TRIP DATES: March 6th – 7th, 2025
PARTICIPANTS: Erik Reimers, Evan Wong, Noah Macdonald
Into the night (Photo: Evan Wong)
BACKGROUND:
The Spearhead
The Spearhead Traverse is a classic ski mountaineering route in Garibaldi Provincial Park. It is a horseshoe-shaped circuit that links Blackcomb and Whistler Mountains. The route typically takes one to four days to complete.
The traverse was first completed in 1964 by VOCers, long before the development of Whistler-Blackcomb as a ski resort. Over time, it has become one of the most well-known ski traverses in North America, often compared to European haute routes. It is one of the two iconic moderate traverses that VOCers often aspire to complete during their time in the club (the other being the Garibaldi Neve traverse).
Despite my long tenure in the VOC, I had yet to complete the Spearhead. While it had once been the centremost goal in my skiing ticklist, my interest in traverses faded as my focus turned to more technical objectives. Traverses struck me as an “approach to nowhere” — you must walk a tremendous amount, only to arrive back at your vehicle without climbing anything or skiing a particularly grand line.
Yet, the Spearhead was sufficiently alluring that it never left my list entirely. Like ultrarunning, single-push ski traverses retain their appeal as mental and physical training for more serious winter alpine objectives. Plus, there is a certain allure about Veenstra-style speed traverses; eventually repeating some of these would be an interesting side-quest from alpine climbing. Consequently, when Erik proposed we complete the Spearhead base-to-base in a single push, I was fully on board.
Route Details
A typical Spearhead Traverse involves (a) ascending the lifts at Blackcomb before (b) accessing the backcountry, skiing across to the Kees & Claire hut, then (c) exiting off the side of Whistler via Singing Pass.
We made two modifications to this line. First, we started by skinning up Blackcomb via a designated access route, adding more than a vertical kilometer to the total elevation gain. Second, we continued skinning past Kees & Claire instead of dropping down Singing Pass, continuing over Flute and Oboe to descend via Whistler resort runs. Again, this adds elevation.
CHAPTER 1: The Prelude
Saturday, March 1st:
I accidentally set a half-marathon PB on my weekend long run.
Monday, March 3rd:
Erik Reimers asks “You getting up to any skiing this coming weekend? See what the weather does but it could be ripe for a Spearhead or North Joffre or Cayoosh loop”.
I indicate a willingness to do the Spearhead specifically.
Evan Wong and I do a strength workout and go on a 6km tempo run.
Tuesday, March 4th:
Forecasts change for the worse, indicating a large storm on the weekend (the storm ended up dropping a metre of snow on Whistler/Blackcomb…). Consequently, we revise our plans to target Friday, skipping class.
Evan talks me into running another half marathon, this time in the rain. I am not yet recovered from my first half marathon. My Garmin tells me I am overtraining; I have run more in the past four days than I have in the previous three months combined. Worst of all, I chose suboptimal pants for running in the rain, and end up with severe chaffing on my inner thighs. This will be relevant later.
Wednesday, March 5th:
I mention our Spearhead plans in front of Evan. He expresses enthusiasm about joining. I veto the idea unless he rents or borrows lighter skis; Evan only owns a hybrid resort/touring setup with CAST system bindings, and his transitions take an outrageously long time (because he needs to swap out the toe piece each time). His skis are also rather heavy and inappropriate for a speed traverse.
I offer to loan him my midweight skis (Dynafit Tour 96s with Dynafit Speed Radical bindings), which are featherweight by comparison. He agrees and is thus invited.
Thursday, March 6th:
Evan and I wake up at 5:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., respectively. We hit the gym for strength training, and go on a 30 min recovery run.
An early afternoon weather forecast update shows a turn for the worse. The weather was to deteriorate earlier, with the storm hitting sometime in the evening/night. Different models called for the storm to hit at different times. The worst-case models showed the cloud base dropping to problematic levels by noon, with precip starting at 2 p.m., and the best-case models showed the cloud base dropping at 4 p.m., with precip starting sometime in the night.
A normal, sane person would call off the traverse at this point. Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately) for us, I drew inspiration from my recent overnight effort on Sky Pilot. If we left almost immediately and attempted to ski it overnight, we would likely finish before the storm hit. Yes, we would need to pull an all-nighter, and yes, we would need to navigate a good chunk of the Spearhead in the dark. However, it still seemed to be the most responsible and prudent course of action.
And so, at 2:11 p.m., I sent out the crucial message: “I think the forecast is bad enough early enough that the play is overnight or bust”.
Famously, Evan is allergic to bailing; he will stubbornly fight to make his objectives happen once he has committed his mind to it. Clearly, he had set his mind to the Spearhead. At 2:15 p.m., Evan replied: “I’ve decided id rather overnight than bail HAHA”.
We rushed to the clubroom and finished waxing my skis, then split up to finish packing.
After 5 p.m., Erik calls BC Parks to get a Wilderness Camping Permit for the upcoming night. This is slightly absurd, as it’s already dark outside at this point. When asked about where we planned to camp, Erik replied that we intended to camp somewhere at the back of the Spearhead traverse. They did not question the logistics of this arrangement.
At 6 p.m., I leave to pick up some more food from Save On. By 6:30 p.m, I pick up Evan, then at 7 p.m. I pick up Erik from downtown. By 8:30 p.m. or so, we reach Whistler (no traffic to worry about at this hour!)
Shortly after 8:52 p.m., we set off from the car
CHAPTER 2: The Beginning
We set off from the parking lot, and quickly made it into the alpine. Of note, we forgot to be disciplined with our food and water intake, and Evan later complained that this hurt his pace in the subsequent hours.
CHAPTER 3: The Suffering Begins
On the flanks of Decker, Evan was struggling to keep up. A series of icy kick turns brought his progress to a halt when his ski popped off. Erik and I waited, then waited some more. When he finally reached us, I hit him with his least favourite word: bail.
“Evan, I figure that at our current pace, and adjusting for the faff and slowdown on the latter half, we will take somewhere in the realm of 15 to 20 hours. We might want to have a serious conversation about bailing if those skis aren’t working for you.”
Evan insisted that he was ok. We set off again, but this time, Evan was hot on our heels. Even when we needed to skin downhill to reach our desired route around Decker, he was managing to more or less keep pace. The difference? He had left his headlamp in his backpack, and was skiing—freeheel—without any source of light. By some miracle, he did not wipe out.
Now, it was my turn to have problems. I had pre-taped my heavily chafed inner thighs to prevent rubbing. Turns out, KT tape just causes worse rubbing. I was in agony and so ripped off the tape (along with an unfortunate quantity of leg hair). Ouch. I continued skinning but somehow found myself in even worse pain.
Luckily, Erik had brought a small roll of duct tape, and he offered me a few strips. This seemed to do the job much better than KT tape, and I was set to resume. We continued onwards, marching into the dark.
Erik tapes up his heels
CHAPTER 4: Hello Darkness, My Old Friend
With an existing skin track in place, travel went quickly. While we had been able to see the entire traverse from Blackcomb in the moonlight, the world felt much darker once we hit the Trorey glacier. We focused on our skis and pushed on.
Everything is a blur until we hit the Tremor-Shudder col. After topping out, Erik fumbled his helmet. His pricey Petzl Sirocco slipped from his grasp, dodged my efforts to grab it, and sailed a few metres past Evan before disappearing into the darkness of the night. Whoops.
It was around this point that we began to dip into my caffeine pills. This was Erik’s first time having caffeine in this form. We had both been falling asleep on our feet; after taking the pill, we returned to a fully alert state. Appropriate use of caffeine pills can make for a potent performance enhancer on these sorts of missions; I strongly recommend including a few in your first aid kit. Ultimately, Evan ended up having 2 caffeine pills (incredibly, this doubled his total lifetime caffeine consumption), Erik had 3, and I had 4 (the final one being taken specifically to stay alert driving home).
Our nighttime skinning continued without issue. The skin track was fun and fast, yet the downhills had some genuinely good skiing. Before we knew it, we were dropping onto the Naden glacier with the first rays of sun breaching the horizon.
(Photo: Evan Wong)
(Photo: Evan Wong)
CHAPTER 5: New Day, New Pains
Our newfound high spirits were promptly quashed by difficulties we encountered dropping off the ridge into Iago glacier. Erik attempted to skin across and down a steep slope over exposure. He made it most of the way, then blew out his edges and slid to a safe spot just past the large rock outcroppings. I took off my skis and booted down, kicking steps through the icy crust. Evan transitioned fully to ski mode and sent in the line with relative ease. This cost us some time.
High spirits. (Photo: Evan Wong)
In general, knowing all the different route variations was helpful in avoiding other such difficulties. We’re very grateful that Erik served as our guide (having recently completed the Spearhead over multiple days). Without him, the traverse would have been much more cognitively involved. Thank you, Erik!
Evan once again began falling behind; enthusiasm only goes so far. While waiting for him atop Iago’s East ridge, I noticed a pointy rock outcropping and began bouldering the volcanic choss in my ski boots.
Choss Bouldering. (Photo: Evan Wong)
By the 3km elevation gain mark, Evan had hit a wall. He was now solidly in the “type 2” fun zone. But the Tremor-Shudder col was the point of no return, and we were long since past it. It probably did not help that he received fewer breaks than Erik and I. Since Sour Patch Kids were his only easily accessible food source, and he had not taken a proper snack break in ages, he had been snacking on only candy for hours. Consequently, his stomach was left in significant distress, and his problems were further compounded. Onwards we marched.
Excellent views. (Photo: Evan Wong)
The skin track disappeared, so I was sent out front to break trail. I was feeling good until we reached the top of Heartbreak Hill, where a wave of fatigue hit me. I allowed myself to close my eyes while waiting for Evan to catch up and immediately fell into REM sleep. Dreams began playing out in my mind so quickly that it made me question where dreams end and hallucinations begin. Slumped against my backpack in the snow, I slept for a minute before shivering myself awake. Sleeping in the snow in only a midlayer is not very comfortable. Miraculously, the momentary sleep was enough to melt away my fatigue, and even without a caffeine pill, I returned to a state of alertness.
We dispatched the crux rappel without much of a problem using my 65m pur’line. I brought my Edelrid Mago8 for Evan to use, as he had never rappeled on a 6mm hyperstatic before. Erik and I both used a munter hitch.
The slog up the Overlord glacier was longer than had been promised by Erik (who had been less fatigued when he last skied it), but the turns down to the hut were nice and pleasant. Before we knew it, we were lounging in the entryway of the Kees & Claire hut. We ate, drank, and rested our legs in the warmth of the hut. Evan took a much-needed bathroom break. In general, it felt remarkably civilized. While this is nice, it’s a good reminder that if you are looking for a wilderness adventure, the touring terrain in the immediate vicinity of Whistler/Blackcomb is the wrong place to find it.
CHAPTER 6: Beyond the Hut
We left the hut in good spirits. The break had been much needed for Evan. Somehow, his energy almost entirely returned, and both his pace and mood improved substantially. The same was not true for Erik. Shockingly, the mighty and unflappable Erik began lagging behind, taking on Evan’s former pace. Erik is well known in the club for his outrageous fitness, which made watching him hit the wall rather disconcerting. He described feeling like his mind was “two seconds behind reality.” Clearly, he was bonking; after we fed him some candy, he recovered completely and was back to his usual energetic self.
With everyone feeling lively, the final stretch went by quickly, and soon, we were back inbounds. We ripped the resort groomers as fast as our legs would allow. The walk back to Lot 4 from the bottom of the lifts was painfully far in ski boots; Evan ripped his off the moment we reached the car. Spearhead complete!
Yardsale. (Photo: Evan Wong)
CONCLUSION
Twice now, I have tackled ambitious objectives in an after-class, all-nighter, single-push style. Twice, I have been successful. While this is a small sample size, I am convinced that this method is highly underrated for a busy student (with sufficient experience to pull it off safely). Most importantly, it is good training for more ambitious and committing alpine lines. I feel more comfortable approaching ED-rated alpine climbs knowing that I can function reasonably well even after being awake for more than 30 hours after having covered >50 km of distance and 4 km of elevation gain.
Final Stats
Total trip time: 19 hr 17 min
Total distance: 52.51 km
Total elevation gain/loss: 4171 m
Total time awake: 40 hours
There’s no way you can legitimately claim this is a good plan for students. My guess is sleep deprivation is probably worse than skipping class. My experiences with overnight pushes are that the lack of sleep will never be remembered fondly. If a big push goes into the night, that’s a lot different than just starting after a full normal day of classes haha.
Anyways in some weird way it sounded fun and I have a bit of FOMO.
Oh, I don’t think it’s a good idea, per se. It’s just “highly underrated.” Given how poorly rated this idea is to begin with (e.g. everyone I mention it to seems to think it’s totally nuts), it doesn’t need to rise to the level of a good idea in order to be underrated.
I think it’s more about striking a balance of weather/conditions to class scheduling. If you open up the option for little to no sleep, you can squeeze in ideal mountain conditions much more often.
Disaster style, metal.
What a beast
Hoping to someday get on that traverse! Hopefully in a more diurnal fashion
It’s highly worthwhile, and the terrain is incredible. If done over multiple days and with the Blackcomb lifts, I imagine that the Spearhead is one of the most type-1 fun ski objectives around. I’m keen to go back one day and ski some of the peaks/lines along the traverse as part of a multi-day traverse.
I hope that the average VOC member does not get the impression that all VOC trips are like this. I would not describe it as fun, not for me.
A very good point. While all of us had a great deal of fun, this trip was many standard deviations more unhinged than the average VOC trip and not reflective of normal practice in any way.