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.

Elk Mountain & Mount Thurston

After 2 ascents in dreadful conditions, the sun finally came back and without hesitation, I rented a car for myself and BT to go hiking in the Chilliwack area. We left the house around 9:15, I admit a late start but the hike was only 1.5 hours away and 7 hours long. We went through the beautiful Fraser valley Bonn-Tien screaming each time she saw a farm selling organic eggs or nuts, luckily it was Sunday and everything seemed closed otherwise I would be bankrupt by now.

We easily found the trailhead, unfortunately people have been dumping their trash in the area and they have some fresh new clear cuts.

The start of the trail was really easy but BT felt some horrible pains with her shoes. Several time we had to stop so she could re adjust or add some inefficient mole skin. The trail makes you do some really large turns adding, quite some distance but the forest is really nice and the trail is so well maintained that each step is delightful (when you are not wearing BT`s shoes). We arrived at the beginning of the steep section. I was happy to see it was not that steep and no gear was required, although some previous hikers had scared me by asking us if we were equipped with ice gear. It was a smooth climb through the forest. We quickly got out of the trees and saw this hikes main appeal, it`s amazing views of the North Cascade and the Fraser Valley. We were very impressed.
We followed the summit ridge for another half hour and made it to the gentle summit of Elk mountain. We were lucky to meet another couple who took pictures of us.
Although the pain, BT was motivated to go further. So we continued and had to go back into the forest. I really like this trail that is relatively flat, going along a summit ridge. This insured us a good view every 5 min. The snow was soft but not too deep. Some steep sections on our left but nothing technical on the trail, a pure pleasure. A few times we got completely in the forest and we enjoyed much deeper snow in a very calm atmosphere. Once again we got out of the forest and we just needed to walk another 5 min before getting to the Thurston Cairn about 1 km from Mt Thurston. We finally made it to the cairn and the views were astonishing. But I wanted to do the trail in full, but BT did not want to and nobody had gone further than the cairn. The snow was virgin, no tracks, I would have had to break trail, which was fine with me. BTs heart wanted to go further but her feet were saying no. However, she has an amazing source of energy, and accepted my invitation to go further!, I broke trail, at first going downhill but then going up hill again. It was hard to break trail but the beauty of the untouched alpine and the isolation kept us going. We made it to the Thurston look out, and BT was giving up. But when I said that the actual summit was another 400 m, she did not give up and followed me through the scenery. We were at 1600 m high, and the snow was much deeper. It was hard but the we were almost there. After a last steep, knee high snow, slope we made it to the summit. BT was tired but proud of our accomplishment. It turned out that it was not the best view that we had that day, but we were on the top!
After a sweet chocolate bar and a few pictures, we headed back. Although of her feet pain, BT was quick and carful. We were going back at great speed. After the cairn, me met Elkaholic and his beautiful dog, an active Clubtread member, that I had read much about. It was a pleasure to meet someone who has hiked so much in the area, he had so many great recommendations for the area, this was his 207th time climbing the mountain, a number that made me dizzy. He was very kind and we would meet again on Clubtread.
The way back was great, passed a group of winter/early spring campers, the weather was holding good. We thought we could cut through the new clear cut on our way back to save some time. It was not that great of an idea. The cut was steep and I grabbed some kind of super prickly root-branch, as I am writing this I still have some spines in my hand. We finally made it to the car after 8 hours of hiking. Today was a fantastic day and we were extremely happy of our adventure. BT healed her blisters. And I was already thinking of what I was going to write about this trip.

Mount Fromme (Attempt) A cold day...

Today I started work at 14:00.

I decided to attempt Mount Fromme, a summit in North Vancouver, very easily accessible. This was my third attempt…this actually is a very easy trail but I have been very unlucky.
First attempt: A year ago with Bonn-Tien, we only had one pair of snowshoes, got lost in the forest on the middle of the mountain. We made it to a nice viewpoint but turned back because of lack of time.
Second attempt: Last fall, biked up the logging road, BT got tired, I got annoyed, we just enjoyed our ride back down the hill, stayed on the logging road the whole way.
This last attempt: Made it up with my bike ¾ up the logging road. I hid the bike on the side ans snowshoed to the trailhead. Made it to the trailhead. I was very surprised that for such a popular hike the markings were so poor. Good barely see the trail, it was snowing, hailing and raining, very foggy, horrible conditions no views guaranteed. After struggling going uphill, I resigned and walked back to my bike. Cruised down in wind and rain with brakes to be embarrassed about. Got completely chilled. Luckily it took me very little time to get back to Phibbs Exchange and take a bus back home so I could be on time for work.

Revenge on Mount Crickmer, at a price...

The forecast was plainly terrible. But after a failed attempt earlier this year (where we had great weather), I wanted to conquer this summit, at any cost.

I called up my friend Ryan on Saturday, and we set up a schedule. We were hoping to quickly climb this because he has a car and we can skip a big part of the hike with the 4 wheel drive. I wouldn’t t have mind skipping the logging road part since I had already done it and it was pouring rain.

Ryan picked me up at 8 in Burnaby and we headed East. Todd was also part of the team this day. We made it to the parking lot and to my very unpleasant surprise the gate was lock… today was going to be a cold and wet day.

We hit the logging road at about 10 am (we had done some pit stops on our way), and each had a full layer of Gore-Tex (or wannabe gore-tex fabrics). On the way up a grouse walked in front of us, maybe to divert us from its chicks, it did the same thing when we came down.

The logging road was wet, real snow level roughly 800 m on the south face. Very wet and slushy snow, but it actually never snowed that day for us, not even at the summit.

We made it to the steep part, so much easier in this super heavy snow, no chances of sliding. However I had a feeling that a wet slab avalanche could start if we really tried hard.

A a bit of hard time to find the markers on the slope but found them when we arrived at the plateau. However lost them there because they were buried. I turned on my GPS, ant it was telling me we were 1.5 km north of Crickmer, WTF!! I decided not to look at it and let Todd do the orientation, we just followed in the fog the natural line, however it was very confusing. We went along a ridge, maybe 250 m and had a snack under a small slope, at that point I felt lost but I found a yellow marker with an arrow pointing towards the top. At this point we were wet to the bone, it was hailing and windy.

Ascended the small slope and we came up to a big flat open area, the GPS was not telling us anything relevant. It was so foggy we could see nothing, maybe a mountain in front of us, Ryan thought we were an hour away from the summit. I had no clue, there was a serious drop on our right, and I thought we should continue North. But it was getting late and we turned back. The GPS stated Crickmer was 500 m south so we decided in an ultimate attempt to make it.

I followed the direction, a straight line, I thought we had taken a wrong turn earlier. We were quickly approaching the summit on the GPS… I was on the summit! Based on my GPS… Actually I was on the middle of a frozen pond. I restarted my GPS and it turns out that I had just came from the summit but we had noticed nothing because of the fog and the GPS miscalculation. We congratulated ourselves, a 100 m lower than the actual summit and headed back

It was also a bery wet way down where I was actually using big blocks of snow as a sled.
After an eternal way down, finally made back to the car and put the heater to the max, it was cold and wet day to summit. A summit hat we never really saw.

A different outdoor adventure: Dog Sledding

I realized a long time dream, trying dog sledding. Now I know that to count a day in the outdoors I have to spend at least 5 hours outside but this would be a shame if I didn’t t count this extraordinary experience in my adventures for this year.

This trip was generously sponsored by my friend Adrienne, who I brought to the tour with her two children. We left early from Vancouver and headed to Whistler. After a nice trip through the north shore mountains we arrived to Whistler in the sun. We quickly made it to the agency who had a van waiting for us. The van loaded all 4 of us and picked up some guest at the 4 Seasons hotel. After a quick drive towards Pemberton, we took a left into the Soo valley, a valley I had never heard about but I had actually seen when last summer I climbed Rainbow Mountain. I thought we would have arrived directly at the kennel but instead it was just the launching center for dog sledding. Now I was really hoping we would dog sled for about 2 hours as the brochure made us understood but instead there was a lot of talking but with the dogs around. It was a short and useful introduction to dog sledding and how the dogs live and their features. The interesting part is that they did not have any Siberian huskies but mix races of German Sheppard with Husky and Greyhound. It turns out all the dogs were extremely cute and joy full. To my very pleasant surprise, they wanted us to actually drive the sled, and this was very exciting.
Of course I volunteered immediately to drive the sled. I carefully listened to the instruction. Basically the dogs follow the track so no steering needed but lots of breaking needed because they will run till they are out of juice. The sleds were very simple but very efficient. The main mechanics is a break that you just step on and a metal hook you kick into the ground to anchor yourself. The only tricky part in dog sledding is actually releasing that hook because the dogs feel when you are taking it off and they will just blast away.

I put Adrienne`s two daughters in my assigned sled. We were given four beautiful dogs that were hauling to get moving, a bit like me before climbing. Adrienne and her sleadder started quickly in front of us. I carefully released the hook-anchor from the ground and before the hook was even put back on it s holder we were firing down the trail. I was extremely surprised by the pace we were going at, least 40 km per hour, especially that the route was going downwards. I realized that we had the super dogs and quickly caught up to Adrienne s sled. I had to break many time so the dos did not pass the sled in front of us which could lead to some serious dog fights. It was very relaxing and the pace finally went down because the dogs got a bit tires after the first km. The trail was a simple up and down logging road going along the Soo river a large and nice deep valley stream. It was very enjoyable and the two girls were giggling of happiness.

It is actually quite easy to balance yourself on the sled but the bumpy part gives you some quick adrenalin whips, especially when you have a 3 and a 4 year old in the sled your driving. At one point , the trail does a 180 degrees so you can head back towards the lunch pad, so after 30 min we hit the turnaround point, and we got to be alone on the sled. I was a bit nervous because how would I tell the dogs to do a 180 turn, well the guide told me not to worry and let the magic happened. Adrienne did this part even by herself. So we stopped for a minute to listen to the instructions, and I waited for Adrienne to do her turn, I left about 30 seconds later. We went down a steep part which made me break so I would not sled over the dogs. And there it was the 180 degree turn, without a second of hesitation the dogs just did the turn while I was feeling the sled tipping on the side. I put all my weight on the opposite side so I would not tip. Well we made it just dine, and the girls were laughing of happiness. We steadily made back to base camp while the guide took plenty of nice pictures of us. After the one hour ride we got to give a treat to each of the dogs and even assisted to the reproduction of two of them ( a bonus to the program). The staffs were extremely nice and welcoming and the dogs were very well treated. We safely headed back to Whistler in the Van and a had a great lunch at the old spaghetti factory the first company I ever worked for, as a bus boy.. a long way before my first dog sledding adventure… Next year Yukon!

Petgill Lake with an attempt to Goat Ridge

Petgill lake was just suppose to be a checkpoint of my dream to spend the night in winter on Goat Ridge.Indeed I have always had this fascination for this long ridge with guaranteed views.

We left around 8 am from Vancouver Friday morning. And got dropped off at Murrin Park around 9 am. Went smoothly to the lake. Bonn-Tien was struggling a bit as this was her first winter camping ever, her pack was a bit heavy and has not carried any heavy packs since our ascent to Harrison hut in september.

We took too much time and it took us 4 hours to make to the lake, way to long. After a quick break at the lake, we took the route to the ridge. To my pleasen surprise, the marking was actually excellent. Because I had read litlle reports, I was not expecting this. We put on the snowshoes at about 800m high, taking some weight off the pack, Bonn-Tien felt much better and the terrain was actually quite good. But unfornatly we arrived at the bottom of this super steep slope.

Without much difficulty we climbed it with our snowshoes, but at the top of the slope we realized it was going to be hell to go down. First we thought the trail was going to the left and it turned out it was going towards the right. Because the traverse was really too sketchy and a slip could mean a fast out of control 100 m slide. We decided to turn back, it was 5 pm and we were nowhere...
I pulled out my 30 m , 8 mm rope, always handy in crappy terrain. And we easily made it down the slope. I think the rope was not necessary but gave some good safety.

Down of the slope we started looking for a camping spot. The sun was right on us so I just had to look for ths pot with the most light. We found an uncoverd moat and set camp on this thin ridge. We enjoyed the sun set and had a chilli night in my new 4 season tent. For some reason, and knowing we would not make it higher than 1100m, iI slept 13 h that night, mI usually only sleep 6...

The next morning, we quickly made it back to the lake, it took us 1 h wad had taken us 3 h the previous day. We enjoyed the viewpoint west of the lake and made it safe back to the murrin parking lot.

I failed Sigurd peak last year almost at the same time. I think I will have a super revenge week end this summer, fast and light, Day 1 Goat ridge, sleep at car, Day 2 Sigurd Peak. Anyone motivated?

Day 16- Needle Peak- March 6th

Another beautiful day in BC.

We left early from home, around 7 I think, with Russ Len and BT. The drive was towards a new destination, the Coquahilla highway, heard so much about it have yet never has the chance to see it. Today was an excellent day to meet…

Not one cloud in sight but lots of peaks in the views. Because it was a first timer in the area we wanted to do the most famous peak of the valley, the Needle peak, many trip reports on it so definitely a must do!

We passed under Cheam with a promise to Bonn-Tien to climb that mountain, maybe later spring. After passing Hope we entered on route #5, the Coquahilla highway. The weather was just astonishing and the views sublime. As I was carefully looking at my GPS to not miss the parking turnoff. After a few turns, an amazing peak “Yak Peak” appeared. With its beautiful rocky south face, smooth granite, a climbers dream. However we knew we had just arrived. We parked closely to the trail head. Put on the snowshoes and start heading towards the ridge. The first part is through an easy gentle slope in the middle of an open forest. After a while it got very steep, reminded us of the Grouse grind. We crossed a few skiers that were struggling going up. After about an hour leaving from the car, we finally hit the first ridge. A perfect view on Yak Peak and on Needle Peak. Yak Peak was so beautiful that I even wondered if I should have done that peak instead, but I was just being insatiable. We took our first break on a small butte, enjoying our snack we had not eaten for 3 long hours. We needed to put on the sun lotion with all the rays hitting our faces. After a good break we continued along the ridge. At one point there was a nice snowy notch. Myself and Len could not resist jumping hit with Bonn-Tien sports photographing us. The jumps were high and I actually had back pains the following evening.
After our extreme photo shoot we continued our assault towards Needle Peak, we were obviously taking our time in these extraordinary conditions. The slope started to increase and at one point we changed ridge to start taking the South ridge but going North till the peak. It got fairly steep around 30 degrees but the snow was holding us good. After 10 min we made it in front of a series of big rocks that seemed easy to pass at first. I took off my snowshoes and started ascending them. However Russ was not comfortable, and after an attempt to climb them resigned to go any further and was happy to wait for us at that point. Bonn-Tien gave it a try and managed to make it to a small platform. From there it was really tricky. First we tried to go through a small gully but it seems that there were no good holds, so we decided to go on the right side. Bonn-Tien found an open passage, some kind of a large gully but with a little slippery snow on the bottom. She tried first but felt very uncomfortable in the gully not finding any good grabs, she tried to go back and had a little panic moment as she did not know where to put her feet. Myself I felt very uncomfortable stepping back not knowing where to hold. She went back to the platform, but I decided to continue where she had turned back. I used my new boots that have great soles to walk on the side of the gully and to climbing it up. It worked out well. At the end of the gully was a large rock plate, because it was not icy and, a great rock and not too inclined I jumped on it and grabbed some plants at the top, a sketchy move that got me out of the difficult part. Len followed me the same way but because a bit smaller than myself, we had to use the rope to give him some extra security. I stuck my ice axe deep in the snow (which was hard because it was quite a shallow snow) and gave him a quick belay. He pulled himself off the plate and was out of the tricky part. We tried with the rope to get Bonn-Tien through the gully but after an unsuccessful attempt, she decided to stay with Russ. We had already lost a lot of time at this notch so we decided we were going to rush to the summit. I left my climbing poles to save on weight and we rushed on the short ridge, my GPS was indicating me that there was only 600m towards the summit on the gentle ridge. This ridge was easy and I did not put my snowshoes back on, however I did fall to my waist into a hole, a bit scary when you have a 600 m face a few steps away from you. We finally made it to the summit pyramid, not the summit yet. We started with an easy unexposed traverse, the crampons would not have been handy as there was little snow . Afterwards a small corridor with again little snow making it a bit slippery, we arrive under a small face and since it seemed the easiest rout we decided to climb it. An easy climb, we after arrived on a platform but facing a 2 m rock… I punched the snow to see if we could kick steps. Besides opening one of my knuckles and starting to bleed, I did not manage to do much. I was wondering if Len could have pushed me up there but I had no clue on what was behind the rock.
Len called it a day and with all the adrenalin we had just gone through, it seemed the best solution. However, I was very disappointed, the weather was too beautiful to not make it to the summit today, Needle peak is climbed so often, it did not seem possible that this impassible rock was the normal route. Because I had my doubts, I took a few “summit shots” looking at the true summit 20 m above us. Len started to eat his bagel and I started to go down because I wanted to find another way, I would not stop, I was going to summit today!

Going down the steep section, I noticed a gully on the right, I ventured towards it and noticed it was wide enough for myself and that I would get good support on my sides. I yelled at Len to tell him that I might have found a way. Len quickly finished his bagel and headed down towards the gully. Meanwhile I started climbing it. It was a lot of fun, and I had some good usage of my ice axe jamming it into some rock cracks. After the gully it got fairly easy, a step on a rock or two and we were at the summit ridge. Because I thought we were going to fail today, the fact of getting to the summit was 10 times more enjoyable. Len captured on camera my last meters to the summit and I screamed my victory. Because we had been working on this summit for so long, we stayed only a few minutes and start heading back down. We easily made it back to the south ridge and ran to the notch where Russ and Bonn-Tien had stayed. To our surprise they were not there anymore but a giant arrow traced in the snow at the saddle between the two ridges let us guess that they were on their way down. I prepared the rope for the notch and set belay. But the 30 m were not enough. We did not go down the same way we went up. Instead we went on the steep rock face and jumped onto the snow. That part I had feared so much on my way back went thorough easily. In a hurry to catch up with the rest of the group. We slid down (me and my crazy carpet) the steep slope, to my surprise, I gained much more speed than I would have thought. We made it to the west ridge and started running down. After a few minutes I saw the two others who had setup the picnic protected from the wind and in the sun. They seemed very happy to see us. I was in ecstasy to see Bonn-Tien, especially after all that hard climbing. They had actually witnessed our summit and heard my victory screams!.

We had a quick bite and made it back towards the car. I had not felt hunger or tiredness while making to the top because of the adrenalin rushing through my blood, but as soon as I made it back to safety I felt a huge weight on myself. We finally made back to the car altogether.

It was a great day with a great summit. Another beautiful moment in British Columbia.

Day 15- Bear Mountain- Febuary 28th

A classic 103 hikes in South Western BC. It is always nice to do these easy hikes that you have read so many times about but never actual had time to do them or was doing something harder.

I rented my car early in the morning and picked up my girlfriend at the apartment. While is was cloudy in the Fraser Valley, I had a good feeling it would clear up. We made it at the trail head by 10:30, if I would have followed only the book I would have founded it easily but I used my GPS with wrong coordinates that I had put in, so that was really not useful.

We started the easy hike up the logging road, and again the logging road, and again the logging road, logging road…

We finally made it to the lake, had a quick look, nothing exceptional. We headed towards the look out which seems to not be the summit of Bear Mountain. We found on our way a little bump, nothing around seemed higher so we both stood on it and we had climbed Bear Mountain.

On our way up it was a mix of clouds and shy sun rays. We hit snow on the top of the mountain but nothing where we needed extra gear. A little bit of bushwacking at the end of the logging road and cut through an old clear cut where we finally made it to the look out. At first we were in the clouds but it cleared up on the Hope side. We never got a full view of the valley (but we go excellent views of Cheam on our way back home).
A nice little lunch on heli pad, a few shots to never forget what I live for (GF and Mountains).

We were quickly back to the car, although for some reason my girlfriends shoes blistered her to blood. We stopped at the Harrison beach and were amazed by some beautiful peaks way up north.

We went to Abbotsford and stopped at the border, I did a few paper work and officially became permanent resident of Canada, the day Canada got gold in Hockey!! Of course since we were hiking we did not watch the game, the border told us the good news, yes permanent resident but not Canadian…yet.

Day 12-13-14, The Sphinx, Garibaldi Park

It was the week-end we had been waiting for…

After 2 wet and foggy winter camping trips, the weather was finally on our side. It was almost hard to believe, 5 consecutive days of pure sun and visibility! For a whole week I checked the forecast everyday, and not one cloud in sight, just too good to be true.
The magical part is that it was the week-end that the VOC (Varsity Outdoor Club) had decided to go the Burton hut and bag some peaks (most of them also doing the nevee traverse).
Because of our skills and our timing we decided to do the Sphinx, the 12th highest summit (2405m) of the park and probably the easiest of the 20 highest peaks.


With my super crew, we set up departure at 2:30 pm Friday from Burnaby, I had managed to leave two hours early thanks to my manager who seems to have a real interest in my adventures, I always give her a good summary of my trips on Mondays.
So our objective for Friday was to make it to the hut ( on the other side of Garibaldi lake) by midnight, so you would expect us to rush to the Black Tusk parking lot, well no…
My super crew has a way of managing time very different than most of us. First we had a nice pitt stop at burger king ( 40 min) then they had to do groceries and buy liquor to keep themselves warm…another 30 min. I kind of wondered that begging to get 2 hours early was really worth it, but the weather was great and we were already having lots of fun.

We had a sea to sky pass so we passed Alice lake at about 5 PM. We made it to the parking lot, checked all our gear, some of us turned on the beacon, I turned on the GPS and away we went, departure time 5:30 pm, 6 min of sunlight left…

We steadily went up the trail, start meeting the serious snow at about KM 2. We put up the head lamps and were thinking about KM 6 which would be the end of the first mental stage. The climb was cold and dark, crossed 3 skiers who had just done the nevee, I decided to go with no snowshoes or crampons as I was comfortable on the soft snow.

At about 8:30 we made it to the junction and we knew we had gone through the hardest part, especially when you pack is about 45 pounds. We had a quick night look at the Barrier but nothing too impressive as it was not even a quarter moon.

We crossed directly on Barrier lake and I put my snowshoes from there. We went through the frozen creek between Barrier Lake and Lesser Garibaldi Lake. Now from there it got a bit tricky. The lake is actually not completely frozen so we had to go on the side and go through some sketchy passages. The water was going very fast just under us, I don t think there was a risk of falling in but we did slow down the pace. Finally at the most eastern part of the lake where it becomes a creek, we had to go into the forest and climb some steep sections back to the summer trail. About a KM later we went back towards the creek and crossed it on a beautiful snow bridge about 100m before the summer bridge. We were finally in front of the majestic Garibaldi lake, from there we knew we had almost made it…wait, it was about midnight, cold and dark and we had another 5 km to do with heavy packs, nope we were not in our sleeping bags yet.

We decided to break up, all 6 of us crossed the lake light free and at our own pace as some of us are faster than others. I had my gps on and I knew exactly how much more I had to walk. It was a straight line towards the hut.
Although tired, there is something magic about crossing a huge lake in the middle of the night, there was winds and it was tough but being in the middle of these mountain by myself ( my crew was way in front or way behind) was so incredible, I felt so tiny and yet so strong to do this kind of adventure.

After an hour and a half, I made it to the hut, we quickly set up our tent because there was no room in the hut (filled with 20 skiers). I jumped into my sleeping bag with my tights and primaloft vest and fell asleep. However the night was cold in our MEC 3 season tent .I kept waking up between dreams about the new Mountain 25 TNF I have just ordered.

But the morning came and so did the excitement, we got woken up by some early climbers chatting about how crazy we were to come in so late, and also telling us that we had just set up our tent on the trail to the creek, did not matter, today we were climbing!

We got out of bed around 7 am and quickly put on our frozen pants. We checked all our AVI gear, made sure we had ice axe, crampons, rope, prussic, snow anchors, water, sun lotion and gummy bears… we were ready.

We first headed east towards Sphinx glacier a smooth path already well traced because we were the last to leave camp. We hit the glacier about an hour later, we could see other groups heading towards the Bookworms or Mount Carr, there was a large party heading towards the Sphinx, all on skis not roped up and going very fast.
We quickly roped up with a 30 m , 8mm Beal. However our prussic were quite thick (7 mm) so they seemed quite useless… The slope towards Sphinx pass was very gentle about 20 degrees and there were no crevasses in sight, all filled in. We had the sun in our faces and the temperatures was just perfect. The snow was wind slabbed which made it ideal for snow shoes. The climb was very pleasant and very easy. At about 200 m from the pass we headed east to a short steep slope (40 degrees). We followed the zigzagy tracks all the way to a platform.
Wow at the platform our views were already stunning. Prime view on Mamquam mountain and Mt Garibaldi and just amazing views of the coastal mountains.
But we also realized we were facing a very steep slope, about 55 degrees. Some of the team members got nervous but our most wreck less and experienced teammate just took his ice axe and ski boots and start climbing the 50 m slope as it was a latter. The previous team had done some good steps. Looking up the slope I was sure I would get very impressed looking down but I told myself the conditions were perfect for this ascent and just to stay aware and focused.

I was actually very surprise on how fast I was able to climb this, you might laugh but a week before on Elphinstone I had a few snow walls I had to climb that required the same skills. Being the second on the slope, I quickly caught up with the leader of the group. I was very comfortable on the slope and could see my buddies 40 m under me starting to climb. I was very happy that I brought my ice axe and my crampons, essential on those trips. I finally made it to the ridge with about another 700 m to the summit. The other group was going down after their lunch on the summit. We needed to hurry as the slope we had just been on was getting very heavy snow (facing south)
After another 15 min, we finally made it to the summit with unbelievable 360 degrees views, discovering mountains I had never seen ( Mostly East of the Sphinx).

We only stayed on the top for 10 min, ( at the cost of 20 hours of hiking, lol) We headed down fast and at the seep slope we went a bit on the east which is not as steep but a lot more exposed, a fall would have involved a very, very long slide. However, it felt safe as our feet were 40 cm into stable snow. Some rocks did make it hard for us to deeply stick our ice axes.


Our way down to the hut was much faster as we decided not to rope up feeling that all crevasses were full of snow. We took our time and even walked apart, proud of our accomplishment.

That night , we ate inside the hut talking to other VOC members who had bagged new peaks, such as Deception or Mt Carr. The night was extremely cold and I had a hard time to keep my sleep. Luckily I had met a French compatriot who let me use his heavy down jacket for the night. It was so cold that when I let my eye lids exposed while I slept and I woke up because they were burning me. The next morning, all our gear was completely frozen but was awesome for a photo shoot.

I had promised my girlfriend to be back home early so I could be at her family dinner but my friends were nowhere in a hurry. So I told them I would just hitchhike back home. I quickly made my way across the lake and had lunch at the Barrier viewpoint. I had left at 11 AM from the East side of the lake and made it back to the parking lot at 2:15 PM. I walked back to the road and got quickly picked up by a VANOC driver who dropped me off in Squamish. A young fisherman picked me up after waiting almost an hour and we talked about how to rebuild the world all the way back to my home in Burnaby where he generously dropped me off.

My girlfriend was happy as I made it back before 6 pm and I got to have dinner with my in-laws just after climbing the beautiful Sphinx…