Ski Touring Around Railroad Pass: Locomotive Mountain and Grouty Ridge

Every year, round about the May long weekend, the Hurley Road, a dirt road that runs over Railroad Pass from the Pemberton Valley to Bralorne and Gold Bridge is plowed out after a long winter of snow cover. Some years, there are metres of snow to plow, some years less, and some years, opening is delayed due to avalanche hazard.

Walking the freshly plowed Hurley Road

2019 was a lower snow year, so the Hurley Road was plowed out a couple of days before the long weekend. I desperately wanted two more ski days before calling the season done. All I could remember of our 2019 ski trips was an endless round of sunny days, mountain tops, smoothly covered glaciers, and long corn snow descents. I had completely forgotten the difficult bushy approaches, the frozen dirt covered snow under trees, hiking through dense forest with skis on my back, and long climbs with lots of elevation gain.

Although the Hurley Road was plowed, the last several kilometres over Railroad Pass required 4 wheel drive or at least decent tires, neither of which our #van had. We ended up parked about a kilometre below the pass, which, given all the other walking with skis, we had done was super easy.

Semaphore Lakes

Once we had climbed over the snow banks, we found a decent snow bridge across Railroad Creek (which drains Semaphore Lakes) and roughly followed the summer route up to Semaphore Lakes. It was easy travel, surprisingly easy. Continuous snow, fairly reasonable angle, not too icy. It was going to be a good day.

From L to R, Locomotive, Tender, Caboose, 

Face from Sempahore Lakes

From Semaphore Lakes we followed a ridge to the east of Donnelly Creek, avoiding as much as possible getting under cornices which were obviously failing. There are all sorts of terrain choices here, we chose the easiest safest route which always seems a good default position.

Avoiding cornice falls

Up on the ridge near Locomotive Mountain, we had lunch on bare rocks and watched a group of three descend a steep colouir off the east face of Locomotive. Then, it was a relatively easy ski, with a few steep switchbacks up to the summit. Doug had been here before, when we skied the Hurley River horseshoe route, but I had been sick and had waited at camp.

Skiing up to Locomotive Mountain

Of course, I had a grand plan of doing a big circuit skiing up all the peaks around the Train Glacier, culminating with Face Mountain, which is a 140 metres higher than Locomotive, but time had moved along much faster than we had.

We skied down into the col between Locomotive and Tender Mountains with the idea of skiing up Tender Mountain but the snow was so mushy on the ascent route that it did not seem all that safe. Besides, which we were starting to tire. We had a great corn snow descent from the Locomotive-Tender col to the flats below, then a long slowly rising traverse took us back to our lunch spot.

Face on the right, Faceless on the left from Locomotive

Doug is a good ski route finder and he managed to finagle a route whereby we kept our skins off and our heels locked all the way down to Railroad Creek with minimal shuffling along flats.

Ski skating on descent

Next day we once again walked up the road towards the pass, but this time we headed east from the pass up steep treed slopes that lead to Grouty Ridge. Now, it is entirely possible we picked a very bad spot to head up the ridge, but looking at Grouty Ridge from Locomotive Mountain the day before, I am not sure anywhere is that good.

Having fun on the route to Grouty Ridge

The slope up to the ridge is really steep and studded with small bluffs and cliff bands. You need to ascend from about 4,200 feet to 6,000 feet before the terrain flattens out on Grouty Ridge. I walked, carrying my skis on my pack, Doug skied, mostly. There are unavoidable sections where you need to take skis off and kick steps up steep slopes through trees and bluffs.

Skiing along Grouty Ridge

Eventually, we both reached the ridge near a couple of small tarns. What a relief, although I was dreading getting down. It's almost unbelievable but I have skied up this ridge before, back when we attempted the Tenquille-Owl traverse and I broke a ski in half.

Skiing along the ridge was really pleasant. You could go right along the ridge crest with some ups and downs or do as we did which was follow benches and old snowcat roads along the west side of the ridge. There was one problem with skiing up Grouty Peak, however, and that was it had no snow.

Lunch time views

We skinned up the ridge to a point about 3 kilometres south of Grouty Peak and decided that was far enough. Back in the day, I would have been gunning for the peak, but older age and a weaker body has changed my philosophy and I am now just out to enjoy the day and journey, tagging peaks is nice but not necessary any more for me to consider the day/journey a success.

Grey skies over Grouty Ridge

The weather was not bluebird clear, with low cloud and scattered showers hanging about, but the scenery was fine and it was good to look out over the mountains that we had done many previous trips along.

When it came time to descend, Doug again managed to string together enough descending that we made it back to where we gained the ridge without skins. The descent started well enough, we thought that veering skiers left a little would take us around a troublesome bluff we ran into on the way up. It didn't. Veering left took us right to the top of the bluff where traversing in either direction to get around the bluff was difficult if not a bit dangerous.

Looking over the Locomotive Group

As it started to spit rain, we had to take our skis off and kick steps back up the steep slope we had descended to traverse to skiers right (north). Once we found a likely spot to descend, we put our skis back on and started skiing down. I had to take my skis off one more time at a particularly steep descent, but otherwise, we slowly picked our way down and the terrain gradually got easier and easier and we could see the Hurley Road. I made a mental note never to ski up Grouty Ridge again. Twice is enough, three times would be tempting disaster.

Tenquille to Owl Redux

Preamble:

It really is amazing what you can forget. Apparently, I've done 22 different ski traverses, 23 if you count the one I am writing about now; and at least 28 if you count my multiple trips along the Bonnington Range. And yet, I always seem to forget how painful the access, and often egress, can be.

Looking out over the Valhalla Mountains from the Bonnington Range

Among the most notable for suffering must be our attempted Southern Purcells traverse when our entire food cache for the second half of the trip sank into a lake leaving us with no food or fuel as a Pineapple Express pushed out the fiercely cold Artic outflow conditions with consequent extreme avalanche hazard. The snow changed to rain and we skied for days soaking wet with no food. On a smaller scale, was the three day traverse I did with the redoubtable Rick Collier in the Rockies in February in freezing conditions with a snow pack that ranged from 0 cm to 100 cm of facetted rubbish. We walked almost the entire distance carrying our useless skis. The effort was so intense my dog almost died.

Brian desperately trying to save himself from 

Rockies isothermal snowpack

On the Bonnet Icefields traverse, also in the Rockies, the snowpack fell apart half-way through the trip and our speed of travel deteriorated to less than a kilometre per hour as climax avalanches roared down around us. Then, there was the McBride traverse, stunning and terrifying at the same time. Or, the MistyIcefields when it was so misty we couldn't actually find the Misty Icefields and had to retrace our steps, or perhaps the Hurley Horseshoe when we walked 14 kilometres at the start because there was no snow. Let's not even talk about the Cariboos when in one day, the bridges across the capacious crevasses of the Gilmour Glacier collapsed.

Robin enroute to the Misty Icefield 

before it all fell apart

There have been broken skis and broken feet, ripped tents, and shredded clothing. But there have also been stunning mountain vistas, sunrises and sunsets, mountain tops and alpine lakes bathed in alpenglow, cosy camps shared with good friends, powder runs and corn snow descents, and above all the wonderful sense of adventuring in Canada's stunning wilderness.

Ski traverse feet

A decade previously, Robin Tivy, Betsy Waddington, Doug Brown and I had attempted the Owl-Tenquille traverse accessing the main divide from the north via tiny Opal Lake. We got as far as Tenquille Lake before one of my skis snapped in half and we had to abort the trip and exit via the usual Tenquille Lake summer track. My recollection of the exit is that, with two decent skis instead of a ski and a half, the egress would not have been too bad.

What spring ski trips are really like

So here we were back for round two, only this time we packed 5 days of food, brought an old friend from Golden along, and planned to ski in and out via the normal summer access routes. Although we were all ten years older, we thought we would have loads of time for climbing peaks along the way and enjoying endless corn snow ski runs.

Skiing corn snow on the Hurley River horseshoe

Day 1: In Search Of The Tenquille Trail

The car shuttle complete, we drove up the Hurley Road to Branch 12. As usual, a small patch of snow near the start blocked the rest of the road which was almost entirely snow free. So we walked Branch 12, about 5.5 kilometres to the trail-head where there is a map and signage attempting to discourage mudders and sundry other low-lifes from destroying the environment.

Meadow full of glacier lillies beside Branch 12

Not a good sign if you are out skiing

The trail is hard to follow with snow cover, but, if you can find it, the foot-bed helps immensely as the track basically contours while climbing gently around the hillside until it enters the Wolverine drainage where the terrain and forest open out.

"Might" be causing environmental damage, WTF?

Despite trying hard to follow the track, we lost it several times, each time necessitating either a steep ascent or steep descent - frequently both - through thick trees, into and out of creek gullies, dipping around melted out tree-wells and climbing over downed trees. Travel was slow.

Not sure if this is a smile or a grimace

Eventually, near Mowich Creek, which is in a deep canyon, we found the track again. As we were skiing into Mowich Creek to cross on a snow-bridge, Robin slipped off the track, went down and immediately began sliding, slowly but inexorably towards the depths of Mowich Creek. It wasn't funny, but, you know, it was funny, as Robin's eyes kind of rolled back in his head the way my old dog's did one day when he got caught in a small slab avalanche.

Robin tangled in a tree, Marvin comes to the rescue

In any event, Robin came to rest, somewhat precariously stuck by his skis in a small fir tree above a minor cliff. His hat sailed off the bluff and I am not sure what caused him more consternation sliding off the trail or losing his hat. Eventually, with Marvin's help, Robin was extricated and the hat retrieved. We continued on crossing Mowich Creek and finding a good sized level spot not much further on for camp.

Crossing Mowich Creek

Day 2: Up and Down Again: Tenquille Pass, Mount Macleod, Tenquille Lake

We were about as inefficient as you can be on this section whilst still making forward progress. We had another kilometre of steep contouring in the morning before we arrived at some large avalanche slopes below Goat Peak. Here the trees opened out, the terrain flattened and travel was much easier. After a lunch stop near Tenquille Pass we carried all our gear up through Fossil Pass and onto the summit of Mount McLeod.

Crossing avalanche paths below Goat Peak

The map made it look easy to ski off the east side of Mount McLeod down to a small tarn in a col and this is what we prepared to do. Blithely taking off our skins and storing them away we began skiing down. But, the east side of Mount McLeod is actually all rock bluffs and there was no way down. We looked about for quite some time without finding anything promising.

Turns out the east side of McLeod is not ski terrain

Back up to the top of Mount McLeod but we still wanted to get to the little tarn to camp. I had visions of this glorious scenic camp that got both morning and evening sun. The contours on the north side were quite tight, and the south side had melted so much we were concerned there was very little snow. And distantly, we could all remember that a decade ago, Robin and Betsy had set off to ski around the south side of Mount McLeod without success - we just could not quite remember why.

Copper Mound behind, skiers enroute to Mt McLeod

We discussed and discussed, worked our way down northerly slopes but no matter where we skied to we could not quite see if the route would go all the way. There was always a crucial roll-over or break point in the slope that defied clear vision.

North side of Mount McLeod

Like children, we were all getting a little tired and fractious, and eventually we decided to ski back to Tenquille Lake and camp there. So we set off skiing some very steep northern slopes while trying to remember where the Tenquille hut was. At one particularly sharp roll-over, while following Doug and Marvin down a steep pitch, I kicked off a wet slough that entrained my skis and carried me down. I tried to ski out of it, but my skis were buried too deep. All I could think was "I don't have insurance for this." When I finally toppled over the slough moved past leaving me a metre down below the surface of the snow. None of this inspired confidence in Betsy who was following behind.

My small slide at far left

It took very little thought to decide to sleep in the hut for the night and get drinking water from the lake.

Day 3: Along the Divide to Mount Barbour

Night brought a very light freeze and some real concerns about destabilising snow and rising avalanche conditions. We got back on what is the normal winter route (although none of us knew this at the time) and skied up a narrow valley south of Tenquille Lake to arrive at the col we had tried to access the day before. It became obvious that either route around the summit of Mount McLeod (north or south) would have worked if you followed ramps and benches down.

Skiing up to the pass east of Mount McLeod

The small 6,900 foot peak immediately east of Mount McLeod proved difficult too surmount although it looks easy on the map. This was pretty much the motif of the trip. Anything that looked easy on the map was difficult, and anything that looked difficult was quite possible. We were able to skin about 30 to 40 metres above the col before the angle steepened so much that skinning, even with ski crampons felt precarious. Somehow Marvin teetered all the way. When I asked later how he said "first, pray to God." This is a bit hard for an atheist to stomach.

The slope in shadow was tough to get up while frozen

The rest of us took our skis off, but I managed to slip while trying to get my skis off and was only prevented from sliding to the bottom by getting impaled on a small fir tree. Suddenly, it was not nearly so funny as when Robin slipped. I dare not move for fear of going further, and had to wait for Doug to kick steps down and hand me an ice axe.

Ridge top rest, this is why we do these trips

Betsy did a tremendous job kicking steps up this slope which was either diamond hard or breakable up to the thighs. Half way up, Marvin came down from above and kicked some good steps and we all finally dragged ourselves up to the 6,900 foot contour. In softer conditions this would be a reasonable route.

Overlooking Mount Barbour

The next obstacle on the divide, a 7,100 foot bump went easily and then we were looking at Mount Barbour. The best route appeared to be over an expansive 6,700 foot saddle on Mount Barbour's north ridge. There was some overhead hazard on this route but by staying far to the north we managed to avoid being under the worst of it.

Near Mount Barbour

There is a straightforward, but steep, southeast facing gully that leads down to two small tarns and we spent some considerable time looking at this before deciding that it was too mushy to safely descend.

Easy pass beyond Mount Barbour

Instead, we contoured around a castle like rock feature on Mount Barbour's north ridge and found a series of ramps that led down through light trees to the same location. We skied this carefully, one at a time, and still managed to kick off another wet slough.

Heading out to scope the next days route

We made camp by the lakes. A delightful spot only plagued by cool outflow winds. Doug and I read ahead and skied around steep slopes under Mount Barbour to confirm that the next part of the route would go. We skied in a nice flat track so that even in icy conditions the travel would be easy.

Day 4: Ogre Lake and Mount Ronayne

Our track from the previous day meant we had easy travel up to the pass southeast of Mount Barbour. Then a gentle ski down that gradually steepened as we neared Ogre Lake and ended in slide paths below Seven O'Clock Mountain. We took the first narrow gully that leads south from Ogre Lake instead of the more easterly one that Baldwin recommends. There is overhead hazard on both these routes.

Easy travel next morning to the pass south of Barbour

This is fabulous country and easier to travel than the more northerly section of the route. There are a multitude of routes to the small tarns south of Mount Ronayne. We went west around a bump in the middle of the valley and up a surprisingly steep slope south of Mount Ronayne (more overhead hazard) but a safer route would be to ski up the southern shoulder of Mount Ronayne.

Camp near Mount Ronayne

We found some flat slabs for a camp kitchen and set up camp in the upper cirque. Next day, we would have the steepest descent of the trip down to upper Fowl Lakes via a steep headwall known as "Fowl Wall." There was some lingering concern about this descent. If there was no freeze avalanches would be a concern, if it froze hard, slipping would be a worry.

Overhead hazard on the route to Mount Ronayne camp

Strangely, despite the fact that we all cumulatively spent hours looking at the map and trying to imagine the slope, we ended up going the wrong way. We went so far as to discuss a series of signals that the first person down would use to communicate with the rest of the people. You know, signals like "don't come, too dangerous," or "wait one more hour for the snow to soften." What we omitted from this was a signal for "we are going the wrong frigging way."

Skiing up Mount Ronayne

But first, Doug, Marvin and I skied up Mount Ronayne. From camp, we curved around a gentle ridge and skinned up to the big flat summit plateau. The very summit was accessible on skis via a narrow ridge which had just enough snow.

The summit ridge of Mount Ronayne

Day 5: The Wrong Col and Owl Lake

There are three small lakes that drain into Owl Lake and we had identified this valley as a possible exit route should Fowl Wall be too hazardous. However, our carefully timed preference was to ski down the normal route around 9 am when the slope should be soft but not mushy. In theory, that sounds good, but in practice, there was no overnight freeze and we all confidently skied down to the wrong descent slope.

Looking down at the wrong descent route

Standing at the top we were all devilishly relieved to see that it was not near as steep as we imagined. There was almost a clamor to go first rather than a carefully choreographed deferment meant to save face. We did not even bother reviewing our signals from the night before.

Heading down the wrong exit

Marvin went first, followed by Robin, while the rest of us thought about how something was just a bit off about the whole thing. There was no large lake below, the slope was not in the sun, and the descent did not seem nearly long enough. Betsy pulled out her mobile phone and it became clear that we were taking the alternative descent.

Back down into the trees

With no signal for "we've f**ked up" we felt committed to go down, so we skied down one at a time to communicate the bad, or good, depending on how you view it, news to the lead team. There is a fair bit of overhead hazard in this valley and a cornice fell while we were there, so we saved looking at the map until we had skied down to a safer area.

Way down the Owl valley

The standard 1:50K topographic map shows only two creeks which merge draining into Owl Lake while in actuality, there are at last half a dozen. Descending became a matter of trying to stay out of gullies and on skis. A couple of places were so slow on skis that I simply walked, and it was devilishly hard to avoid being sucked into steep creek gullies, but we did eventually slide out onto the flats near Owl Lake.

Past difficulties around Owl Lake

It is obvious from the map, which is correct in this instance, that it is easier to ski along the south side of the lake than the north, but that leaves you on the wrong side of Owl Creek. We were forced to take the north side. This was truly bad travel. Very steep, brushy, bushy, cliffy, with added blow-down and alder. Somehow we managed by combining skiing, walking and crawling to arrive at the southeast end of the lake.

Water filled valley

Here we found a cabin under construction and straight forward travel. I might even go so far as to call it easy travel if not for all the creeks that needed to be crossed. Most were manageable on deteriorating snow-bridges but one demanded we remove boots - and even pants for some - and wade across. This whole area is brimming with water. It fills virtually the entire valley bottom.

Stream crossing

Rather than walk out into the night, we made one last camp by a marshy area about 500 metres from the road. It was a pretty and pleasant spot to camp with some waterfowl resting on the lake.

Walking down the Owl Road

Day 6: Owl Creek Road

We were anticipating an easy ski out down the road, and, it was an easy egress, but not on skis. The warm weather had melted all the snow, so we only managed to ski a kilometre or two, almost all it inexplicably uphill before the trip ended the way they always do, walking down a logging road in ski boots.

These are my people

Paul Ridge to Mount Garibaldi

Back in 2002 we made a semi-attempt to climb Mount Garibaldi in March from the Elfin Lakes Hut. I say a "semi-attempt" as it snowed on both of the two days we could climb the peak, so we never got further than getting up at 5 am each day and heading off towards the often nasty Ring Creek approach.

First view of the Garibaldi massif

Fast forward 17 years, yes, 17 years, and with good weather forecast it seemed like a good time to try Mount Garibaldi again. Most parties these days appear to approach via Brohm Ridge which entails skinning up the Brohm Ridge Road from where ever the snow starts right through the heart of sled-neck terrain. Apparently this is an expedient if not aesthetic approach to the standard northeast face.

Paul Ridge

Over the years we have spent enough time skiing up rutted sled tracks while breathing in two stroke exhaust so we opted to approach the northeast face from the Elfin Lakes Hut again, a more pleasing route that offers freedom from infernal combustion engines and, should we not make the summit, we would at least have had a fine ski tour over the Garibaldi Neve surrounded by the magnificent peaks of the Coast Range.

The magnificent Coast Mountains

The route to Elfin Lakes Hut is standard fare. Beyond the Red Heather Hut which is accessed via an old logging road, the winter route is marked by BC Park rangers with big orange poles. This is to keep the hordes with little to no avalanche knowledge or equipment off some minor avalanche slopes on the north side of Paul Ridge where the summer route runs. Personally, I prefer the summer route as it is more scenic with expansive views over the Tantalus Range, but, on the way up, we simply plodded dutifully up the winter route.

Back door to Elfin Lakes hut

Skiers were again outnumbered by a snowshoers who were out in droves. We must have passed at least 30 people walking out from overnighting at the hut. Apparently, given the state of the hut when we arrived, all 30 plus live with their mothers.

In any event, it was an uneventful journey to the hut which was basking in spring sunshine. Although the back door could only be accessed via a tunnel of snow, there was actually much less snow than in 2002 when the cabin was buried to the upper windows by a 4 metre snowpack.

Near Columnar Peak

We had some tea and then went out for the what remained of the afternoon. Doug headed north to scope out the route into Ring Creek for the next day. The last time we dropped into Ring Creek was on the McBride traverse and we remembered a short, steep and somewhat nasty slope that came after skiing across the run-out zones of several large avalanche paths.

While Doug did the hard work, I skinned up under the bluffs of Columnar Peak in search of corn snow. I found thin breakable wind crust up high but managed a half dozen turns on the lower slopes which had corned nicely. Definitely not worth doing again, so I tried a run off Paul Ridge itself which was short, gentle and had moderately good snow.

Corn snow near Ring Creek

We met back at the hut for tea and dinner. It was a quiet night, only 5 other people. Two were avid 'grammers who spent all afternoon building a snow seat with a view over the Tantalus Range and then sat in their snow chairs flicking their hair - is it mandatory to have blonde hair if you are a young female 'grammer? - whilst getting their bums soaked. Eventually, after a long photo shoot they came in shivering.

Doug along the neve traverse

It did not occur to us to rise at an inordinately early time the next day. Spring days are long, not getting dark until 8.00 pm so, although we had 22 to 24 kilometres to travel and 1600 metres of elevation gain ahead of us, we left at the gentlemanly hour of 7 am.

Skiing up Ring Creek

Doug had found the summer trail into Ring Creek which made all but the last steep slope down the moraine much easier than on previous occasions. There was a decent ski bench most of the way and the piles of avalanche debris in the gullies was even relatively flattened down. The final pitch into Ring Creek, however, was nasty as I remembered it. We had to walk down a broken down cornice and then angle down a steep slope. Doug managed fine, but I got my skis, which I attached to my pack, hung up in deep boot holes and found myself quite stuck.

Pyramid and Spire from the neve

I thought we would remember the route up to the Tent from our 2006 trip over the Garibaldi Neve but we had both quite forgotten that you need to be on the east side of Ring Creek traversing under the west side of Opal Cone. We found an easy crossing of Ring Creek and then simply skied uphill for a while. A fairly long while as it turns out.

Mamquam, Pyramid and Spire

But the views are marvelous and it was like revisiting old friends seeing the improbable route of the McBride traverse on the horizon and Mamquam Mountain, which seems to loom over everything with its vast spilling icefield.

Near the NE face of Garibaldi

Eventually, after many hours, we skied around the shoulder of The Tent and got our first view of the northeast face. Three skiers were just coming off the summit, and we hoped they had kicked good steps and/or set a good skin track. After a quick lunch, we skinned up onto the northeast face. The bergshrund was well filled in and we managed to ski right across it before taking our skis off and kicking steps up the rest of the route.

Doug on the summit of Mount Garibaldi

Dalton Dome, although lower than Garidaldi, is a beautiful snow-fluted peak in winter and spring. We spent a bit of time on the summit trying to identify nearby peaks and the route of the McBride traverse. But, as is the way with mountaineering, we still had a long way to go.

Atwell, beautiful with a coat of snow

It was not until we were skiing down the chopped up snow on the northeast face that I realized how tired my legs were. While Doug carved swooping turns, my snowplow turns were definitely much less stylish. The descent from The Tent down to Ring Creek was pure delight. Perfect corn snow that even my tired legs enjoyed skiing.

On the neve

Just before we dropped into Ring Creek, we had a last break sitting on our packs in the sun under Opal Cone. Luckily, the steps up the moraine were still hard enough for us to climb back up without serious wallowing, and then we skinned back along the track to the hut, tired but extremely happy.

Heading back to Elfin Lake hut

Before skiing out the next day, we skinned up to ridge between Columnar Peak and The Gargoyles. I had been thinking we would climb both but we had left our ice axes behind at the hut and the snow was too frozen to attempt the steeper Columnar Peak with just poles so we contented ourselves with kicking steps up the west face of The Gargoyles and enjoying a long stay on the diminutive summit.

Below the Gargoyles

When it was time to go down, the snow had corned perfectly and we swished back to the hut, had lunch and tea, swept the hut and packed out the left behind garbage. On the way out we moseyed along the summer route soaking in the sun and the views before skiing out down the logging road.

Sky Pilot Group from Paul Ridge