Friday, April 19, 2019

About That Ferry: Almost Rainbow Mountain By Senior Citizens


It is almost seven years since we did any real skiing. True, we did a couple of multi-day ski trips in the Australian Alps - yes, Australians do call the low rounded rolling hills along the Great Dividing Range "alps" - but our only real skiing in the last half decade had been a few half day trips around the North Shore Mountains, and even those we managed to do upside down in Antipodean fashion boot-packing up Christmas Gully in frozen conditions rather than skiing down.

Sunset in Australia's Snowy Mountains

After Australia's rolling hills, everything felt desperately steep for the first few ski trips out, probably not helped by frozen tracks pocked with craters and trenches from the myriad of boot-packers who seem to have overtaken the North Shore Mountains since we left for Australia. Dog shit and 50 cm deep boot holes seem to have become the predominant hazards around the North Shore Mountains.
Easy skiing in the Snowy Mountains

Doug and I were trying to get the band back together to recreate the glory days when we were younger and stronger and each spring we'd head off on a big ski traverse, often around the Coast Mountains, but sometimes in the Rockies or the Selkirks. Robin and Betsy were otherwise engaged. Robin deep in the bowels of the Bivouac headquarters working away on prominences, road plans and all the other esoterica of running the Bivouac site, and Betsy, a seeming anachronism among our other friends, actually having paid employment! Tom, however, who had some kind of paid to do whatever gig going with the university, decided to get up at 4.00 am, drive for 1.5 hours, take the ferry from Vancouver Island, and meet us at Horseshoe Bay for a ski day, his only request being, and here I quote directly - if we could drop him off at Horseshoe Bay at "say 6.30 pm, 8 pm (or less optimally 10 pm)?"

Hashtag Vanlife

Our wheels of choice these days are a Honda Odyssey, yep, a minivan. I'm 56 years old and back to living the #vanlife in an 8 foot by 4 foot space. Who says things can't get any better? The clearance is low and the tires are kind of worn, so our options for skiing are limited to paved - or at least well graded - roads. Robin suggested touring from Whistler Olympic Park (WOP), a new (since 2010) facility up the Callaghan Valley.

Hanging Lake and Rainbow Mountain

We hadn't skied in the area for 15 years, not since we did the Pemberton Icecap traverse back in 2004 so it was pretty much all new to us again. Then again, with incipient Alzheimers just about every day is new to us now. The gate at WOP was closed for the season so we parked beside the Tow Away sign and popped the hood on the Odyssey which is the only way to stop the car alarm going off 15 times per hour due to some untraceable electrical malfunction.

Tom and Doug at the col

Apparently, there is a direct ski route from Alexander Falls parking lot to the far end of the mish-mash of overlapping trails in WOP but we did not find it. Instead, we walked along the road in our sneakers, changed into our ski boots at some generic looking building, and stashed our shoes in the salt bin, 'cos "doesn't everyone?"

View roughly west from ascent route

Some weaving around on groomed ski trails and we finally found the Rainbow Lake winter route. A couple of youth from the Czech Republic were also skiing up Rainbow Mountain and had come in on a mountain bike with better directions than we had. It's a 600 metre climb up to Hanging Lake, most of it pretty reasonable, but there is one steep section near the top. The trail was well beaten by skiers but the deep potholes of walkers and piles of dog shit endemic to the North Shore Mountains were conspicuously - and delightfully - absent.

Just above Hanging Lake and the summit looks a long way off
PC, DB

Over lunch at Hanging Lake we contemplated the remainder of the ascent, another 1000 metres of elevation gain, suddenly, it was starting to seem like this might be a long day indeed. Nevertheless, we continued on. We took a slight variation on the Czech route, but were soon following their broken track up the west face of Rainbow Mountain. Truthfully, it looked like a bloody long way, nothing is ever this far in Australia, but we plugged away, finally arriving on a broad plateau with the summit only another 250 metres above us. We had almost caught up to the Czechs, which was miraculous given they were easily 30 or even 40 years our junior, and, as much as it would have stroked our egos to go for the summit, it was increasingly looking like the least optimal ferry might be the only option for Tom, unless he too wanted to start #vanlife.

Tom at our high point,
PC. DB

So, we turned around. The ski out should have been simple, and would have been for other parties, but it took us a long time, some of which may have been because Tom preferred to leave his boots loose on his feet like an Aussie pair of thongs. As everyone knows, it's hard to drive a ski while wearing a pair of thongs, and Tom may have had a crash or two on the way down.

Skiing down

Inevitably, we took a wrong turn once we got out onto the groomed trails and ended up wandering around in circles on the maze of trails. There were sporadic signs on some of the trails, but we were all too myopic to be able to read any of them and too daft to make sense of them anyway. Eventually, we found the access road and resorted to walking along that, but even then I'm sure we walked in a complete circle before finding the salt bin where we had stashed our sneakers.

High up on Rainbow Mountain
PC. DB

We finally dropped Tom off at Horseshoe Bay just in time to catch the 10 pm ferry back to Vancouver Island. I'm not at all sure how keen he is to get the band together again.


Thursday, April 18, 2019

Finally Mount Strachan


It is testament to our declining abilities as mountaineers that it took us three tries to get up Mount Strachan. Read on, however, and I am sure you will agree there were extenuating circumstances.

Looking east from Mount Strachan

Our first attempt was blighted by Doug having influenza. Cypress Mountains ski hill was open at the time so we skied, walked, struggled along the Howe Sound Crest Trail to the saddle at the base of Christmas Gully. Ski conditions varied from diamond hard, to teetering along a narrow crest of snow one metre off the ground, to, no snow at all. Being from the Antipodes, we did this trip in reverse skiing/boot packing up Christmas Gully instead of skiing down. It was a struggle to get up Christmas Gully as the snow was ice hard and despite there being huge craters and trenches right up the guts of the gully, there were some how no decent steps kicked.

Doug starting up Christmas Gully

By the time we got to the top of the gully, Doug was ready to return to his influenza bed, so we went only to the summit of the lower and south summit where we could sneak out onto a run to ski down thus avoiding returning around the HSCT.

Variable conditions on the HSCT

On our second attempt, we decided to get more elevation gain by skiing over Hollyburn Mountain and then up Mount Strachan. We followed the BC Parks "hikers route" up Mount Strachan which is not too bad if you somehow manage to avoid skiing over any of the huge piles of dog excrement everywhere and don't break a ski in the trenches and pot-holes that are provided courtesy of the walkers and bum sliders.

Looking across at Hollyburn Mountain

From the top of Hollyburn, we started skiing down the north ridge, which looked the best route on the map but got pushed to the west by small bluffs and cliffs below us. Doug was doing fine, but I found the conditions treacherous, a mix of solid frozen crud and breakable crust. The trees are pretty tight for such steep terrain and I couldn't help thinking that if I were to break my leg or tear a ligament, I would have no health coverage. We turned around, skinned surprisingly easily back up Mount Hollyburn and endured the nasty ski out trying to avoid breaking a ski or leg in the trenches.

Lower summit of Mount Strachan

I really felt confident on our third attempt. The ski hill was closed for the season and all we had to do was ski up the easiest runs, descend a short but steep slope to the col, and ski or boot pack up the final 50 metres to the summit. And, it was just that easy. We ambled up a green and then a short blue run, climbed over the ski hill boundary fence line, skied down into the col, and then skinned up the final summit wrapping around to the east side.

The Lions from Strachan

Thursday, April 11, 2019

Eagle Bluffs From West Vancouver


Turns out that just a few minutes down the road from where we are staying there is a small provincial park and a large - very large - chunk of crown land. Crown land that starts at around 100 metres, and spreads back eastward over the Coast Mountains into the wilderness that is Canada. And there are trails, hundreds of kilometres of trails, as well as creeks and canyons, rivers and waterfalls, huge trees and soft loamy rainforest soil.

Cypress Creek

My first day in West Vancouver, I stumbled on the trails and wandered up the creek for an hour or two. After that, I was in the forest and on the trails most days. Of course, I soon became obsessed with seeing if I could walk up to the snowline and the mountains behind the coast.

My forest friend

My first foray, I weaved westward along a series of different tracks until I finally got to Whyte Lake and intersected the Baden Powell trail which climbs steeply from Horseshoe Bay on Queen Charlotte Channel to Black Mountain at 1224 metres before continuing on to the Deep Cove back at sea level.

Whyte Lake

I followed the Baden Powell trail, through deep green rainforest to a long talus slope at 820 metres ASL where there was a glorious view Bowen Island and Howe Sound. I was running out of time, however, so turned back before reaching the main viewpoint about 300 metres higher at Eagle Bluffs.

Baden Powell Trail to Black Mountain

Next time, I was better prepared. I had crampons, in case the snow was icy, and left West Vancouver shortly after 7.30 am. Again, the weaving route across to Whyte Lake and up to join the Baden Powell, and this time, after 3.5 hours of steady walking, I came out on the slabs at Eagle Bluff. The spring sun was glorious and there was a fantastic view over the ocean, although I was more intrigued by the steeper peaks visible to the northeast.

View from Eagle Bluffs

Eagle Bluffs was snow free, but a few steps back into the trees and it was winter with a deep solid snowpack. I walked as far east as a couple of small tarns on the Black Mountain plateau before heading back to Eagle Bluffs for lunch.

Steep Descent

It is a steep descent, almost 500 metres before the terrain lays back a little, and my legs were almost a bit shaky by the time I got to the dock at Whyte Lake where I had the rest of my lunch in the spring sunshine before the last 1.5 hour walk back to West Vancouver. You just can't beat adventures from the front door.


 
Bowen Island