Saturday, April 7, 2012

Spearhead Traverse day trip

Words by Becky:

For years Pete and I have semi-joked about how great it would be to pull off a one-day Spearhead Traverse and then immediately check in to the Fairmont Chateau Whistler to recover. Saturday, we did just that.

We caught the gondola from the base at 8:00am on the dot, but sadly Glacier Express didn’t start spinning until 8:45 and the T-bar til 9:15. We actually skinned from the bottom of the T-bar just to get going, but of course they started it up right as we hit the top. Oh well, what’s an extra 500 feet of climbing?

We exited the ski area and started the Traverse around 9:45. We were not alone – at least a dozen other day trippers were out in front of us, also taking advantage of the perfect weather. The snow on north-facing aspects was light, shin-deep powder – great skiing, if you had the time to stop and take a lap (which we did not)!  “Tomorrow!” we thought.

We made slow, but steady progress, feeling more and more confident as the day went on that we might actually make it out without needing the headlamps. We were heading up the crusty Diavolo Glacier towards Overlord by 3:30. After all the short-ish descents on the Blackcomb side it was nice to get some nice long slides heading back towards Whistler. We found the best turns of the day on the back side of Fissile.

Climbed up and over Cowboy Ridge and started the descent down Singing Pass Trail around 6pm. Holy balls that thing is 7 miles long, but fully snow-covered and pretty much all downhill so we appreciated sliding down it vs. climbing up and over the Musical Bumps. We popped out at the ski area a few minutes past 7pm and made a beeline for Zogs to inhale a bowl of poutine and then on to The Fairmont for hot tubs and beer.

Went back up to the Blackcomb BC on Sunday to get some of the sweet, sweet powdies we saw the day before, but sadly the wind came in hard the night before and was still blowing to beat the band so we settled for a few heavily wind-affected laps on Decker and then headed back to the comfort of the hotel.



Sunday, April 1, 2012

April Fools Day freshies

 Link to photo album

Late winter powder harvest on Arrowhead Mtn....