March 28 to 30, 2025

ACMG guide Jeff McKeough and I completed a variation of the Spearhead Traverse this past weekend with 5 guests. Essential gear was glacier ropes, crevasse kits and ice axes. Ski crampons and regular crampons were not used.

Day 1: On Friday, we saw temperatures at the Horstman hut (2240m) on Blackcomb Mountain return to below freezing after 4 days of rain and above zero degrees temperature. With large amounts of avalanche debris from the widespread natural cycle on Monday and Tuesday in Whistler Blackcomb’s backcountry, access to the Blackcomb Glacier Park was still closed on Friday. Beginning the Spearhead Traverse at Showcase T-bar was not possible.

Our team exited Blackcomb resort from the lower backcountry gate and climbed up Disease Ridge into Garibaldi Provincial Park. We ski toured over to Decker Meadows and around the south side of Decker Mountain. We climbed to the Decker-Trorey col (2265m) and skied down the Trorey glacier to access the Spearhead Traverse. Up to 10cm of HST overlay moist snow down another 60cm at 2200m. We ski cut on belay a size 1 soft slab running 40 meters on the East facing aspect. The skiing was difficult and steep (up to 45°) with soft slab overlying moist snow with flat light made for poor ski quality with overnight packs. Three size 2.5 to 3 natural avalanches had run on Mount Trorey on the North, West, East faces and stepped down to persistent weak layers. Height of snow on the Trorey, Tremor, Platform, Ripsaw, Naden, Iago, Diavalo and Overlord glacier was consistently over 300cm. With poor visibility and knowing that cooling temperatures were following overnight, we camped at 2400m on south side of Mount Pattison and awaited improving conditions.

Day 2: 5-10cm of new snow had fallen overnight and temperature dropped to -7°C. We established the bootpack via the typical Patisson route with big bucket steps. We were able to ski tour all the way up Tremor col and visibility diminished to zero on Platform glacier and beyond. Track setting was easy with now 10-20cm of dry HST, with the deepest deposit of 45cm above the melt-freeze crust at Ripsaw glacier. The skiers’ right line of Ripsaw-Naden col was used and ski cut with minimal sluffing. A natural size 3 avalanche had slid from south side of Couloir ridge from around 2400-1850m. The clouds lifted and the Couloir ridge walk was used. Moist snow was found up to 2250m while ski descending south onto Iago glacier.

Day 3: Light to moderate winds overnight and 6:00am had few clouds and continued cool temperatures to -8°C. Skiing was phenomenal down the south side of Iago to Diavalo glacier with 20cm of new dry snow. Surface hoar to 6mm was scattered to 2400m while climbing up Mount Benvolio. The high col to the south was used, therefore avoiding crossing under the proud ‘bigger than my apartment’ cornices on the north side of Mount Benvolio. Strong to extreme winds arrived around 10:00am on Overlord Mountain and we avoided the rappel due to wind exposure. We descended the Overlord glacier to 2120m and the snow was wind affected on NE-E aspects above 2350m. Minor wind affect and old ski tracks were found on Whirlwind Peak. We passed Kees & Claire Hut and ate special delivery donuts to fuel us for the final climb over the Musical bumps and onwards to partially refrozen Flute and the Whistler ski resort slush.