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Becky and I have had the Spearhead Traverse on our to-do list for years. The Spearhead is a high alpine traverse that connects Whistler and Blackcomb mountains by travelling around the head of the U-shaped valley that divides the ski resort. Its a ridiculously scenic trip that provides a pretty mellow ski route across more than a dozen glaciers and high passes.
I skied it back in 2007 without her, and she's been wanting to ski it ever since. Since our schedules rarely seem to mesh with catching a good snow and weather window, we couldn't quite believe our plans to take Friday off where actually coinciding with some nice weather and fairly safe avy conditions.
We gave it the ol' college try to find some partners to join us, but no one was available to play. Given that we'd be skiing it just as a team of two and spending a lot of time on glaciated terrain, we were hesitant to go...waffling and trying to come up with other plans until about 9pm Thursday night. Finally we decided this really wasn't any different than any number of trips we've done just the two of us, and given the forecast, there was no way we'd be alone up there. We scrambled to finish packing, load up the car, and catch a reasonable amount of sleep before our alarm would go off at 3am.
Friday morning quickly arrived, and we grabbed the multiple thermoses of coffee and barreled out of Seattle at 3:30am heading for Whistler. Fortunately not too many folks are out and about that time of day and by 8am we were in the parking garage in Whistler village throwing on the ski clothes and walking to the lifts.
One of the best things about the Spearhead Traverse is that no time is wasted on the approach...by taking the chairlifts at Blackcomb, you can knock off a vertical mile of elevation without breaking a sweat. We saw more than a few folks with big packs on the ride up, so we figured we weren't going to be alone, and riding up the gondola we chatted with a local whose buddies were skiing the traverse in a day, so we knew we'd have a highway to follow the whole way.
The rest of the day was just one scenic vista after the next, expansive glaciers, neat little passes, a few short pitches of nice north facing powder. By mid-afternoon our sleep-deprived brains were starting to be ready for a nap, but we shuffled on for a little longer, taking advantage of the weaker than expected sun which kept some of the south facing terrain from become a sloppy avy-prone mess. By 4pm we'd topped out above the Diavolo glacier, we had another short south facing pitch below us and we knew it would be a rutted, icy mess in the morning, but a great little windlip next to some rocks and a wonderful view lured us into camping for the night. We'd been carrying crampons and axes (we appeared to be the only skiers carrying this extra baggage) so we figured we could always just boot down the slope in the morning. We dug in, set up the tent, re-hydrated and ate dinner, and were sacked our before sunset.
Twelve hours later we emerged from our cocoon very well rested and ready to keep on shuffling. As we expected the slope down to the Diavolo was a frozen mess, so we tossed the crampons on and made quick work of descending the slope. We saw and heard some other skiers made a chattery descent shortly thereafter which they referred to as 'bone-jarring'. Once out on the sunny flats of the Diavolo, we hopped into the skin track and headed for the next col. Topping out between Fitzsimmons and Benvolio we were now looking at the long straight shot out towards Whistler.
A quick descending traverse across the Overlord glacier and a short climb to Whirwind Fissile col and then a long ski down off the glaciated terrain. I had hoped the snow would be good for the ski down from the col, but the strong spring sun did its work on the west facing slope and provided us with a long pitch of breakable crust. It was hard to complain though given that the weather and views were so nice...so what if we had some bad snow.
Once past Fissile Peak we stopped in the sun, ate some lunch, and lounged about for a good long while. A few more short climbs and more breakable crust finally brought us to the Whistler resort boundary by early afternoon and then we joined the masses of resort skiers for a ski down in the village.
After walking through the village on a very sleepy Friday morning and two days of blissful mountain travel, skiing into the sea of humanity at Whistler village, during the Telus festival, was a bit shocking. We still managed to stake out a table at Zog's and get a big bowl of poutine before we tossed the gear into the car and headed for Seattle.
Becky and I have had the Spearhead Traverse on our to-do list for years. The Spearhead is a high alpine traverse that connects Whistler and Blackcomb mountains by travelling around the head of the U-shaped valley that divides the ski resort. Its a ridiculously scenic trip that provides a pretty mellow ski route across more than a dozen glaciers and high passes.
I skied it back in 2007 without her, and she's been wanting to ski it ever since. Since our schedules rarely seem to mesh with catching a good snow and weather window, we couldn't quite believe our plans to take Friday off where actually coinciding with some nice weather and fairly safe avy conditions.
We gave it the ol' college try to find some partners to join us, but no one was available to play. Given that we'd be skiing it just as a team of two and spending a lot of time on glaciated terrain, we were hesitant to go...waffling and trying to come up with other plans until about 9pm Thursday night. Finally we decided this really wasn't any different than any number of trips we've done just the two of us, and given the forecast, there was no way we'd be alone up there. We scrambled to finish packing, load up the car, and catch a reasonable amount of sleep before our alarm would go off at 3am.
Friday morning quickly arrived, and we grabbed the multiple thermoses of coffee and barreled out of Seattle at 3:30am heading for Whistler. Fortunately not too many folks are out and about that time of day and by 8am we were in the parking garage in Whistler village throwing on the ski clothes and walking to the lifts.
One of the best things about the Spearhead Traverse is that no time is wasted on the approach...by taking the chairlifts at Blackcomb, you can knock off a vertical mile of elevation without breaking a sweat. We saw more than a few folks with big packs on the ride up, so we figured we weren't going to be alone, and riding up the gondola we chatted with a local whose buddies were skiing the traverse in a day, so we knew we'd have a highway to follow the whole way.
The rest of the day was just one scenic vista after the next, expansive glaciers, neat little passes, a few short pitches of nice north facing powder. By mid-afternoon our sleep-deprived brains were starting to be ready for a nap, but we shuffled on for a little longer, taking advantage of the weaker than expected sun which kept some of the south facing terrain from become a sloppy avy-prone mess. By 4pm we'd topped out above the Diavolo glacier, we had another short south facing pitch below us and we knew it would be a rutted, icy mess in the morning, but a great little windlip next to some rocks and a wonderful view lured us into camping for the night. We'd been carrying crampons and axes (we appeared to be the only skiers carrying this extra baggage) so we figured we could always just boot down the slope in the morning. We dug in, set up the tent, re-hydrated and ate dinner, and were sacked our before sunset.
Twelve hours later we emerged from our cocoon very well rested and ready to keep on shuffling. As we expected the slope down to the Diavolo was a frozen mess, so we tossed the crampons on and made quick work of descending the slope. We saw and heard some other skiers made a chattery descent shortly thereafter which they referred to as 'bone-jarring'. Once out on the sunny flats of the Diavolo, we hopped into the skin track and headed for the next col. Topping out between Fitzsimmons and Benvolio we were now looking at the long straight shot out towards Whistler.
A quick descending traverse across the Overlord glacier and a short climb to Whirwind Fissile col and then a long ski down off the glaciated terrain. I had hoped the snow would be good for the ski down from the col, but the strong spring sun did its work on the west facing slope and provided us with a long pitch of breakable crust. It was hard to complain though given that the weather and views were so nice...so what if we had some bad snow.
Once past Fissile Peak we stopped in the sun, ate some lunch, and lounged about for a good long while. A few more short climbs and more breakable crust finally brought us to the Whistler resort boundary by early afternoon and then we joined the masses of resort skiers for a ski down in the village.
After walking through the village on a very sleepy Friday morning and two days of blissful mountain travel, skiing into the sea of humanity at Whistler village, during the Telus festival, was a bit shocking. We still managed to stake out a table at Zog's and get a big bowl of poutine before we tossed the gear into the car and headed for Seattle.
Very nice read. I can't wait to do this in the corn season that is ahead. Beautiful pictures also. I was just out to Tremor on a day tour last weekend so it is nice to see the pictures with bluebird skys. Gregg
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