April 23- May 5, 2005,  Waddington Range, BC

Photos to be added soon....

Thirteen days spent touring and skiing in the Waddington Range.  That place is incredible...made me feel very very small and that I must be a complete hack of a skier and climber when staring up and some of these routes and lines that have been climbed and skied before...so many mountains up there...I'll definitely be back.

Sat April 23

We arrived Friday night and stayed at the White Saddle bunkhouse at Bluff Lake which is ran by Mike King's brother and sister-in-law Dave and Lori.  Lori cooked up a fantastic breakfast for us before we drove over to the helicopter hanger. Sausages, orange juice and all you can eat pancakes is a great way to start a trip.  Lori had some great stories about all the folks that have stayed with them through the years such as skiers for a Warren Miller Movie and when Brad Pitt was up there for the filming of  'Seven Years in Tibet' ... who knew that Tibet was actually in the Waddington range.

The weather was good so Mike flew us in that morning and we spent the day soaking in the scenery and getting camp put in.  That night it started to rain and our spirits sink...we're thinking "we're on a glacier...and its raining....welcome to the coast range"

Sun April 24  

By morning it has cleared and we ski towards Mt.Cavalier. A small but very aesthetic pyramid just above the Dais glacier. We figured it would make for a good warm up climb and ski.  There hadn't been a hard freeze that night and with the rain the snowpack was ugly.  Both Matt and Todd managed to find snowbridges that collapsed on the way up. Fortunately we were all roped up, but punching through crevasses while wearing skis kind of drove home how sloppy the snowpack was.  We put skis on the packs at Jester-Cavalier col and booted the last few hundred feet up the ridge to the top. Todd and I had hoped to ski the 35-40 degree north face on Cavalier but the whole thing was knee-deep smhoo, so rather than start the trip with a big avalanche we booted back down the ridge to the col and skied the lower angle terrain, figuring we should give the snow a little time to firm up.  
That night we discussed what to do next, we had planned to hit the Dais couloir - Angel glacier route on Waddington that next day but with the soft snow and plenty of time for conditions to improve we opted to take four days of food and fuel and check out the Munday area

Mon April 25

Up early, hoping to ski the crust before it melts away into deep mashed potatoes we break camp and skin over Jester pass and down to the Corridor glacier.  Everyone except for me opted for moderate sized packs and sleds. I'd had enough of misbehaving sleds on Denali a few years back so I just opted for a big backpack.  
The ski down to the Corridor glacier was survival skiing for most everyone, the snow by mid-morning had been cooked to sludge and the sleds were thrashing around quite a bit.   Once over Jester Pass and on the flats I think the sled equiped folk had an easier time than me.

There was evidence everywhere of a big avy cycle that had happened recently, lots of 2' crowns on sun-facing slopes, so we were happy to get to the flats of the Corridor glacier.  The rest of the day was spent touring across the Corridor and up the Ice Valley glacier where we set up camp about 2km from Mystery Pass and Mt. Munday.
We had a fine yoyo slope right out of camp which allowed the more energetic folk a chance for some turns after a day of mostly load hauling.

Tues April 26

Mt. Munday via Mystery Pass.  Early start out of camp, finally have a good hard freeze that night and it gets us thinking the corn cycle might soon start in a day or two.  Easy skinning up to the pass and on up to just below the summit plateau.  A short 200vf section of 45 degree snow brought us up to the plateau. Sunny, dead calm, views across the Tiedemann glacier and out all the way to Bute Inlet.  The ski down went all too fast...probably shoulda waited another hour or so on top for the slopes to soften a bit more.  Rest of the day spent hanging out at camp and yo-yoing the slopes on the side of the Ice Valley glacier.  A trio of guys from Whistler who were camped nearby kept us entertained by skiing lines above camp that were way over our comfort level.

Wed April 27

Julia hadn't joined us for Munday the day before because of some boot fit issues and needed a day out of her ski boots, so with a good forecast we figured "lets go ski Munday again".  Got up a little later with hopes to harvest more corn today, but high winds above Mystery Pass and even worse winds ripping spindrift off the summit plateau cause us to turn around just shy of the summit plateau.  We skied down to Mystery Pass and skinned up the side of Mt.Agur hoping to find some sun-soften snow, but the wind was just too strong today, keeping everything too firm to be all that fun.


Thurs April 28

Broke camp early and headed back for our cache on the Dais glacier.  We wanted to get up and over Jester Col before the slope turned into an avy hazard.  We were back at the 'basecamp' my late morning and checked the weather again (first trip with a sat. phone...man are they handy). Looked like we'd have good weather on Friday then it was going to get stormy, so we figured we should try to get in the climb of Waddington before the snow started. We packed our day packs and set the alarms for 3:30am.

Fri April 29

Really really cold this morning, perfect for climbing.  We cruised up the Dais glacier and got to the bottom of the Dais couloir by sunrise.  The couloir was about 300 meters long, about 45 degrees at the bottom and mellowed to 35-40 degrees for the last 100m or so.  Easy climbing with an axe in one hand and a whippet in the other. Unfortunately Matt's crampons broke with about 100m to go.  The steel toe bail on his aluminum crampons had taken so much stress from climbing on front points that the holes the toe bail fit through stretched enough the toe bail popped out...not good.  (fyi, don't use Grivel G10 aluminums for front-pointing, this was the first time I'd ever heard of a toe bail blowing out, usually alum crampons break their spikes, not completely fall apart)  We set a picket and he started working on his crampons with a leatherman tool and jerry rigged them together, but he was going to be limited to flat footing those feet for the rest of the day.
Once at the top of the couloir we hiked easy terrain to the schrund that separates us from the Angel Glacier.  Picked one of two decent looking snowbridges and quickly got across that slope above the schrund is really spooky...not all that steep, but just a perfect convex bubble, that gets steeper and steeper ending in a big ice cliff and a long rocky fall to the Scimitar glacier below.  Glad that the snow conditions were firm and avy hazards weren't an issue.
Once down on the Angel we started skinning again.  The skinning wasn't all the easy...stretches of drum-like windslab were hard to get a grip on and when you'd try to boot it, you'd often break through the crust and be wallowing calf or knee deep in powder.  (I'll bring ski crampons if I go back...Todd brought them and Matt and I were envious)
Before we knew it it was about 2:00 in the afternoon, our energy levels were dropping, thick clouds were visible out to the west and we knew we'd have a long descent with Matt's damaged crampons, a tricky schrund crossing and a couloir we weren't sure we could ski, so with only about 400 vf to go to the NW summit we decided to take off the skins and start our descent.  
The turns down the Angel glacier were actually good as long as we could link the pockets of powder and avoid the windslab.
We had been worried about crossing the schrund and the convex slope because it could be really soft but it was icy has hell when we got to it, unfortunately we only found this out after Todd had skinned across the schrund and was forced to inchworm his way along the slope relying on his whippet and edge grip of his skis to keep him from slipping off the face of the world.  After a couple pickets had been put in and a little more trashing, Matt, Todd, and I were all back over the schrund skiing rough, bulletproof slopes down to the top of the couloir.
There was now enough of a wind and clouds that the top of the couloir was too firm for our liking. It could certainly have been skied, but we chose to play it safe, it had been a long day and we didn't want to do something stupid.  With our two 50m ropes tied together Matt was lowered on belay in case his crampons blew off again (which they did actually).  After two more lowering stations we were on mellow enough terrain to tie in and plunge step until we were past the Dais glacier schrund.  
Finally at 6:30 we clicked in to our skis and cruised the 3500ft of not too bad breakable crust back to camp.  It was a long day, we didn't top out (not that the NW summit is the true summit anyways), but we got to experience a beautiful route that threw a few good puzzles at us and we had some decent turns along the way.    


Sat April 30  

Just as my girlfriend Becky had told us on the sat phone the day before, today was going to be a day to sleep in and drink coffee.  It snowed all day, though not all that cold and little if any wind. We sealed up the sides of the megamid cook tent with snow blocks and just took it easy, eager to get out on the freshies once the weather improved.


Sun May 1

No more snow showers, high overcasts, and about 4" of new...enough to cover the rain runnels and hardpack.  We skied down the Dais glacier to the Dais-Franklin junction and then up Regal Dome, a 700m cruiser that extended up towards the NW ridge of Wadd.  We spend the day skiing two laps on the Dome with no other parties in sight. Nice to see just our tracks on a mountain.  Regal Dome would be a great spot to hit early in a trip up there cause of the views of all the rest of the surrounding terrain.

Mon May 2

Snowy, cloudy weather in the morning...figured it would be another day to spend in camp, but by early afternoon the sun was out and we had managed to dry all our gear.
With our remaining days to be spent down-glacier from where we were camped, we decided to break camp and slide it the 2 or 3 km down to the Dais-Franklin glacier junction where most folks locate their basecamps on Waddington ski trips. We camped alongside the trio from Whistler and group of energetic guys with purple, red and green dyed hair from Victoria.
The lower slopes of Regal Dome were right out our back door so yo-yoing some great corn was an easy way to fill the rest of the day.

Tues May 3

Mostly sunny weather so we were up early and started the five mile slog up the Finality glacier to Mt.Finality.  Easy skinning all the way to the summit, took about five hours from our camp.  We all agreed this was our favorite viewpoint of the trip...all the peaks we'd played on could be seen, and the rather remote Mt.Jubilee further west looked like a great (albeit remote) destination. I got a kick that we could once again see tidewater from a peak, this time the Knight Inlet was visible in the valley bottom out west. Finality also rests on the edge of the Waddington range and we could see deep green valleys just a couple miles away.
The snow was really nice corn the whole way down and the Finality glacier has just enough downhill tilt that we could pretty much cruise the five mile back to camp with only the occasional skate to keep the speed up.
While we'd been away we noticed that Mike had been busy making three flights that morning...we figured a huge group had landed. Much to our surprise, the three flights were for only seven guys (and a ton of gear)...their camp made us feel really ghetto. They had a massive cook tent, LED lighting, a separate tent for each of them, camp furniture, propane stove, and a sat phone, laptop, and  a solar panel battery charger.  And we had thought we were high-class cause we had booze and some canned fruit  


Wed May 4

More good weather, more turns to be had.  We skied to the head of the Fury Glacier and up to Fury Gap.  Skinned below the steep couloirs of Chris Spencer ...maybe I'll try those next time when I'm a better skier:)  and skinned the ridgeline that connects Brokenhead and Chris Spencer.  Great views of the Scimitar glacier icefall and the Angel glacier route from there, plus the ridiculously steep northeast face of Mt.Bell.
Best turns of the trip were from Fury Gap back to camp…rocks on one side, icefall on the other, and in between was smooth, buttery corn that had no top speed limit....we all savored the big gs turns down the 35ish degree slope....good turns to end the trip on.

Thurs May 5    

With food running low, our legs getting tired, and our polypro beginning to rot, we figured we'd pack up and head home rather than running the risk of getting stuck in a multi-day storm with only ramen and oatmeal left to eat.  A quick sat phone call to Mike King and an hour later we were on our way out.  Before we knew it we were back in the land of green...always a shock to be transported from winter to summer in a matter of minutes by way of helicopter.
We happily paid up $5 each for showers at Dave and Lori's and then were on the road...rolling in to Seattle at 1 am.  

We all felt very fortunate with the weather, we never expected to fly in and out the days we wanted and only spent one day tent-bound. I'll definitely be back again.