Neve-r Better
To try and finish off the backcountry ski season on a high note, Tom decided to attempt to cross the Garibaldi Neve.
This is one of the classic ski traverses in the south coast mountain ranges, and it turned out to be a spectacular trip. The Garibaldi Neve is a huge ice-field about an hours drive north of Vancouver. It's about 20km across and is comprised of several glaciers that link together between Diamond Head Mtn and Garibaldi lake.
We left work early on Friday and first left Dave's car at the garibaldi lake parking lot, and then took our truck back to Diamond head mountain trailhead. This way we would have a way to get back to the start, after making the 40km trip!
We left the parking lot at about 8pm (we had some logistical issues...), and skied up to the Elfin Lakes hut. We did the entire trip up by head-lamp and arrived at around midnight. It was an amazingly clear night and not too cold - not that it would have really mattered since the Elfin Lakes Hut (maintained by BC parks) is basically a hotel. It is insulated and has a large propane furnace that kept the interior around 17C all night!
Next morning, we woke up at 6am, had a quick breakfast and left to cross the Neve. The total trip to Garibaldi lake was about 20km and it took us about 10hours at a leisurely pace. We first had to find a route through Ring Creek (GPS helped here...) and cross several fairly large avalanche pathes - luckily we got an early start so the snowpack was still pretty solid.
Once up onto the glacier, we could see the entire Neve - just a huge expanse of white glaciers ringed by snowcapped peaks such as Atwell, Garibaldi and Diamond Head. After climbing to the highpoint, we got to the Sphynx glacier, which was the crux of the route with several open crevices. Luckily, there was a fairly safe route through so there was no need to rope up.
After a quick break for lunch we got to enjoy the fruits of our labour - a 7km ski run down the Warren/Sphynx glaciers through un-touched snow. Probably the best single-run of the season for me.
Once at Garibaldi lake we skied over to Burton hut where we stayed tthe night. Next morning we woke up to rain, so we packed up early and started the 5km trip back across frozen Garibaldi lake. We managed to make it most of the way down to the parking lot on skis, but had to walk the remaining 2km to our parked car.
But the adventure wasn't over - we found out that we had actually left the keys to the car in the other car at the trailhead! Lucky for us, three guys from Squamish who were doing the same trip gave me a lift back to the trailhead so I could drive the truck (and the car keys) back to garibaldi lake.
Definately a trip I would do again.
You can see our PICTURES here and GPS route here
To try and finish off the backcountry ski season on a high note, Tom decided to attempt to cross the Garibaldi Neve.
This is one of the classic ski traverses in the south coast mountain ranges, and it turned out to be a spectacular trip. The Garibaldi Neve is a huge ice-field about an hours drive north of Vancouver. It's about 20km across and is comprised of several glaciers that link together between Diamond Head Mtn and Garibaldi lake.
We left work early on Friday and first left Dave's car at the garibaldi lake parking lot, and then took our truck back to Diamond head mountain trailhead. This way we would have a way to get back to the start, after making the 40km trip!
We left the parking lot at about 8pm (we had some logistical issues...), and skied up to the Elfin Lakes hut. We did the entire trip up by head-lamp and arrived at around midnight. It was an amazingly clear night and not too cold - not that it would have really mattered since the Elfin Lakes Hut (maintained by BC parks) is basically a hotel. It is insulated and has a large propane furnace that kept the interior around 17C all night!
Next morning, we woke up at 6am, had a quick breakfast and left to cross the Neve. The total trip to Garibaldi lake was about 20km and it took us about 10hours at a leisurely pace. We first had to find a route through Ring Creek (GPS helped here...) and cross several fairly large avalanche pathes - luckily we got an early start so the snowpack was still pretty solid.
Once up onto the glacier, we could see the entire Neve - just a huge expanse of white glaciers ringed by snowcapped peaks such as Atwell, Garibaldi and Diamond Head. After climbing to the highpoint, we got to the Sphynx glacier, which was the crux of the route with several open crevices. Luckily, there was a fairly safe route through so there was no need to rope up.
After a quick break for lunch we got to enjoy the fruits of our labour - a 7km ski run down the Warren/Sphynx glaciers through un-touched snow. Probably the best single-run of the season for me.
Once at Garibaldi lake we skied over to Burton hut where we stayed tthe night. Next morning we woke up to rain, so we packed up early and started the 5km trip back across frozen Garibaldi lake. We managed to make it most of the way down to the parking lot on skis, but had to walk the remaining 2km to our parked car.
But the adventure wasn't over - we found out that we had actually left the keys to the car in the other car at the trailhead! Lucky for us, three guys from Squamish who were doing the same trip gave me a lift back to the trailhead so I could drive the truck (and the car keys) back to garibaldi lake.
Definately a trip I would do again.
You can see our PICTURES here and GPS route here
posted by Marie & Tom at
10:36 PM
