an englishman in squamish: decker, whirlwind, failures, teapot, redacted!

As in most years I bagged a few summits during 2020. None quite as notable as the 2017-2019 collection (Wedge, Garibaldi, Bugaboos, etc) but perhaps still worth documenting.

Since climbing to, and riding down from, the very top of Mt Garibaldi on a splitboard in 2018 I have been keen to repeat the trick on other mountains in the Coast Range. The (comparatively) laziest options are the peaks accessible from the Whistler Blackcomb lift system, sometimes referred to as the side- or slack-country. In January Bob found time to join me on a tour up and over Decker Mountain starting from the Blackcomb lifts. I had actually attempted this with him about five years before but my woeful lack of fitness, combined with deteriorating visibility, forced us to abort before venturing on to Decker itself. This time I was pleased to find that I wasn't slowing Bob down too much (or, if I was, he was not concerned about it). The peak itself did not quite fit the strap-in-at-the-summit-and-ride-down ideal as the highest point is in the middle of a flat'ish plateau, but it is close enough.

The highlight of the day was dropping into the 9th Hole bowl just north of the summit. Apparently it is normal to sneak around its large cornices but the features had formed differently this year and some kind of proper jump. or improper fall, was mandatory. On the positive side, this meant that the bowl was almost untracked. Fortunately another team hucked the cornice just before us and were able to suggest a slightly-safer variant on their line where there was deep snow below the steepness. We cut out a launch platform on the lip from which Bob was somehow able to ski vertical snow diagonally across to the easier terrain. I opted for a quasi-downclimb method, lowering off my ice axe while attempting to kick a board edge into the cornice. Surprisingly this worked. We enjoyed a long powder run down from there before an easy contouring skin over to Disease Ridge and another steep but fun drop into Bodybag Bowl before re-entering the resort.

flat-topped Decker from the Spearhead col

me skinning up Decker

Bob on Decker summit

above the 9th Hole cornice

A few weeks later I persuaded Colin to join me on a similar tour, this time on the Whistler side of the valley. From the top of the Whistler lifts the two closest "real" (glaciated) mountains are the pointy Fissile and more rounded Whirlwind. The former requires a bootpack ascent and only has "extreme" descent options from the summit (the entry to the classic moderate Banana chute is at a lower elevation). So we headed for Whirlwind. It was a perfect bluebird day but the distances we had to travel were intimidating. In an ideal scenario I would have taken two days over this itinerary, overnighting at the newly-opened Kees and Clair hut, but Colin had just become a dad and was significantly time-constrained.

Fortunately I had toured as far as the start of the Whirlwind Glacier a few years before with Leo, so knew approximately which of the many skin tracks over the "Musical Bumps" (a 5km ridge of non-glaciated peaks just east of the resort boundary) to follow and we made pretty good time over this section. The final ascent up Whirlwind was long but uncomplicated and we were able to keep our skins on all the way without any boot-packing. The summit had great views over Fissile, to the north, and deeper into the Fitzsimmons range to the east. It is also sharper and more impressive than it looks from a distance and, unlike Decker, can be skied right from the very top.

Whirlwind (just left of centre) and Fissile (further left) from the resort boundary

Colin on the Whirlwind glacier, summit centre skyline

Colin on the summit

looking west from the summit toward the resort

looking north from the summit toward Fissile

looking east from the summit toward Overlord

Colin below the Kees and Clair hut after our descent from Whirlwind

The descent was excellent fun, especially on the upper slopes of the mountain. Thanks to some ruthless use of the skin track to keep my speed up on the shallower angle lower reaches of the glacier I managed to ride all the way to the slope below the hut without a transition. The slog back to the resort boundary was less fun. Skiers need only make one uphill from here, up on to Cowboy Ridge and can then exit back to Whistler village on the Singing Pass trail. However this is hell on a snowboard as the trail's gradient is frequently too shallow for continuous riding and the narrowness of the trail requires staying on the same edge for the whole distance (heel side for regular stance riders). Colin - on skis - acquiesced to us instead reversing our route in the morning, which is two more hills (Oboe and Flute) and then a final bootpack within the resort to the Burnt Stew trail.

Both of us became quite fatigued through this section. Colin was convinced that I was fitter than him and would abandon me at the transitions to skinning on the assumption that I could catch up. This worked especially badly at the Oboe-Flute col where I split my snowboard, unpacked and attached my skins and then absent-mindedly removed and packed them away again, before attempting to follow. It took me a while to understand why my split-skis weren't working. Some shouting then ensued as I tried to communicate to Colin that I really wouldn't be catching up with him.

A week or so after this, I spotted a possible weather window suitable for the Tantalus range near Sqamish, where I was keen to attempt the North Face of Serratus. I became aware of this line during Leo and I's frustrating trip into the Tantalus at Easter 2018, and had since realised that it could be attempted in a daytrip from Squamish using a helicopter drop and pickup. Colin agreed to join me and also recruited Another Colin, who usefully is a ski patroller at Whistler. By this time COVID-19 concerns were starting to shut down travel and we were lucky to be able to book the heli. Had we waited another week or longer it would probably not have been possible.

The most notable event on this tour was my splitboard making an escape attempt. At the heli drop site, the saddle on the Tantalus ridge by the Jim Haberl hut, Colin was assigned by the pilot to unpack the skis and splitboard. Unintentionally (I think!) he placed my splitboard onto the snow flat side down without any restraint. The gusts from the rotor blades almost immediately set it in motion. He and I both chased after it but were unable to catch up before it launched vigorously down the west face of the saddle. I assumed that was the end of my day, but the pilot and Another Colin took off in the heli in pursuit. Remarkably they found it, about 1000m lower below, and even more remarkably it was almost wholly undamaged once a few bolts were retightened.

After overcoming this obstacle it would be nice to record that we achieved our objective. Sadly: not entirely. When we flew in we asked the pilot to detour over Serratus so we could inspect the upper part of the face from the air. Due to some communication failures - my mic wasn't working and neither of the Colins knew the Tantalus range well enough to direct the pilot - the flight path was not optimal for this but we had a good enough view to see extensive rime ice around Serratus' summit. Optimistically we ignored this detail and skied down to the base of the north face to attempt it anyway.

The north face is an AD mountaineering route in summer conditions when I assume the face is mostly exposed ice. For us in winter conditions it was a fairly reasonable bootpack though it got quite steep at an obvious roll around half height. We stopped at a shelf at about two-thirds height. Above there the face was significantly wind-affected and did not look at all ski-able. We left our packs and made an unenthusiastic attempt to bootpack to the summit but gave up quite rapidly after encountering steeper unconsolidated snow. I was told later by a guide that this terrain is straightforward in good conditions; looking at photos I also suspect that we were slightly too far west of the correct line to the summit. Anyway, skiing (riding, in my case) back down the face was good entertainment. There is a sketchy steep section down to a mandatory skier's right turn at the roll which would be fairly disastrous to screw up, as the skier's left side of the face is a sizeable cliff.

Back at the glacier we enjoyed a mellow long run down to a flagged shelf just above the tree line on Alpha mountain where the heli was scheduled to collect us. As we had another hour or so to kill, we did a quick yo-yo of the face below the Alpha-Serratus col. A fun, eventful and educational day. I need to go back.

the whole Serratus ridge and northern flanks from the heli, evening light

Serratus in morning light with the unhelpful summit snow formations clearly visible
The ascent and descent line is to climbers' left of the obvious cliffs just left of centre

booting up the north face

just below the crux on the north face descent

transition spot at the base of the Serratus glacier.
I triggered the small wet snow slide in the background shortly before - not large enough to be of concern

The Colins making the last skin up to the pickup site; Tantalus and the Rumbling glacier behind

waiting for our pickup, Serratus in the background

The ski season came to an abrupt halt not long after that as the province locked down to beat the virus. Well, almost. Whistler shut the resort but for a brief period allowed "uphill skiing" on the groomers. Bob and I tried to summit Blackcomb Peak from the valley floor, a daunting 1500m altitude gain. He would have made it without me, for sure, but I ground to a halt about halfway up Bodybag bowl, with maybe 200-300m remaining to climb. The snow there was iron hard from wind scouring. Crampons would have made a difference but I did not have them. Regardless it was a surreal experience to see the resort infrastructure with no people.

uphill skiers, or possibly zombies, Blackcomb lower piste

Seventh Heaven lift - rare to see this spot so desolate at mid-day in March

Bob with signage just beyond Seventh Heaven

oh, the irony

I forget exactly when lockdown restrictions started to ease but by mid-summer life in Squamish had somewhat normalised, though without the usual foreign visitors. On two occasions in late June James and I hiked up to the lake and bowl on the east side of Tricouni Peak, which still held a reasonable amount of snow. On the second trip James brought his snowboard. The plan was that we would build a kicker so he could practise his jumps. This failed for two reasons. First, the snow was terrible. Second, we met a grizzly bear! More accurately, we watched a very thin grizzly walk the length of the (frozen) lake about 200-300m horizontally and below us. It was heading to some bare screes at the far end of the lake in search of marmots and did not seem interested in us, but after observing it for a while it seemed prudent to leave.

James watching the grizzly

grizzly crossing Tricouni East lake

zoom into previous image

Two summers previously, Kris W and I had an adventurous day climbing a couple of the tottering Touch and Go towers, across the river from Squamish downtown. During that trip we had a look at the notorious Teapot tower which is reputed to have only been climbed once, by Dick Culbert in 1958, despite several repeat attempts. We examined what we believed to be the original ascent route and thought it looked pretty dangerous. Elsewhere the tower appeared to overhang on all sides. Kris, however, noted the possibility of a sneaky safer route to the summit, making use of a giant cedar growing just behind the tower on its uphill side.

In July this year we crossed the river again, in Kris' sturdy aluminum kayak, with this project in mind. It was a hot and buggy day and the hike to the base of the tower, on very overgrown trails, was made extra gruelling by packs full of multiple ropes, aid and SRT gear. At the base of the "line" it looked as if the cedar would take us to a height from which a terrifying branch traverse might gain some chossy but moderate ground ten or more metres below the summit. I was relieved when Kris took the lead - it was, anyway, his idea, I rationalised.

The first part of the climb actually turned out retrospectively to be the crux, getting a climbable rope established in the lowest substantial branches of the tree about ten metres up. Arborists carry small bean bags attached to fishing line for this purpose. We only had the fishing line and had to improvise a toss-able weight. Once this was achieved and Kris had ascended to the first branches while I pretended to spot him, the rest of the "climb" was revealed to be trivial. Kris discovered that the top of the tree was actually higher than the top of the tower and had to execute just one actual climbing move to gain the summit, stepping out of the tree to grab the summit and mantle-shelving up onto it. I followed without even having to climb the tree, as Kris fixed a static rope to his highpoint. We then explored other aspects of the tower on rappel, finding a variety of volcanic rock from Smith Rock'esque tuff to sideways basalt columns, before heading back to the river and the sting-in-the-tail of any Squamish river crossing: paddling against the current to regain our put-in spot. I was delighted that Kris had a couple of beers stashed in his truck.

Teapot tower from its uphill side, almost obscured by trees.
the "spout" can be seen just right of centre

Kris starting the "route"

And looking down triumphant from the summit

Downtown Squamish and the Chief from the summit

The Castle from the Teapot

exploratory rappel on the south side

sideways basalt columns

And then there were a couple of more conventional summer alpine trips, both to the same general area about 3-4 hours drive from Squamish, though ascending different peaks. The popularity of many alpine zones in the Coast Mountains fluctuates according to two main factors: changes in the ease of access, such as new or restored logging roads, and the intensity of social media attention. This area has become a little more popular due to the first factor but hasn't featured much on InstaTwitBook as far as I know. In that spirit, as this is a beautiful and relatively unspoilt place, I will just offer some photos but no geographic precision. The first trip was with James and Chris H. We camped in our vehicles at the trailhead then did a nice scramble the next day along a ridge linking three peaks up to about 2600m, of which the middle summit was quite impressively pointy. The second trip was with Shoko. We hiked in the evening to camp by a small alpine lake on a full moon night then climbed the peak above our tent early the next morning.