My Toxic Relationship with the Splitboard

Like that ex you keep going back to hook up with after they hurt you, I have a similar relationship with the club splitboard.

A couple of months ago, I had an absolute horror show on that board at Brew. My skin was falling off on the way up, different parts were getting stuck, and worst of all the entire heel side on both bindings disintegrated on the way down. It was an absolute sufferfest, despite the trip itself being relatively chill. Having experienced this, I came back with the “I can fix her” mentality. The binding was reinforced with beefier screws, the skin was fixed, and it seemed the splitboard had once again returned to working order.

My previous date with the splitboard, I guess having a debacal at Brew is a rite of passage around here.

The weekend before our trip, one Duncan MacIntyre invited me to join his Neve trip for a single-day south-to-north push. I had to decline due to a scheduling conflict, but it planted an idea in my head. All throughout the week, I bugged people to join me on the Neve. At the Exec meeting on Wednesday, I found Aaron Lee, who was also keen on a single-day Neve push. He wanted to tag Garibaldi on the side too, which seemed reasonable given the relatively small detour. Since neither of us knows how to ski, we decided that splitboarding would be our best bet.

To avoid afternoon heating causing bad avalanche conditions, we agreed on an early start. First, we settled on 4 AM, then pushed it to 2 AM, and eventually decided to skip sleeping altogether and leave as soon as I got off work at 8:30 PM. We also figured that by car-swapping with the Steps to the Neve group, we could do the trip with just one car—though this meant doing the Neve in the opposite direction from how it’s usually done.

After two and a half hours of online tutoring, Aaron picked me up minutes after I hung up the Zoom call. It was around 10:30 PM when we got to Squamish, and I devoured a burger and a coffee at A&W, having not eaten since lunch. The drive up was cheerful, both of us excited about the challenge ahead, unaware of what we were getting ourselves into.

Trailhead, Aaron seen in the back.

The first ~4 km of the trail was completely dry, and we deeply appreciated our comfy snowboarding boots. As we climbed the switchbacks, we ran into a guy I can only describe as an alternate version of Jeff. The man was alone, hauling planks twice his height beside his skis, in the middle of the night. He said he was headed to the Sentinel hut for repairs. We continued past him after commending his effort. The rest of the climb to the lake was uneventful, aside from a slight slip that bent my one of my poles into a ski racing pole.

Crossing the lake was simply magical. There was not a shred of cloud, and the stars alone were enough to negate the need for headlamps. As we walked west, the moon rose behind the hills and bathed our surroundings in a gentle silver glow. A few shooting stars and an aurora to the north made the sky came alive. The entire time across the lake, we looked up instead of ahead, captivated by the night sky. We stopped for a snack in the middle of the lake, appreciating both the treats we brought and the view above.

Crossin the lake.

As we started to ascend Sentinel Glacier, I encountered my first gear problem. My right ski wouldn’t lean left, no matter how much I twisted my leg. This meant that whenever the hill was to the left, my right ski lost traction. After a lot of struggling, I gave up and started bootpacking. Unfortunately, the snow didn’t support my weight on the steeper sections, which led to much frustration. Every step I lift my leg as high as it would go, only to gain about half a foot of elevation. It was exhausting and time-consuming. (This is a recurring theme.) Eventually, I reached a flatter section, put my skis back on, and watched as the sun began to light up the sky.

Me as I came up Sentinel Glacier behind Aaron.

The Black Tusk seen at sunrise, it was beautiful.

By this point, I was already questioning whether we’d be able to tag Garibaldi Mountain. I hadn’t slept since the previous day, and the climb up Sentinel Bay had drained me. As a two-person team, we had to make conservative choices. At 7:30 AM, we took a break near the turn off for Garibaldi and practiced setting up anchors. The nail in the coffin came when we realized the snow was too soft for the snow flukes we brought. Since there was no quick or easy way to set up an anchor, the risk just didn’t seem worth it anymore. We gave up on the objective—a good decision in hindsight.

Approaching the Shark Fin at sunrise.

Traversing beneath the Garibaldi Mountain.

Baker in the distance. The visibility was incredible.

As we got past the apex of the traverse, the snow turned icy. We transitioned under Atwell around 10:30 AM and started our descent. Snowboarding on ice is not fun; there’s little control, especially when the surface is bumpy. We passed several groups of skiers doing the Neve in the usual direction, including our very own Steps to the Neve group, who gave us beta for Ring Creek and the Gargoyles.

Still looks cooler than skiing.

The skin track near Ring Creek went up and down, which is the worst possible thing for a splitboarder. Constant sidehilling killed my calves, and the hops to get up every 50 metres didn’t help either. As we descended further and the sun climbed higher, the canyon started to feel like a microwave.

The re-ascent toward Elfin was by far the worst part of the trip. There were no existing skin tracks uphill. Aaron went first, triggering slides of unconsolidated snow. I, being about 20 pounds heavier, couldn’t take a single step without the whole face collapsing under me. Skis were useless for me here, so I took them off and bootpacked. This wasn’t much better, since I would sometimes sink to my chest in soft snow. During the 40-minute period we spent on this hill, we advanced 40 meters horizontally, and 40 meters vertically. ‘Luckily’ for us this section wasn’t too long and was out of any avalanche path. Our next challenge was to cross the many debris field from previous days of wet lose avalanches. This section was a bit easier, though still tricky at places. Seeing how slipping down a debris field was not on our to do list of the day, we had to go quite slowly in certain places to avoid such fate.

Me, swimming???

After that, the trail to Elfin was comparatively easy. There was a small navigation hiccup, costing me about ten extra metres of gain. Otherwise, it was smooth sailing. We arrived at the shelter at 3:30 PM and took a well-deserved 30-minute break. Stepping indoors felt like coming home. In the shelter we repeatedly ask ourselves why we made the decision to embark on this death march. We were unable to produce any reasonable answer.

As we depart the lakes, we felt like the trip was pretty much over. The remaining 5 km of skinning was easy. Having dried our skins at the shelter, they became way more functional compared to the ascend earlier. However, the end of this trip was not without its drama. 50 meters before we transitioned to go down, my left toes strap decided to break off. This is absolutely devastating news. For those unfamiliar with the art of snowboarding, allow me to explain this predicament: The toes strap is used to lift one of the edges of the snowboard. Its absence means it is now very easy to catch my toe edge, turning left became difficult and dangerous, and breaking becomes unreliable. Imagine a car where the steering wheel is 10 times less sensitive when turning left, and the break might send you rolling instead of stopping you. So, given the situation, I decided that my best course of action is just to straight line it down the FSR, since that would minimize any big movements which might cause problems. This ended up working out well, and the only time I fell was right at the very end trying to slowdown for the parking lot. I ended my Neve trip on the ground next to the park map, still strapped to my board and not believing what we have just completed. The traverse took 19 hours and 10 minutes at the end, the longest single day trip I’ve done.

Having once again had my day turned into hell by the club splitboard, I once again swore that I would never touch that piece of garbage again. She has once again hurt my feelings, and I wasn’t gonna let that happen again. The Monday after when I brought the board in, the head QMs decided to retire the board and sent it to the dumpster. Me, clearly still having attachment issues, was reluctant to see her go. I’ve had no good memories on that board, yet its departure somehow made me emotional. Not even a week have gone by, and I am already missing her. I mean, if she can complete the Neve, then there’s nothing she couldn’t do. Maybe I should go find her in the trash and try to fix her again, because I’m sure this time it would be different.

Aaron’s Thoughts (or what I learned while crossing the Neve overnight)

1. Personally, forgoing sleep entirely meant a safer drive up the Sea to Sky. It meant driving up around 10pm – a time at which I’m usually still awake and functioning, as opposed to 3am – a time at which I’m normally asleep.
2. A functional headlamp was CRUCIAL for making meaningful progress through dark forest. However, if going barebones with no redundancy, one headlamp per pair was sufficient (thanks Joseph). In the alpine with clear skies, a Moon at first quarter on snow was enough to see vaguely until the Moon sets. Garibaldi Lake was very pretty in the moonlight under a clear sky.
3. Consider snow conditions if bootpacking is ever required. On our ascent from the lake to Glacier Pikes, we ran into an icy crust with pretty soft snow underneath. The ice made skinning up/switchbacking awkward. When we opted to bootpack, we punched through the ice and struggled to go up on the soft snow. This cost us ~20 minutes. More on bootpacking blunders later.
4. Consider learning how to place snow flukes before relying in your crevasse rescue system. This was a reckless decision on our part and contributed to us bailing on Nch’kay (Garibaldi).
5. I am easily objective-blinded. With Nch’kay in sight, it felt like a foolish waste of sweat and sleep-deprived effort. It took time, humility, and many reality-checks from Joseph to realize we had reached our decision point by the Sharkfin a little late in the day and with too little energy in reserve.
   If we had gone ahead with Nch’kay, we would have crossed the Gargoyle avalanche paths around 2-4pm (prime wet loose season). We would have likely spent more time wallowing in soft snow as well. If something had gone wrong on the ascent or descent, the energy Joseph or I had to help each other could have been insufficient and would leave little margin for error. Finally, our sleep-deprived brains are probably not the most rational in a pinch.
6. Under the baking sun, my cooked brain gravitated to the word “wallowing”. Definition: Wal·low (/ˈwälō/): 1) to roll about or lie in water, snow, mud, dust, or the like, as for refreshment or in a lazy, relaxed, or ungainly manner. 2) to live self-indulgently; luxuriate; revel. 3) to flounder about; move along or proceed clumsily or with difficulty. We wallowed under definition 3 through soft snow out of Ring Creek. My brain still really likes this word, I don’t think I’ve recovered fully… wallowing.