Sphinx Bay turned Neve 2015

On Friday night Mike, Taylor and Tobias were beginning to wonder if they were at the right one of the two Tim Hortons in Squamish because our car was late for the agreed upon meeting time. Then Mike gets a text from me: “We just escaped downtown traffic, and are now really on our way.” So they were about to get well acquainted with the inside of the Timmy’s/Wendy’s. Shortly before we arrived, they set off to drop Tobias and Mike off at the Diamond Head Parking Lot to start heading up to the Red Heather Warming Hut.

 

When we finally arrived at Timmy’s, we then took off with Taylor to do the car shuttle at Cat Lake. It took us three passes to find the turn off in the dark while we annoyed other drivers on the single lane road. Cue a white car speeding off in a huff at the first opportunity.

 

We discovered a stove and fuel bottle in the trunk after there had been some confusion as to who was bringing what. Disaster averted – we now had enough stoves and fuel… or so we thought.

 

On the way up to Red Heather in the dark we had just taken the ‘putting on skis’ gamble after walking through snow for a while. Then there was a slight “Arrghhh” moment when we came across mud again. Though the patch of mud was small, we couldn’t see the end of the mud section from the light of our headlamps.

 

After a restful four hours of sleep, we started up from the Red Heather warming hut, pausing for delayering breaks and tourist-y photoshoots in front of peaks – of which many more would follow.

 

We crossed paths with a couple Rangers who advised us to cross Ring Creek at the new bridge, lower down that the old one. They ventured to say that Garibaldi Lake was not frozen, confirming our suspicions. Note: February 14^th is Valentine’s Day not the middle of spring, as it would seem from the unfrozen state of the lake.

 

We crossed Ring Creek using the human chain technique to shuttle gear across. We planned out a sequence of rocks to step on to keep our feet dry (almost successfully – we had two instances of wet feet, but a 67% success rate is good right?) This was all after spending hours (note the use of the plural form) trying to find a feasible place to cross, and evaluating the sketchiness of the washed out route to the bridge.

 

A party of three skiers that had just zipped across the creek behind us, saving themselves the time of scouting, joined our lunch spot above the creek bed. One of the guys, after daring himself, stripped in all of five seconds and jumped into the frigid water. And lay back to enjoy(?) it.

 

The rest of the day was spent climbing, and as sunset drew nearer and nearer and I grew tired-er and tired-er, I transitioned into slog mode (a sentiment shared by most others.)

 

As we were setting up camp to hunker down for the night, one of the tent poles went tobogganing down the slope followed by another that was fortunately tackled before it to was lost. A ski pole and a probe offered the most functional solution. But it was one hell of a cold night; one that would have been significantly improved had my hut booties made it into my pack. But despite my best packing efforts, they were nowhere to be found.

 

The next morning was a gorgeous sunrise and a missing picket induced headache. Eventually, we unearthed the picket with shovels and iceaxes from the snow between the two tents. It must have been trodden down during the night. Next time it would make sense to put a karibeaner on the picket to keep the snow from devouring it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We roped up for the crevasse field approaching the Sharkfin though we were fairly comfortable with the snow bridges. My rope team had some trouble finding the middle of the 30m rope, so I ended up trailing ~20m behind Andrew.

 

We stopped for food, water, and a view at the Sharkfin. After contemplating the logistics of a 3-2-1 naked pyramid, we settled for beacons and ski boots in a simple butt shot with the mountains.

 

We got some turns in dropping under Garibaldi, then gained the opposite ridge where we decided to camp. Mike and Andrew set off to get some beta on conditions for Garibaldi while the rest of us skinned up a bit to get a run in. Man was it a different feeling skiing without an overnight pack.

 

That night setting up camp was slick because by now we had figured out how to improvise a tent pole with mild success. Dinner and the subsequent melting of snow however, was not entirely a success. We had exhausted our fuel supply. On a previous trip that was twice as long, Cassandra had had the same amount of fuel for six people (the size of our group.) Investigation into stove efficiency pending.

 

Turns out that there was an extra fuel bottle in the car. Sometimes faff is good to make sure that all the group gear is accounted for.

 

Seeing as a hot breakfast was out of the question now that we had two stoves but zero fuel, I opted for a half bagel and an eggsicle (aka frozen boiled egg) generously donated by Taylor.

 

Since Garibaldi Lake was not frozen, we followed Brohm Ridge out to the highway. On one steep section heading up to the ridge proper, half our group opted to boot pack and the other to skin up. Halfway up the slope, I managed to twist my binding and ended up locking in my heel on the uptrack. It was much too steep to do anything about it so I limped my way up the rest of the switchbacks, executing the scariest kick turns of my life. I was marginally (keyword) comforted by the fact I was wearing a helmet.

 

From Brohm Ridge we could see all the way out to Howe Sound – the views were amazing and it was a beautiful clear day. (All weekend we had outstanding weather; I don’t know which one of us did the ‘good weather’ dance, but it sure as hell worked.)

 

Half the group skied and half skinned down to meet up just above the snow-mobilers’ hut. Those skinning got a tad lost on the way down Brohm Ridge because there is a long traverse right to drop down to the hut. By this time we were all extremely dehydrated because the lack of fuel meant that the only method of melting snow we had available was to cuddle a Nalgene in a jacket. I was certainly feeling the effects of dehydration; I was wilting as the day wore on, but when we finally came upon running water it was an instant pick-me-up.

 

There was snow up to 1300m elevation, and below that we were forced to walk down the logging road. Since we had not been able to drive the car farther up the logging road because the gate was closed, the plan was for Taylor to run down and drive the car up while the rest of us waited.

 

Mike, Andrew, Tobias, and I walked just up the hill to marvel (for the umpteenth time) at the Tantalus Range. There was some concrete climbing (Mike), some discussion of paragliding dreams (Tobias), some feasting on dates (me), and some complaining about terrible profs gone by (Andrew). Meanwhile, Cassandra was eating chocolate covered raisins by the handful and running down the logging road to the highway since there were only enough seats of five of us.

 

During this time, Taylor was well on his way to fetch the car, passing a guy riding a dirt bike in the opposite direction. He must have been a little taken aback to see Taylor running bottomless (yes you did read that correctly.)

 

After playing Tetris with the packs in the back of Taylor’s car and lashing the skis to the roof, someone jokingly called for a beacon search (we had been notoriously bad at turning off beacons at the end of each day). The beacon picked up a signal 12m away – too far to have been from one tucked away in a pack. While Tobias entertained the idea that the car may be distorting the signal, Andrew followed the beacon. Low and behold, an abandoned Tracker was nestled in the grass, sure to be forgotten. Moral of the story: always trust the beacon.

 

It was a scenic trip right to the end, even the logging road offered stunning views. As Taylor put it, the run down would have taken him much longer had he brought his camera with him.

 

Worn out from the past few days, all I wanted was to dump my stuff and climb into bed. I opened my bedroom door, and my beloved hut booties were lying on the floor where I had been packing.