This trip report describes a ski mountaineering traverse of the rugged mountain peaks seen by travellers along the Sea to Sky Highway north of Squamish.

Five members of the BC Mountaineering Club successfully completed a five day traverse of the Tantalus Range in late spring. Despite its proximity to Vancouver parts of the mountain range are seldom visited, protected as it were, by a total lack of roads, a major river, bush, cliffs and glaciers.

The People

Paul Kubik - the putative leader. His ambition is matched only by his folly. His destiny lay with the Lake Lovelywater cable crossing and a four inch steel biner.

Jos Van Der Burg - the six foot three hot house grower from Maple Ridge spends his weekends cooling off in the mountains. His powerful tele-turns proved English Cucumbers are mightier than Voile release bindings.

Blair Mitten - no stranger to mountaineering misfortune. His point-counterpoint critique of the organizer's route selection ensured we didn't return in body bags. Ultimately, the successful conclusion of the trip hinged on a four inch section of hacksaw blade he had carried for ten years in his emergency kit.

Ian Smith - the big wall climber, always with a card up his sleeve. His aces - a grand lead over a snow bridge on the Rumbling Glacier, remounting fractured tele bindings with a hand drill and a nail, Alpine Aire blueberry dessert in the sun at the Red Tit hut. His joker - a late night car shuttle after car keys were lost and all plans fell completely apart.

Gerry Egan - a relative novice mountaineer although a good skier. He proved himself highly capable of sleeping twelve hours a night, except the last, when in typical Lake Lovelywater fashion the evening began to take on epic proportions.

Afterworld

Ski mountaineering is a potentially dangerous or fatal activity depending upon experience, physical conditioning, route selection, seasonal conditions, weather and objective hazards such as crevasses, rock and ice fall, avalanches. Several club members have recently lost their lives on trips where the terrain and snow conditions are similar to those experienced in the Tantalus Range.

The organizer has been on approximately fifty trips into the Tantalus Range (climbing, skiing, hiking, bushwacking, canoeing, trail building) and I find I cannot recommend this traverse to anyone due to the severe objective danger and lack of safe alternative routes. It is a challenge to survive it, in my opinion. Just as stock market timing is an imperfect science, no one can reliably predict the behavior of the snow pack.

However, that being said, we were fortunate, in that, on the most critical day when we needed the weather and snow conditions to cooperate it all came together. In part, because of the risk, this is the most satisfying traverse I have completed. Its juxtaposition to the heavily travelled Squamish-Whistler corridor, the availability of avalanche beacons and cellular technology and consequently the search and rescue juggernaut mean little in a place as inaccessible and unforgiving as the Tantalus Range. The traverse fulfilled an ambition I've nurtured for many years and now as I reflect upon it each time I pass by the radar trap at the Tantalus Range lookout on Highway 99 my foot unconsciously eases off the accelerator and by the time I'm past it I realize it's just saved me from a $125 speeding ticket.

Credits

Original images - Jos Van Der Burg. Image enhancement and web author - Paul Kubik. The base route map was scanned from the Federal National Topographic Series 92 G/14 - Cheakamus River map.

Sigurd Creek to Zenith Col

  When we parked at the bottom of the Sigurd trail we met a guy working on tree spacing and pruning. His question to us was, 'Where's the snow?' It was about where I expected it - about 6 km up the trail around the 3000 foot level. The snow was consolidated and firm so we actually walked as far as the log crossing of the creek. The first day was a bit of a grunt. It was a 4800 foot elevation gain to 'Mile High' camp - a wide shoulder on the north-west ridge of Pelion Mountain at the 5200 foot level.

The weather was 'iffy' as it had been since the May long weekend. It rained on and off all through the night but at least we were dry in the tents. The next day dawned dry with a blue 'sucker hole' to the east. At the col on top of the NW ridge the wind was blowing cold and hard. We skied the south side of Pelion in a virtual whiteout. This was new terrain for me. We'd scouted it out the previous summer from the col but weather had prevented us from continuing to Zenith Mountain.

We got this view later that evening when it finally cleared enough to see anything. The route is highlighted from the 7000 foot col at the top of the NW ridge of Pelion. As you can see we could have been lower between the exposed rocks where the slope angle is not so steep. There was some crust which was fun to jump turn with the heavy packs. The run out is poor. If something slides it'll go over cliffs into a fork of Mawby Creek.

There's a break in the route line where it emerges from behind a knoll on the ridge. We encountered a short pitch of down climbing through a steep, thick band of trees which was easy but awkward.

Zenith Col

  This is the col between the north ridge of Tantalus and Zenith Mountain. Camp was at 6000 feet on an open shoulder. We had an unpleasant supper in rain and wet snow.

  Later that evening the weather began to clear. We got a good look at the Rumbling Glacier and our route for the morning. It was a spirit-lifter. I thought if it got cold our chances of success were good.

I had a good rest until 3 AM when I woke up feeling very warm. I went outside for a pee and it was warm and completely socked in! I went back to sleep feeling very bad. When the alarm went off two hours later I didn't even bother getting out of the bag.

Rumbling Glacier

I lay in my bag for a while thinking thoughts of retreat but I thought I better stick my head out the door just to make certain about the weather. I just about fell out of the tent. Not a cloud in the sky! Quickly, I stumbled onto the snow and checked out the glacier. Not a cloud to be seen anywhere. I went from total despair to complete certainty in the course of those last few moments. All thoughts of defeat were gone for the moment. We'd have a chance. The route might not go but at least we'd know the answer by the end of the day.

The Route

The route drops a few hundred feet from Zenith Col to get around some long fingers of rock dropping off the north ridge of Tantalus and crevasses. A two kilometer traverse to the icefall terminates in a gentle ramp leading to the Nunatuk. From the Nunatuk the ramp swings up and left below seracs and cornices on Tantalus' east face. A traverse left through crevasses gains an upper ice field with an exit at its upper left edge.

Tantalus Creek Death Trap

The two kilometers between Zenith Col and the Nunatuk are a death-trap. It is truly the rim of a giant toilet bowl and you have amply sufficient time to reflect upon your folly as you stagger along gazing into its dark hole. Chaotic runnels of chewed up trees pile on top one another stripped from their tenuous perch on the continuous black cliff bands ringing the devil's own cirque. To attempt this portion when the snow is loose would be unwise in the most serious sense of the word.

Pockets of smooth granite were exposed where snow had cascaded to the depths leaving behind 10 foot fractures in the crust. I was forced upwards. "Will it hold?" I ask myself. Ahead the snow steepens into a convex curve. "Weakening?", I ask rhetorically ignoring the answer. The scenario repeats. I hear odd noises in the snowpack from my skis. It holds and I put it down to nerves. Punching through the frozen crust on a too steep side hill I hit a warm pocket of loose sugar snow. I must back up and try a different way. I skirt a hard gully on ski edges . A passing jet rumbles and I think "Avalanche!" before I place the sound. Don't look up, don't look down lest you lose your grip. I have thoughts of dead friends who perished on trips like this.

The Rumbling Glacier

Nervous relief follows. A gentle ramp leads to the relative safety of the Nunatuk where we roped up. We weren't able to see this section of the route clearly the previous evening. It goes without difficulty. The terrain is more benign for skiing but huge seracs threaten from above. One giant block leans out at a crazy angle while icy behemouths dot the snow in front of the cliff. We pass below it.

After a short breather near a bottomless crevasse we entered underneath the east face of Tantalus. Massive cornices remained above the face but the middle third had broken away and lay under our feet. It took twenty minutes or more to cross a debris area the size of a couple of football fields. Little chunks of ice the size of refrigerators and cars presented a polar ice trekker's challenge. Climbing Tantalus via the normal class 4 route was out of the question on this trip.

Easing our way out of danger, one crevasse impeded our way, splitting the upper snow field from edge to edge (about one-half kilometer). A single snow bridge we had seen from Zenith Col enabled us to cross it. It was time consuming work but a welcome break. The climbing exercise was enjoyable, dealing with the known quantities of harness, belay and rope, giving us a chance to relax for a moment and recover from the nervous tension created by the unrelenting presence of danger and the uncertainty about the route which I'd felt all morning.

It was going very well. Too well I began to think as we crawled up to what was looking like an easy exit off the glacier.

Red Tit to Tantalus Hut

Dione Glacier

A grim rock face stared down at me from the right as I climbed up to the col. I doffed my skis and anxiously climbed to the top of the widest of three gaps. Peering down to the Dione Glacier, "It goes", I thought. A scree slope dropped steeply to the other side and was covered mainly in snow. A wave of relief passed over me. This was the last of the critical "unknowns" of the route. Although I had crossed the SE ridge of Dione many years ago I believe it was further on and would have been difficult to reach from the Rumbling Glacier barred as it were by a couple of serious crevasses. We stopped for lunch at the col and Blair called his dad and wife on the cell phone.

The Cantel phone worked as long as we were high enough to pick up the receiver in Vancouver. The previous evening we'd tried for a weather report from Zenith col but couldn't get out. A BC Tel phone would have worked fine as we we able to roam onto their network but it wouldn't accept its competitor's call.

The Red Tit

It was just getting better all the time. We schussed down the Dione glacier for a couple of kilometers to the Red Tit hut on delightful spring corn snow. This was the first really enjoyable skiing of the trip.

I don't know what people were expecting in the way of a hut but our arrival at the Red Tit was a bit anti-climatic except in respect of its shape and the paint color suggesting its name.

A stable high pressure system contributed to our well being. We spent a lazy afternoon in the sun airing out smelly socks and giving our bruised feet a rest. While Ian cooked up his blueberry cobbler I opted for some lazy skiing in the corn snow until dusk.

Descent to the Lake

In the morning, yesterday's corn snow was frozen hard. We needed to cross the col between Serratus and Ionia. It involves traversing the steep slopes below Serratus. After testing the slopes for skiing I didn't think I could hold the edges on the hard snow. The run-out was unpleasant, plunging over exposed rocks. Everyone else seemed to feel we had the time to backtrack and heed the warning in Fairley's guide book to drop low on skis around the base of Serratus. We lost a couple of hundred feet of elevation, saved our bacon and even beat Ian to the col who opted to stay high and skirt the nose. Unfortunately for him the snow got even harder and the slope steeper, forcing him to laboriously chop steps before he could join us for lunch at the col. (This was a trip without crampons!)

Below us lay Lake Lovelywater and a possible exit to the Squamish River. It wasn't looking like we needed to use that escape route. We had perfect snow and weather. My misgivings from the day before seemed somewhat unjustified. We were looking at "Easy Street" ahead, or so I thought.

The original plan was to cross to the Crescent Glacier on the flank of Ionia, Pandareus. A long look at that route showed a difficult gap to cross on skis between the Crescent and the unnamed glacier below Ionia. There's also a brutal run-out over cliffs below the Crescent which sort of clinched the alternative proposition. The alternative was to get some great skiing down the standard route leading towards the lake, crossing the head of the lake to the Niobe-Lydia col.

I was anxious to get going as the sun was warming things up. Pushing off we ran into some perfect corn. I couldn't even feel the heavt pack the snow was so good. I wanted to cruise the fall line but I knew we needed to skirt the almost perfect ring of cliffs below. I had climbed a lot in this area but hadn't been in this cirque for some years. Ahhh, how the memory fades! I had forgotten how far to the left one must traverse. It was tempting to just keep sliding down but I had a nasty suspicion we should really check it out slowly.

I could see a set of bear tracks leading further left into a snowless gully. I would have followed them if it wasn't a ski trip. I took off the skis, got out the ice axe and wandered down for a closer look. I was looking for a gully I imagined should be below. After traversing the top of a 100 meter cliff band for twenty minutes I returned back up to my skis. The standard approach gully was the one chosen by the bear and the only feasible descent off our perch. No big deal.

I made it to the snow-free zone. I was actually not unhappy because the gully didn't look bad at all. One by one everyone else slid in home. I was beginning to joke around a bit when I heard Jos groan. Now given the circumstances there wasn't reason for anyone to be groaning at that present time. He had one ski off and in his hand. I could see it was missing a large piece of his binding, the missing piece being still stuck to his boot.

I remember years back when I skied on tele gear I had a pair of Rottefella bindings fail within about twenty minutes of each other on the same trip, and this after several years of rugged backcountry use. Well, Jos had had his for less than a year but when he took that second ski off its binding sported a fracture the same as the first.

Metallurgically speaking, this proves the cucumber is mightier than the Voile release binding. No one had a spare tele binding along, let alone two so it looked like we should repair to the hut to examine our options. From the hut we could easily exit to the Squamish River or perhaps find some tools to effect repairs. So repair we did. Jos was faster walking than the rest of us skiing because we rapidly started running out of snow on the trail. In trying to connect the snow patches with fall lines I ended up doing a lot of up and down in the vicinity of Lambda Lake.

Lake Lovelywater to Squamish River

There was an assortment of tools at the hut but no drill bits. That didn't stop Ian who sharpened a nail on a file. Jos dismantled his release mechanism down to just the toe piece and Ian got to work mounting them directly on the ski. That took some time and it got on late in the afternoon so we decided to stay at the hut for the night.

About half of us wanted to continue on to Sedgwick in the morning but a couple of people seemed to want to get back to work in the city. This was a bit of a problem since our cell phone was the wrong frequency for the area and we had no boat to cross the river. Gerry had actually arranged to go to work the next evening so he was starting to get a bit distracted. I didn't want to split up the group so we decided to go skiing the next morning and hike out the trail to the river. I had planned for this emergency and brought a steel locking biner big enough for the cable.

It's a great hut and even better when you've got it to yourselves. In the morning we set off to the Niobe-Pelops col on skis. The lake was still frozen so after Ian had tested the strength of the ice we all skated and shuffled across to Niobe basin. I certainly didn't regret our decision at this point. It was going to be a great run down.

The summit of Pelops involved a bit of ice axe work and kicking steps. Arriving at the top I sauntered over for a look at our planned route to Sedgwick. It certainly looked do-able. However, it would have to wait for another trip.

I'm sure if we'd brought the cell phone to the summit it would have worked, we being high enough I reckoned to pick up a Cantel receiver. Things were working against us though. When Blair turned his pack inside out looking for the cell phone it was nowhere to be found. Gerry got real bummed out as he'd planned to call his employer from the summit.

I didn't anticipate any further problems until the cable crossing. We got back to the hut in record time, this being my first trip in the area on skis. Sure beats walking. We had to savour it because there was no snow on the trail to the river and plastic mountaineering boots just don't cut it.

That was the least of our worries. In the late afternoon we came to the edge of the old growth just a 100 meters or so above the river. I knew the lower reaches of the trail had been logged. It being private land there is no requirement to restore the area after harvesting, if you can call it that. This was high grading. Everything had been levelled to the ground but perhaps less than ten per cent of the fallen timber removed (by helicopter.) I say that because if you'd ever walked through this area before it was mowed down you could see it was almost all deciduous. Only the cedar and spruce had been taken. What was left lay three or more layers deep of criss-crossed trunks and limbs.

There was no sign of the trail so everyone started to pick their own way through the slash. What used to take about twenty minutes took over two hours to negotiate. Actually, we were somewhat spread out so it wasn't till about three hours after I first arrived at the logging that Jos finally showed up at the cable. He had gotten completely lost, at one point wading up to his chest in a slough because it was preferable to backtracking through the slash he had just crossed. When I got to him he was bushwacking parallel to the trail with his skis strapped on his pack fighting every step of the way with eight foot high red osier dogwood bushes and willow.

Well there's nothing like the Lake Lovelywater area for giving a good thrashing. Unfortunately, it hadn't finished with us yet.

If it hadn't had been for the slash impeding me I could have got to the river about when a power boat went by. As Blair showed up shortly behind me we had time to play with the cell phone again. There apparently were a few outfits in Squamish with boats who for a fee can ferry you across. If we could just get through to one of them we might be able to arrange a pick up that evening. As we found out that evening 911 calls are picked up by BC Tel even if you're using a Cantel number. We ended up talking to a 911 coordinator at length in what turned out to be a fruitless search for someone with a boat willing to help us out for a fee. If this had been a bona fide emergency Search and Rescue would have obliged us but it wasn't. No one was missing or hurt and we weren't overdue.

In the end, the lengthy phone conversations led to nothing and ended up costing us valuable daylight. It was getting on in the evening by now and no one seemed to have any food left. I got motivated to give the cable a shot with the big biner. This is a tried and true method of a single person getting across the Squamish River. You basically sit in your climbing harness and hang off the cable on the steel biner. By pulling on the cable above your head you can slowly and tiresomely cross the 200 or 300 meters of water. It gets tougher after the half way point as you're now pulling yourself uphill on the cable. On the east side there is a locked cable car. A four inch length of hacksaw blade was lying near the chain securing the car to the frame of the structure and a link had been cut right through. I couldn't believe my good luck. I had been prepared to walk into Squamish with the keys to Jos' truck and drive to Blair's place and return to the river with his canoe and effect a midnight crossing alone of the Squamish River but now it didn't look like I'd have to.

In short order I was back across to the great surprise of the others. Amidst astonished gasps at our good fortune that evening we hurriedly loaded the car for the first of many trips ferrying people and packs across the river. When the last load was across it was completely dark, the proceeding conducted under the faint glow of headlamps.

The 911 coordinator had obliged us by calling Ian's wife, Shelley with news of our unexpected exit via the Squamish River. Ian's keys to his truck were lost on the Sigurd trail so messages were left and we expected Shelley to show up on the Squamish Valley Road sometime soon with the keys to his truck, still up the Ashlu River at the Sigurd trailhead. Our last conversation with the coordinator was when all of us were still across the river so the message Shelley got was that we were stuck over there. Shelley phoned Ian's buddy who organized getting a raft to rescue us. At about 1 AM that evening he showed up only to find us sitting on our packs on the valley road where the turnoff to the cable crossing intersects it. I believe we all got back home by 3 AM and Gerry never did show up for work that evening.

There's always a great satisfaction in turning people on to such a great area as the Tantalus Range. I believe Blair was the only other one who had spent any time in the area so three more people have been duly initiated in the best possible way. Of all the ways to get your ass kicked in the mountains and have your best laid plans sabotaged by impartial circumstance equipment failure is the least damaging to the ego. Some of the best trips are those that don't turn out like you expected and meeting the unexpected you discover within yourself the means to turn the tables on fate and snatch a trip of epic proportions from the chafe of the mundane.