Spearhead Traverse: April 3 to 5
Just completed a guided 3 day Spearhead Traverse trip in full winter like conditions! The route is in excellent shape overall, see below for details of each section.
Weather: The first 2 days of the trip we experienced whiteout conditions with moderate/strong NE winds. Temperatures were low of -11 and high around 0. 2-5cm new snow on April 4th. The last day of the trip was clear skies.
Snowpack: Highly variable surface conditions. Strong NE winds have scoured exposed areas in the alpine. Sheltered polar aspects held 10-20cm of dry snow. Solar aspects skied well in AM with 10-15cm new snow over a widespread crust but quickly became wet with sun on April 5th.
Avalanches: Observed several wet loose avalanches to size 1.5 on steep solar aspects on April 5th. Otherwise no new.
Route Conditions: The route is in excellent condition overall. There are more crevasses open or sags than previous years (Ripsaw - See below).
Pattison: The steep snow route on the south ridge of Pattison can be easily bypassed by a 3rd class scramble on the climbers right.
Tremor: Roped up for whiteout travel conditions on the tremor glacier. We easily avoided all crevasses and sags by following the low route up the lower angle terrain north of Tremor. The cornices on tremor are large and we chose to uptrack on the climbers left to minimize exposure. No issues gaining Tremor Col.
Platform: No issues. When gaining the Quiver/Ripsaw col from Platform Glacier, instead of dropping into the windscoop to access the col, we continued ascending climbers right 20m above the windscoop to a flat area (Whistler Heli Flags). From there it’s a simple entrance onto the ripsaw glacier.
Ripsaw: Caution for this area. More open crevasses on the skiers right side than I have seen in past. We chose to NOT contour hard skiers right as there is an open crevasse that would be very hard to see from above. Instead we skied down the center of glacier and did an ascending climb to the ridge. Less efficient, but less crevasse hazard. There are 2 open crevasses on climbers left of the ascent.
Ripsaw/Naden Ridge Descent: No issues. Was able to ski down onto the Naden glacier via center line. See photo. No rappel required.
Naden Glacier: No issues.
McBeth Glacier descent to Coulior Ridge: No issues
Coulior-Iago Ridge: Soft snow conditions. Was able to use skis with ski crampons the whole way along the ridge. See photo.
Iago Glacier: No issues.
Fitzsimmon/Benvolio Col to Overlord: Overhead cornice hazard crossing the flat bench. Several crevasses in this area but easily avoided with visibility.
Overlord: We skipped the rappel and did a ski descent of the Overlord Glacier to the NW and then ascended the Overlord Glacier to the Fissile/Whirlwind Col. Excellent ski quality on lower part of descent. Crevasse hazard ascending the Overlord glacier but large bridges in a few key spots were easy to find. See photos.
Whirlwind area: No issues.
Tristen Rasmussen
ACMG Ski Guide
BC Ski Guides - Backcountry Nomads
