the pictures, really nothing extraordinary but we had our moment of drama. After 90 min of hiking, we came up to this creek, very easy to go pass and nowhere the need of a bridge. However there was a bridge. Bonn-Tien was in front of me and started on this bridge which is an actual log with some old rotten hand rail. I guess that the area was very humid and the log was also very rotten, and very slippery...

Almost at the middle of the log, 3 m high from the rocky creek, Bonn-Tien slipped and barely made it by grabbing this beloved hand-rail. My heart pounded, I think BT could have seriously wounded herself, on this very easy hike!! Never underestimate the mountain.

We had one good viewpoint of Harrison lake and the Campbell lake in question was spoiled by the local rednecks, beers, trash, you name it. At least an extra day of adventure and 1 more hike of the 103 hikes (45 hikes already done from that book!).

Smoke Bluffs

This was just an actual rock climbing day. We managed to do 4 climbs and test my new rope. The toughest we did was only a 5.8 crack. As usual Bonn-Tien was a real monkey and impressed the crowd.

Mount Rohr

Last fall I had the chance to go to glacier school with the VOC. The week-end was happening at Anniversary Glacier where you need to take the Cerise Creek trail in order to get there. The Saturday had been miserable but we had a great sunny Sunday, and on our way back to highway 99, we had a great view on Mt Rohr. I had never read any reports on Rohr but new about the scramble because of Matt Gunn`s book, my favorite night shelf book… I found this mountain very impressive by it s mass and prominence. From there, she was on the hit list..

For scrambles I usually prefer waiting for less snow because of so many failed winter attempts, but this year I was so surprised to read to great TR about winter ascents of Mt Rohr, the BCMC and Spectrum trip reports, awesome ascents, I wanted to follow their steps.

As early as Tuesday I started sending the emails to my usual partners in crime, the plan was that we would rent a car leave early on Saturday and spend the night at the Chief ( we wanted to go rock climbing at Smoke Bluffs on Sunday).

I woke up at 4:30 am on Saturday morning, prepared my AVI gear (conditions were considerable…) and took off with my car to pick up Len the American, Todd the Canadian and a new partner, Ben, intern at UBC, who has just arrived from France a few weeks ago. Ben was definitely going to get a taste of the BC mountains today!

We quickly made it to highway 99 and got passed at about 6:30 by about 35 Porsches, I guessed they left early because they were doing the Duffey lakes road circuit in one day, but it was just a guess.
We had almost a 45 min hour pit stop at Tim Hortons in Squamish before we set to Pemberton.

At about 9:30 we made it to the trailhead, and the parking lot was simply packed. Of course we immediately saw other VOC members, I guess we are really the mafia of the mountains, we are just everywhere, with or without sun. Quick notice, the parking to Cayoosh mountain was also packed. One of the other VOC members (who were going to Marriott meadows) asked where we were headed too, we told her Mount Rohr and she responded we were ambitious… These kind of comments are well taken but it always brings the doubt back to me, did I drive today for 7 hours for a failed summit… I get nervous about it.. But I keep motivated.

We quickly put on our gear, and started heading on the trail. We didn’t t feel like thinking too much so we actually just followed some well marked tracks, through the forest. I knew that we were way up east the actual summer trail, but I had a good feeling about those tracks, I felt that the skiers in front of us knew what they were doing… not the smartest feeling as you should only trust yourself on the mountain and not people you have never met.

The tracks were going straight up and in a descent zigzag, easy for snowshoers to follow but our friend Len was having a bit of a hard time with his new skies, he was loosing his skins on every turn. Since he was behind, I told him to take the lead and I would push his butt up the mountain. This actually really got him going. About 90 min later , the trees started to thin out, and we got our first good views of Joffre and Slalok (not Matier as we thought first).

The tracks were still excellent but we didn t really know what we were heading to. In the beginning I thought we were going to go as high as Rohr lake and then traverse under the ridge to meet the bowl, but as soon as I saw that we were a 100m above I kind of guessed we going to go on the ridge. I was happy about this alternative ascent but nervous as I had heard that the ridge was difficult.

When we arrived at the alpine, we decided to stop for a quick lunch/photo break, we ate our meal, happy that now it would only be great views. I appreciated the look of Vantage peak, something I would like to climb in a near future.

A group of three skiers arrived and we start following them. It seems we were quite a few on the ridge. 4 from my group, the group in front of us, 3 and another group of 5 who had gracefully broke this awesome trail for us.

We made it to the ridge and we felt on top of the world with excellent 360 degree views. Because of the proximity, we were focus on Joffre, Matier and also Marriott up North. The snow was delicious, not easy but far from exhausting us. The trees had that great frozen look, and some of them looked more like an ice cube than a pine tree. We first made it to the false summit where I realized that my silver necklace had broken and disappeared in the snow. I was pretty p…, I had been wearing it everyday for 11 years. If you see something shiny on the Rohr ridge please email me.

The false summit on the ridge had quite some preeminence, and it required us to a steep descent, butt slide way down, we lost about 200m. This kind of step made us want to go another way back down, especially that at this point we could see the group of 5 skiers going down into the bowl. We didn t have skis but we did want to do something different after our summit. We made it to the bottom to the slope that leads to Mount Rohr. Not difficult, steep but not scary, max 30 degrees. The snow was good, nothing slippery. Our friend Ben, was getting really tired and had to lay down every 5 min. We told him he was loosing tons of energy when he lays down in the snow, but he told us the wind was eating up more of it. Fine with us, what could we say, he works in thermal isolation.
I have to admit, the last steep part was tough, it was tiring, but when you wake up at 50m in Burnaby, ascending the same day a 2500 m mountain has a few effects on you. I didn’t t feel sick, just a bit short breathed, but it was one of those good feelings, that remind you that you are alive and that you are somewhere special.

Summit! After 5 hours of steep climbing. Fantastic views, We had caught up to the group of three skiers who nicely took pictures of all 4 of us. They took off and skied down and we stayed a bit to discuss our two options: Back track or the Rohr bowl?

After 2.5 seconds of deliberation the majority decided to attempt the Rohr bowl, circuit hikes are the best and we had good AVI gear. We were not the first one to go in the bowl so we thought it would be ok.
We checked our beacons and straped well our shovels and probes on us and start heading down.
What an amazing snow, our friend Len was the one really enjoying his skis now after his unpleasant ascent in the forest. The snow sounded good and felt stable although it had been in the sun for at least 4 hours. We stayed on the skiers tracks. There were some parts where the snow was shallow and I know that those are the areas that are most prone to start an avalanche. When it was not steep we just spread out. But on a few parts in went in the 40 degrees, so we went one at a time, ready to rescue someone, in case…

On our way down I noticed the steep south slopes on our right, I had a feeling that they were high avalanche risk zones and to never wonder there in those conditions. Well soon after, Todd pointed his finger towards those slopes, and in front of us a avalanche wet slab, probably a size 1 was going down the slope. Maybe 15 km/h and 40 cm deep, nothing scary, but we wer happy to be at least 400 m away from it. Actually there was a lot of avalanche debris from those slopes, a good reminder of the nature of the are. We quickly made it to Rohr lake. And enjoyed a nice lake traverse and were surprised by the steepsnees of the slope going to Marriott creek. We met with more skiers enjoying their day on that slope, doing some runs. They told us they were sleeping high up there, probably – 10 at night, more courageous people out there. We traversed towards the south trying to make it back to the trail. We made it to the debris area, an opened area that I felt was very prone to Avi risk, We ran through it although at this part of the day I was getting a bit tired. We finally made it to the logging road and we felt our adventure was coming to an end. I tried to step on Lens skis and slide behind him, it kind of worked for 20 m but his ice axe was dangerously threatening my eyeball. After 8 hours of fantastic climbing we made it back to the car. Although I had lost a precious peace of jewelry, I was happy I had lived another amazing day in my life, something I will take with me to my grave.