Spearhead Traverse

A four day winter ski traverse on skis near Whistler, BC, Canada. Although this route is close to the popular Whistler Ski Resort, once out on the traverse you still feel incredibly isolated. This route is technical with lots of glacier travel and some technical downhill chutes.

Trip members: Krysta and Brian Norwick
Objective: Spearhead Traverse
Number of days: 4 days, 3 nights

Our January was chaotic with over-booked schedules and my burn-out. Our week-long vacation came up quicker than we expected and on the first day of our week off we still didn’t have any plans. We both knew we wanted to ski and winter camp. We took the ferry to the mainland (Vancouver, BC) for the purpose of van shopping (more on that to come). Once there, we decided to ski in the Coast Mountains for the week. We were brainstorming areas to visit when an idea came to me, the Spearhead Traverse! This is an iconic horseshoe shaped traverse that connects Whistler and Blackcomb resorts through a series of glaciers and mountain passes.

Our plan was to start early so we could make it as far along the traverse as possible on day one. Unfortunately, I woke up with a migraine, which took me several hours to get over. This meant we were 5-6 hours behind schedule! Not great when trying to complete a traverse.

Nonetheless, we finally made it to Whistler to buy our backcountry access lift ticket which is valid for one ride all the way to the access point for the traverse. We were hoping that our delay would allow for the weather to clear up, but we weren’t that lucky. We started off the Spearhead Traverse in near white-out conditions from Blackcomb. We took our time to follow our GPS track and when we didn’t feel comfortable continuing to move, we dug in and set up camp. We were both feeling uncertain about pushing ahead with the traverse. We checked the weather with our inReach and decided that if we woke up to adverse weather, we would head back to Blackcomb and decide on a different trip.

We were pleased to wake up to this view on our first morning in the mountains

We woke up at dawn to assess our situation. The weather was looking ideal and the morning views were incredible. We were both thrilled with our tent placement from the low visibility night before. We re-checked the weather with the inReach and decided it was favourable enough to push on with the traverse. Avalanche conditions were good as well. We decided it made the most sense to complete as much of the traverse as we could that day, to capitalize on the weather. We hurriedly packed up camp, got our skins on and got moving.

We ski toured along Trorey Glacier. Once we gained the saddle, we realized we would need to boot pack up the final 10 vertical meters. The route does not look promising from this vantage point, but once you make it through the crux, the other side isn’t bad at all. I strapped my skis to my backpack, while Brian chose to bootpack it twice, once with backpack and once with only skis. The views were worth it.

The view right after the crux.

We dropped down after a snack break towards Tremor Glacier, heading east. We hugged the contour line so we wouldn’t lose too much vertical. We then climbed to the NE saddle of Tremor Mountain. Stunning.

Saddle between Tremor and Shudder Mountains.

The route finding down and along Platform Glacier was easy, as our visibility had really opened up. We felt comfortable skiing down roped up and this sweeping climb didn’t take us long. We climbed towards the mountain pass between Quiver Peak and The Ripsaw.

We dropped down and hugged contour line to the best of our ability to the south. We eventually had to skin up to climb to the pass between Ripsaw and Naden Glacier. Once up on the ridge, there wasn’t an obvious pass to take. Every drop looked steep and sketchy. With a heavy pack, this is pretty technical skiing. We eventually found a route we liked the looks of ~50 meters skiers right from the Spearhead Traverse trail in our Gaia app. We removed our rope and skied down individually. I dropped down cautiously at first, then picked up speed to send it directly south along Naden Glacier. I was able to glide almost the entire width of the glacier. Brian did the same.

We then climbed to the saddle of Couloir Ridge. From there you drop down for ~200 vertical meters. These were incredible turns! We were careful to ensure we didn’t miss the access point to the NW ridge bordering Iago Glacier. Once we gained the ridge we dropped down again, following ski tracks from a party who had been there before us. Once we dropped down ~100 vertical meters, Brian thought we were getting cliffed out. When we reviewed the Gaia GPS we realized the Spearhead Traverse route follows along the ridge for a bit longer. We retraced our steps, losing valuable daylight. Once back on the ridge, we travelled ~100 meters along the ridge until we couldn’t see what hazards were in front of us. Neither of us felt comfortable pushing on, so we decided to go our original way after all.

We made our way back to the point on the ridge where we first dropped in. We decided to drop in and then hug contour line to stay above the cliffs. As we stayed high on the slope we were able to see the cliffs to our left. We continued to stay high, but did not like the overhead hazard above us from the ridge. We moved quickly because we felt exposed. Once through the overhead hazard, we were onto the Iago Glacier.

Finally, we climbed the final 300 meters to just below the Mount Iago summit. We were both feeling dehydrated, hungry and sun affected. It was time to make camp. We dug in as the sun set, cooked and ate as quickly as possible, and settled down for a restless night. The wind hammered us all night. Our Tango 2 tent handled the conditions really well. I barely slept.

We don’t have photos from the next day. It was another white out. The weather forecast wasn’t completely accurate. We were glad we had pushed so far with good visibility. We had just enough visibility to see a couple hundred meters in front of us. We slowly picked our way down to the Diavolo Glacier. Had we been able to see, the turns would have been absolutely EPIC! We skirted our way around Mount Fitzsimmons and then climbed to the saddle between Mount Fitzsimmons and Mount Benvolio. We were moving very slowly.

We dropped down onto Fitzsimmons Glacier and didn’t even remove our skins. That turned out to be a bit of a mistake. We did a lot of side stepping. We tried to stay high around Overlord Mountain, but ended up dropping a little lower due to cornices overhead. Once around Overlord Mountain we hugged contour line higher than the Spearhead Traverse route. We came across a rocky couloir that wasn’t ski-able. We suspect it likely is ski-able during a bigger snow fall year. We ended up putting in protection, lowering our bags down with rope and boot packing our way down the short rocky section. The only mishap is that we lost Brian’s ski strap. Everything else went relatively smoothly.

With our skis back on our feet, we were starting to realize it was already the afternoon. We needed to make it to the hut. With heads down and GPS on, we climbed west towards the saddle between Whirlwind Peak and Fissile Peak. Ripping our skins at that saddle was an incredible feeling.

We spaced out as we skied down. Some incredible powder turns were had. There were a few crevasses to watch out for in this section. Once we dropped ~100 vertical meters our visibility opened up. We were both over-the-moon when we caught our first glimpses of the lake and the hut. We dropped all the way down to the Himmelsback Hut and took our time meandering towards the Kees and Claire Hut. We were both absolutely stoked to be almost at the hut, but also relishing in the last of our time just the two of us.

Happy as a clam waking up in a heated hut after two cold and stormy nights in the tent.

The Kees and Claire Hut is an incredible hut! It wasn’t too crowded because it was mid week. The hut custodians were wonderful. We really felt cozy and at home. The entire gear drying room was a huge highlight. It was amazing to dry out all our wet gear. The next morning was Valentine’s Day and Brian surprised me with some tasty candy and a gourmet breakfast!

After a very short climb (the hut was still in view) we were ready for our long descent. We opted to drop down to the Singing Pass Trail and ski down the ~1,200 vertical meters to Whistler Village.

Brian ripping his skins for the final descent.

I spent a lot of my time navigating using my phone on this trip.

Sexy “S” turns.

The rest of the descent was an icy trail through the trees. If you are skiing this on a day that you think could be icy, it would probably be more enjoyable to climb up a bit to Whistler Resort and ski down the runs. We had a blast winding through the trees. Our legs were screaming at us and our hearts were full. It was a very cool feeling when I realized we were skiing under the Peak to Peak gondola.

When we finally arrived at Whistler Village we were relieved and proud. The traverse was epic and we will admit it, stressful. We were happy to finish a day earlier than planned. Time for a beer at Longhorns.