Rainbow Mountain is the peak across the valley from Whistler Blackcomb. Sitting at 2314m it doesn’t seem particularly notable, but the deep valleys on all sides give it over 1000m of prominence. Having attempted it in first year with John Conlon while en route to September Turns All Year, I have been eager to give it another go.
I had planned for a go at the Spearhead Traverse this weekend but my partner injured himself and wasn’t able to go. Instead I looked at Rainbow. It looked like if I was quick I might be able to get Gin, Tonic, and Sproatt peaks on the way down. In typical fashion, I overestimated my own ability and underestimated the difficulty of the objectives.
Incredible Tantalus view
My day started with the earliest bus to Whistler since I was not excited to pay $250 for an overnight evo. Unfortunately this added an additional 10k roundtrip from the bus stop to the Rainbow Lake trailhead. After a Tims coffee and donut in the village, I left around 9 for the trailhead.
Walking through Whistler to the trailhead
5ks of flat to the trailhead went by in under an hour with the skis in an A-frame carry. I hid my shoes under a tree at the Whistler cemetery and began the long skin up to the lake. I made excellent time for the first 2 hours, gaining 600m before the well defined skin track split up.
The well defined skintrack
There were many many small bridges like this. Very exciting on the ski out!
At this point, the bridge over Gin and Tonic creek had been removed for the winter so I spent a solid 30 minutes finding a place to cross and another 30 minutes finding old tracks up to the lake again. The sun had come out and I was absolutely roasting. I put most of my top layers in the bag and ended up touring in a long sleeve T, no gloves and no hat. Warm. From this point on there were no tracks at all and I was breaking trail in the wet, heavy snow.
Frozen? Rainbow Lake
After reaching the lake, I wasted very little time, taking a short water/food break before continuing the plod towards the summit. Once again crossing all the small creeks that flow into Rainbow Lake took quite a while. I didn’t feel very trusting of any of the snow bridges since they all sagged considerably. I felt slightly more comfortable trusting them than over a crevasse since I might end up only a bit wet instead of a bit dead. After another bit of faff I was at the far end of the lake, ready to gain the southwest face of Rainbow.
North face of Gin Peak
I had owed a call to the parents so I talked with each of them as I slowly toured towards treeline. With all my delays, I was not going to make it up Rainbow and back down before it became dark. I wasn’t particularly excited to bivy above treeline alone either, so I called the day around 4:30 at 1800m. With 17k and 1250m gain it had been a long day.
Some very flat light made it impossible to see any texture
I set up my sleeping gear and watched the sun peek out behind the dense clouds. I was even able to spot Mt Cayley just peeking out from the clouds.
See if you can spot Mt Cayley and Pyroclastic Peak
View towards the Pemberton Icefield
I went to sleep at 6 when the sun had set and it started to get quite cold. I slept on and off through the night, making sure to peek out and see the stars that came out as the clouds went away. At some point my sleeping pad ended up quite deflated and I had to pull myself entirely out of the bivy to refill it. Brrr. I managed to sleep more until 6:30am when my alarm went off.
Peaking my head out it was quite cold and I was not feeling motivated for an early start. I also knew all the aspects I was traveling were shaded until much later and the cold clear night gave me confidence that things would remain stable. I woke up again at 7:30 and with the sun up I felt it was time to be moving.
Pyro, Cayley and Powder Mountains in view
I slowly changed out of all my sleeping clothes, much to my displeasure and got ready for skiing again. I followed this up with the crux of the day, getting my frozen ski boots on. If anyone has tips on this I’d love to hear. It is the worst part of any overnight ski trip without a doubt. After 20 minutes fighting the boots, I was able to fully stand up. I tucked the bivy between 2 tight trees and hoped the low winds wouldn’t blow it away.
Touring up 250m to the col between South Rainbow and Main Rainbow was where I split from the summer trail. This took around 45 minutes since my skis kept slipping on the sun crust buried about 5 cm. The terrain here is steep for skinning but does not exceed 30 degrees. Since I’m not too keen on exposed mixed climbing on the ridge I opted to cross the glacier and gain the east ridge instead.
Aiming for the ridge right of this big block. Note the helicopter
The glacier looks quite solid on maps with no crevasse fields so I just scooted across keeping as much elevation while not falling off the edge. It is a bit of a rare word, but I believe the term for this is randkluft, the gap created when the glacier pulls away from the rock. I have never seen such a large feature. The terrain goes up to this small col, below was very slippery. Someone with better skins than mine(read: ski crampons) put in a track to the col but I had to switch to standard crampons and get up to the col.
This giant lip on the glacier
A more confident skier can tour across the glacier on the north side and get to the summit straight away, but it looked creavassy and the ridge wasn’t very difficult. Leaving skis and booting the final 100m I made it to the summit. I was welcomed by 5 tourists who had taken a heli to the summit. Lovely. It seems someone in Whistler runs sightseeing tours that involve a landing on rainbow mountain if you pay enough ($210). I didn’t feel like socializing, so on that unpleasant note I hurried back down the ridge to my waiting skis.
Helicopter again
View towards Wedge group
Tantalus
Familiar faces in the Garibaldi area
A couple of very nice turns were had on the way back down to the randkluft, then a mix of side stepping and polling and then down again to camp. The snow in the alpine was very nice for skiing. I packed up quickly as I was becoming a bit worried about making the bus in Whistler and I skied down to the lake. This is where the fun skiing ended.
What followed was several hours of slogging, sometimes with skins, some without. I felt continuously like I was just about to get to a point that would be totally skiable. I was not. The snow was very wet and stuck to both my skis and skins. I had to stop many times to scrape them off. I have a lighter pair of skimo style skis for spring/summer skiing that are easy to carry. I had to bring these on this trip since my other pair are waiting for me at Roger’s Pass in a couple days. Unfortunately these “skimo” skis don’t behave so well in deep wet snow.
Sticky snow + skis that need wax
I experienced total skin failure just as it became possible to fully ski down, 4km below the lake after descending only 300m in this time(and believing for all 4ks that I was this close to skiing down). With fairly minimal side stepping over uphills, I made it down back to the Whistler cemetery. The ski track down was like a bobsled track and I nearly crashed into trees several times.
Some very interesting frost developing
Putting the skis in the backpack and switching to shoes (heavenly), I hurried to get back to the village as fast as possible. I left the cemetery parking lot at 3 for my 3:45 bus, a walk that Google maps says is 68 minutes. I made it at 3:40, hurrying as much as my exhausted legs could manage.
Rainbow from the bus, now obscured by clouds
Overall a really nice summit to do solo, even if the approach from the Olympic Park is more enjoyable. I’ll have to come back for Gin, Tonic, Sproatt, and Spectrum, although I’m certainly not excited to do that approach in the snow again.
Read John Conlon’s trip report from September 2024 here.
Did you ever find the ski rental place at the summit?????!???