| Author |
Topic |
Squamish, British Columbia
Canada
1008 Posts |
Posted - 05/30/2012 : 11:28 PM
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Between the 26th and 27th of May, 2012, 7 of us successfully summited Mounts Howard, Matier and Hartzell. We attempted Spetch and got within 20 metres of the top but conditions forced us to bail.
This is the report for that trip.
The plan was for two groups to join up at the Vantage-Matier col. and ascend Mt. Howard together via the Twin One glacier. One group was planning to day trip it, the other would overnight on the Howard-Matier col. and then do some possible peak bagging on the Sunday if the weather was favorable.
The day tripping group was Craig, Eugene, Marek and Blair.
The overnighting group was Alastair, Robin, Alexis, Lawrence, Dean, Spring and myself.
The daytrippers would car camp at the TH and head out early.
The overnighters would then head out once they had arrived at the TH and meet up with the rest of the group at the Matier-Vantage col.
All went well in the morning and we were putting boot to trail at the Cerise Creek TH around 9am. Shortly thereafter we encountered our first obstacle. The log bridge (more like jam) over the second creek crossing was partially submerged under the water. A few decided to cross it in their bare feet while others hoped the waterproofing on their boots would hold up. Everyone made it across without incident.
 
We moved at a decent pace from there, swapping the 60m rope amongst us to share its weight, following the winter trail to Keiths Hut which was still largely usable. The snow bridges over Cerise Creek where still pretty big and holding. At around the junction to go right up towards Keiths Hut or the Anniversary Glacier we cut left and followed an obvious drainage towards the Matier-Vantage col.
At the col. we met Marek and Blair and got our first look at the Twin One glacier. Marek informed us that Craig and Eugene had decided to not attempt Mt. Howard today and were heading towards Mount Duke to attempt it instead. Blair and Marek waited at the col. to inform us of this.
Our group made the collective decision to press on up the glacier, but I will admit that just looking at the Twin One glacier and our planned route gave me pause. I remembered in my AST1 course being asked to evaluate Simple, Challenging and Complex terrain and decide on a route. This was complex terrain. You moved left and you’re under seracs and ice fall, you move right and you’re passing through avalanche paths and rockfall. Up the center and you have slumping snow bridges over crevasses. It was getting to be around noon also so the snowpack was softening up quickly.
 
Anyway, we pressed on. We dropped down off the col. and began our climb of the Twin One glacier. We had split into two rope teams. Dean, Spring and Robin on one, Alastair, Alexis, Lawrence and myself on the other that Lawrence affectionately labeled the “Fat man rope team”. Alastair led for a while and then Alexis took the lead. He had tubular snowshoes which weren’t achieving purchase going straight up so he zigzagged up the slope. You can probably just about make out our tracks in this picture taken by Blair from the col. We look like a bunch of skiers switchbacking up the slope.
Aside from sluff coming down off the cliffs, some slow moving slides in runnels and Alexis needing to traverse around a crevasse which one of his legs punched through while trying to cross we topped out without much incident. From here it was a 30 minute walk up a gentle slope to the col. between Howard and Matier that we’d use as our camp for the night.
Once we’d dropped our packs everyone set about building their shelters. Alastair, Robin, Lawrence and Alexis in tents. Myself, Spring and Dean in snowpits. The snow was particularly hard and consolidated so we only dug around 3ft down.
The weather was fantastic. Calm and clear and not that cold, even though the col. we’d be sleeping at was ~2400m’s asl. From our campsite we could see the NW face of Howard. After getting our camp built we geared up and headed out to find a way to the top of Howard. We could see snow constantly sluffing off the face and the exposure felt high, at least for myself, Spring and Dean. As Alastair put it: “it’s ok, if you fall here you probably won’t die”. I really wanted to be finding a way up this face on firm snow in the morning rather than on this loose, early evening snow so myself, Spring and Dean decided to bail on the plans to summit that evening and watch as the rest of the party ascended from a knoll nearby, with hopes to ascend in the morning.
Alastair led a ramp that looked promising and fixed a rope once he had ascertained it was viable as a route to the summit. We watched from our vantage point as they each prusik’d up the fixed rope and climbed a class 4 step. Just as Lawrence was reaching the top of the rope Alastair shouted across to us that his route to the summit was fine and to come now rather than in the morning. His enthusiasm was infectious. The snow on the ramp looked to be more consolidated so we quickly made the decision to just go for it.
   
We traversed across the slope and prusik’d up the rope. The class 4 step went without incident for Spring and Dean but when I was climbing it my prusik got stuck below me and I had to awkwardly reposition myself to free it and bring it above me.
   
Once unclipped from the rope it was a walk along a short ridge and then a short scramble over rime to the summit. By this time the rest of our group had been on the summit for a while and were getting cold. So we quickly shook hands, took some photos then headed back. Once back at the rope we all rapped down off the anchor to pass the rock step. Dean was last so he dismantled the anchor, an ice ax buried as a t-slot, then built another one around a rock horn and sacrificed some cordelette for his rap.
   
  
After that we all had dinner, rehydrated then turned in for the night around 10pm. With a fairly relaxed wake up time of 6am for the next morning.
It was a little blustery in the night but nothing too bad. Before we knew it was 6am and time to get up. We had breakfast, bagels and coffee for myself and Spring, and at around 8am we were all geared up and ready to head out for another day in the mountains. We took a route proposed by Alexis towards Mt. Matier from the col. and gained a ridge crest. The views were eyepopping right from the start, if only every day in the mountains in BC could start at 2400m’s, I digress.
  
We encountered a short, 3m wall covered in rime. Alastair was able to climb it but the rest of us were having a hard time gaining purchase. Lawrence deked around to the left and found a short gully which proved easy to ascend, although the exposure was higher. Everyone else proceeded to follow Lawrences route.
   
Shortly after this point myself and Alastair noticed we had a decent view from this point on the ridge of the Hartzell glacier below, we could also see that the face off this side of the ridge looked to be fairly straightforward to ascend, we concluded this would probably be a viable return route. We had plans to drop down off Matier if we made it to the summit and attempt Spetch and Hartzell also, so instead of returning via Matier we could descend the Hartzell glacier and regain the ridge off Matier closer to our campsite for our egress out later in the day. We’d have to see later if this plan would pan out.
We followed the ridge for a few hundred more meters until we came upon a fairly high cliff with a couloir that looked climbable. Robin led this gully and kicked steps for all of us. The snow was pretty nice and firm in places, although it could have been better. It was probably between 40 and 45 degrees.
  
Once we topped out we could see another obvious couloir that would allow us to gain the ridge crest above Matiers NW face. We had a quick breather then headed out. There was an ice step right at the base of the couloir that had to be tackled. A few ascended it with only an ice ax and crampons and braced off the side of gully. The rest used an ice ax as well as an ice tool. The ice was good quality and probably only WI2.
   
Once above this step the snow in the couloir itself was fantastic. Firm neve that made ascent quick. In a matter of minutes we’d all topped on the ridge crest. From here it was a short scramble over rime encrusted rock to the summit and hand shaking and fist bumps all around.
 
For a few in the group it was their first ascent of Matier, for myself and Spring it was our second but for me it felt like I’d really earned this summit this time via this route. Aesthetic as well as a lot of fun.
We puttered around on the summit for a while, said hello to some ladies that joined us as they came up the NE spur route, and looked at some cloud cover on the horizon creeping towards us, then started to head back down to the top of the NW face. This would be our descent route as it would leave us closer to Hartzell and Spetch which we’d be attempting next.
Most decided to face in on the descent, facing out in places where the snow was softer. Alexis finally got to put his skis on that he’d been carrying around all weekend and got some turns in down the face. The rest of us laboriously kicked steps down before crossing the ‘schrund at the bottom. The snow bridges across it are still in and it can be easily crossed.
  
Once at the bottom we regrouped. The plan was now to head to Spetch and summit it via its S Face, then return and summit Hartzell via it’s S or SE face.
We roped up, headed to Spetch across the glacier, unroped then started up the face. It was just after noon by now and we all quickly realized that this south face was not viable. I was leading and pretty much digging a 3ft trench in the snow pack. The snow was like slushy and I could punch my arm at least a meter into it. The angle got to be around 60’ so we tried to climb swim our way to a rock band to get onto solid ground. Lawrence led up a bit further before we all decided to call it 20 vertical meters below the summit. We were right under some bluffs and cornices that could give at any moment.
We descended down quickly. A few hours earlier and it would have been easily doable, but the snowpack had just heated up too much and it was just too dangerous. We mulled around with the idea of going around to the NW side of Spetch and doing it that way. We could have done it, and in hindsight we probably should have, Alastair and Alexis voted to go for it, but at the time we could see the clouds rolling in, Hartzell still to do and the unknown route down the Hartzell glacier to figure out. The majority voted to leave it for another day.
We roped up again and headed back towards Hartzell and the Matier-Hartzell col.. Alexis got to get a bit more skiing in and blazed ahead of us. We regrouped on a shoulder below a pretty straight forward looking slope up towards the summit of Hartzell. We realized though that there appeared to be a moat covered by a snow bridge in our path. Alexis started to ascend the slope while Alastair traversed over to a investigate the depth of the moat. He promptly instructed Alexis to stop in his tracks and back up. The drop was clearly not worth risking crossing it unroped.
Nobody wanted to mess around building an anchor and fixing a rope to cross a 6ft gap so Alastair descended to the col. and spotted another possible route up with Robin.
The clouds we had seen earlier on the horizon where now all around us and visibility was dropping. We needed visibility to spot the route up from the Hartzell glacier back to our campsite. It probably would have been prudent to start moving down the glacier immediately, but being only 100 vertical meters below the summit of Hartzell we had to give it a shot. We traversed over to the route Alastair had spotted and started up. In a matter of minutes we topped out. We could just about make out another knob that looked slightly higher, Alastair checked his altimeter and it turned out we must have been on a sub-summit, so we traversed over and reached the true summit. The clouds were still all around us but at least the ceiling was rising. It seemed to be around 2500m’s now.
  
We didn’t hang around long. We quickly started back down to the col., roped up and started to descend the Hartzell glacier. Whether we could find or see the route back up to the ridge was anyone's guess. Visibility was touch and go. I’m sure there was a feeling of apprehension in the group as to where we’d all end up. I was mulling over the option of staying in Keiths Hut if we couldn’t ascend back to the ridge. I heard Dean mention that it would suck to have to leave without collecting his gear as he’d have to hike back in to collect it next weekend.
I had a rough idea of where we needed to start ascending on my GPS but couldn’t be sure. Alastair led and started to angle up on a snow slope. The postholing was bad, up to our thighs in places. Above us loomed rock cliffs laden with snow ready to drop after being softened all day. Alastair continued to traverse and climb. Then suddenly, we were back on top of our tracks from earlier in the day. Alastair had guided us exactly back to the spot I’d spotted with him earlier as the possible ascent route off the glacier. I was pretty impressed, even with my GPS I was unsure. Alastair's ability to navigate us back was something to witness.
we could now see our camp only a short distance below. Robin could see his tent had almost been blown away, and was hanging on by only 1 or 2 pegs. He quickly left the group to descend and rescue his tent.
The rest of us followed and once at camp we all started to pack up. It was cold and windy. I imagined being back at the cars and shivering while trying to load our gear into the back while tying back into the rope for descending the Twin One Glacier
Alexis donned his skis and started down the glacier ahead of us. We slowly followed behind. The snow was mush so descending was straightforward. At one point Robin sank in up to his waist, after he’d dug himself out he realized it was actually a crevasse. We all gingerly crossed it also, making sure to keep the rope tight.
We were trying to follow our tracks up as we descended until they suddenly disappeared. We descended a bit further and then realized we were walking on top of a fresh avalanche path. A pretty large avalanche had come down the glacier and wiped out our tracks. It was chilling. How soon after we’d passed this slope the previous day had this avalanche happened?
Anyway, from there we regained the Matier-Vantage col., unroped, dropped a lot of our mountaineering gear and moved as quickly as possible back along Cerise Creek to the cars. As we got close to the cars I was amazed at how warm it had gotten. The frigid wind blowing up at our campsite was gone and it was actually warm. By the time we got to the cars it felt like it was around 20’c.
We all shook hands, and headed our separate ways, meeting up again at McD’s in Pemby for salt, meat and fat.
Overall the trip was awesome. The weather was excellent. Even with the clouds late in the day on Sunday it added variety to the trip and I was actually glad to be out of the oppressive glare of the sun on the glacier. The campsite was perfect and the group worked well together, thanks in no small part to Alastair who is excellent at keeping the group motivated, moving and working as a well oiled machine.
I’d gladly spend another weekend out in the hills with every one of these guys, who climbed high and fast in fine style.
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Edited by - leimrod on 05/30/2012 11:31 PM
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 | LeeL
Advanced Member
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 Extreme ski tourin, mountain bikin addict who hikes at least once a year
2506 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 12:23 AM
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Nice. You guys pretty much reversed the way I usually ski Twin One Gl and the Twio One Couloir from Matier but obviously i ski down the way you go up. That's one hell of a broken glacier to boot up - you guys got more balls than me.
btw - its a bit easier to get to Howard by booting straight up the face. Start in the dark and its game on. But a cool routefinding to get on to it the way you did. Always good to see it done differently |
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362 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 12:25 AM
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| Sweet weekend, report and photos. Looks like a great group. |
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North Vancouver, BC
Canada
330 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 05:27 AM
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Outstanding! Such a great area with so much to do. Twin One glacier is special. Some fine photos as usual.
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Coquitlam, BC
Canada
342 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 06:11 AM
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Excellent report! Great photos and narrative!
C |
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Vancouver, BC
Canada
1114 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 06:38 AM
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Some quality ascents guys! Great write up.
What happened to Marek and Blair? I don't see mention of them after the meeting at the col? |
Edited by - thecamel on 05/31/2012 09:24 AM |
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Burnaby, BC
Canada
908 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 08:23 AM
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| those photos area amazing thanks for sharing! |
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90 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 08:41 AM
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Even with ''proper'' snowshoes, I think I will still have zigzagged. It is just engraved
in my skier's brain. Nothing I can do about it.
That being said. It was not a we for bringing skis. It was a lot of effort hauling the skis, but that is ok, that is part of the game. But, the descent was not worth the prize. NW face of Matier was way too hard and icy, particularly at the bottom. It was ok as it has little exposure otherwise, I would have skied down with my ice ax. Anyway, it is ticked off my skiing list. Skiing down the Twin One glacier was horrible too. Way too soft with constant wet sliding
under my skis. Oh well....
Quite a shame that we did not bag Spetch. Lack of spirit :) Conditions were not ideal on the
route we chose, we should have tried a different route, from the other side. Oh well..
Pebeto |
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| Dru
Mountain Grammar Police
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Sardonic sandbagging scoundrel, Cascade Climbers lobotomized spraymeister, space blanket flyer, new millennium vulgarian betaboy and friend to all squids
Climbing, a mountain
Canada
∞ Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 09:07 AM
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| These are all good peaks, and linking them together is fun. |
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West Vancouver, B.C.
Canada
289 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 09:09 AM
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Congratulations everyone on a very successful trip!! 
As a day tripper, I wasn't feeling too comfortable descending the Twin One glacier late in the afternoon on such a warm day.
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Vancouver, BC
Canada
1114 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 09:20 AM
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quote:
As a day tripper, I wasn't feeling too comfortable descending the Twin One glacier late in the afternoon on such a warm day.
that must have been a tough choice at the time...not to sound overly melodramatic,....but as it turns out, that might have been a life and death decision....great risk assessment and decision making! |
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90 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 09:32 AM
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I think you took the right decision, Craig. The next day was bit cooler and I
was quite nervous going down. Not really by the crevasses, but by the snow.
It was quite sketchy going down and I had to do a long traverse, wait
a bit that the snow that I just released stopped, turn, do a long traverse again, etc... |
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Squamish, British Columbia
Canada
1008 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 10:03 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by pebeto
I think you took the right decision, Craig. The next day was bit cooler and I
was quite nervous going down. Not really by the crevasses, but by the snow.
It was quite sketchy going down and I had to do a long traverse, wait
a bit that the snow that I just released stopped, turn, do a long traverse again, etc...
I wonder if all that avy debris that covered most of our up tracks was caused by your skiing then? It was hard to tell where it started or what caused it as the shading was muted on the glacier from the clouds. |
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Squamish, British Columbia
Canada
1008 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 10:20 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by pebeto
Quite a shame that we did not bag Spetch. Lack of spirit :) Conditions were not ideal on the
route we chose, we should have tried a different route, from the other side. Oh well..
Pebeto
It's like you said when we proposed to do the Aussie Couloir as well, "we can't do everything, we need something to come back for"
I've yet to do Tszil and Spetch now. I'll probably do both later this summer and connect them by going up and over Slalok's West Ridge. |
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90 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 10:45 AM
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Haha, you are right. But, as a skier, I did not see the point of going up Aussie Couloir.
It would have been quite easy I believe, but as South facing, it would have probably made for
horrendous skiing. I rather reserve it for a good winter day.
And yes, I am probably the one that covered all our uptrack.
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| LeeL
Advanced Member
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Extreme ski tourin, mountain bikin addict who hikes at least once a year
2506 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 10:51 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by leimrod
quote:
Originally posted by pebeto
Quite a shame that we did not bag Spetch. Lack of spirit :) Conditions were not ideal on the
route we chose, we should have tried a different route, from the other side. Oh well..
Pebeto
It's like you said when we proposed to do the Aussie Couloir as well, "we can't do everything, we need something to come back for"
I've yet to do Tszil and Spetch now. I'll probably do both later this summer and connect them by going up and over Slalok's West Ridge.
Tszil is pretty easy. Go down Stonecrop face and on descenders left just before the last funnel dropping you down to the 3rd lake there's an obvious snow ramp dropping down further to the glacial remnant NE of Tszil glacier. To add a bit of sport go straight up Tszil's N face (~ 40 - 45 deg) and there's two ramps to gain the peak proper. The left ramp has some sporty rock choss and thin snow usually to gain the peak ridge so i bypassed and took the climbers right chute direct which is a bit narrow ( it was a ski and half length when we skied it) but also goes right to the peak.
Spetch is also pretty easy. You can go direct straight up the ENE face which makes it kind of fun or do what i did and plod straight up the N face.
If you're really interested in a long walk go down the snow field going S off Hartzell which takes you to Twin Goat. There's about 5 - 6 maybe more steepish couloirs that go SFU. I think the central couloir got its first ski last year which shows how few people go there.
Keep up the cool TRs. It's really fun to see this terrain through someone else's eyes.
You too Pebeto in particular I loved your Twisting Couloir line. Next though look up at that line direct from Joffre N face to Twisting which has been skied direct. 60 degs with exposure. |
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Vancouver, BC
Canada
149 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 11:51 AM
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Leigh, I think this a great factual report with spectacular pictures.
I loved this trip and I really reccommend it or a similar route. You could do Howard in a long day but as Leigh says, it is pretty nice starting a second day in such spectacular surroundings with interesting routes to look forward to.
I recced the approach to the Howard/Matier col from Lillooet Lake up the Twin One Creek road two weeks prior to this trip. (I was worried about the amount of crevasses on Twin One Glacier.) On this recce I could see the line from Hartzell Glacier to the se ridge of Matier so I had a pretty good idea of how it went. For this trip I decided not to use this approach because the final 100m up to the Howard/Matier col looked very steep (it is actually not) plus it was longer and more elevation gain. This approach, though would be another way to do Howard as a day trip.
I proposed this trip but during it (of course) there was lots of evaluating, discussing, ideas, etc. -- I think that we were all pretty much on the same page though, and all revelling in the scenery and weather.
It was a good lesson to see avalanche debris covering our tracks as my evaluation had been that we were out of avalanche danger. |
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Surrey, BC
Canada
1005 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 3:44 PM
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| Outstanding all around, guys and girl...I was glued to every word. : ) |
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Vancouver
108 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 3:49 PM
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| Wow, what a great report and photos. I sure blew it by choosing not to do the whole trip with you guys. Thanks for all the details. |
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Utah's canyon trekking,deck chair packing desert explorer who dreams of visiting Canada someday
3988 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 5:59 PM
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Wow! Completely out of my realm of hiking abilities. Unreal. Congratulations! Thanks for showing this desert rat such an amazing place. Great write up, too. Sea to sky? for sure.
Motivating!! thanks again. |
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80 Posts |
Posted - 05/31/2012 : 8:07 PM
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This is one of my favorite trips i've done this year.
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Mounts Howard, Matier, Hartzell and Spetch
