 Poster: A snowHead
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Nick Parks (aka snowHead helinick of EoSB fame  ) has sent me this report of a recent trip. For some reason he wasn't able to post it himself, so whilst we look into that I've posted it for him. I hope he has some pics to post later 
Not the British Broadcasting Corporation but ‘Beautiful British Columbia’ as the car number plates remind you, not that reminders are needed in this incredible natural outdoor paradise. I won’t bore you with a string of adjectives that continue to applaud BC suffice to say if you’re looking for a ski mountaineering trip that’s almost arrange able on the back of a postcard and includes pristine mountain and icefield wilderness devoid of human interference with easy access, straightforward logistics and nil bureaucracy you need look no further than Canada’s Coastal Mountains.
Rob Collister’s original plan for his ‘busmens holiday 2007’ was to visit Noijin Kangsang a dramatic 7000m peak in Tibet. Research, however, showed that its position close to the friendship highway between Nepal and Lhasa, has meant it’s now well established on the International Ski Mountaineering circuit. This coupled with expensive peak fees (and logistics) meant it wasn’t going to give the wilderness mountain experience which is Rob’s trademark. So as Tibet dropped off our radar it was quickly replaced with a longtime favourite region of Rob’s, the Coastal Mountains of British Columbia. Now I have to admit to feeling a little sceptical initially of the likelihood of a ‘true wilderness’ ski-mountaineering experience in a range of mountains I’d hardly heard of with peaks barely over 3000m and less than 200 miles from the metropolis of Vancouver. However, as Rob is a veteran of three expeditions to Mount Waddington, the highest peak in the range, the fact that he was putting another visit to the area at the top of his ‘must do’ list, made me think I’d better include it on mine. I now know why he’s happy to keep going back!
The Coastal Range have a definite air of the unknown about them, in fact Waddington despite its size was amazingly omitted from the 1928 survey of Canada and on its discovery was known for many years as ‘Mystery Mountain’ Today its recognised as one of the worlds great peaks. As Big Wadd is the main draw, a superb objective for mountaineers and skiers alike, it in line with many mountain ranges tends to get all the traffic leaving the surrounding peaks and icefields empty. To the south east of Waddington lies the Homathko icefields a perfect venue and our destination for some pioneering ski-mountaineering exploration.
Keeping strictly to the ‘back of a postcard’ school of trip planning (with only minimal help from the www) miraculously Rob and I along with fellow mountain guides Martin Chester and Eric Pirie arrived, albeit five hours late, in Vancouver at the beginning of May. Our inward route then took us to Campbell River, the principal port town of North East Vancouver Island. A short hop flight with great views of the snow clad peaks of the Strathcona National Park (now near the top of my own revised ‘must visit’ list). Here we collected our food and fuel supplies all ready packed by Lawrie Wood and boarded a water taxi which took us to the head of the Bute Inlet and the Homathko logging camp. Managed by the most hospitable Chuck (the Truck) and Sheron Burchill the camp has the isolated feel of a far flung outpost on the edge of the unexplored and yet of course as nowhere in the 21st century is really cut off, thanks to satellite communication, helicopters, float planes etc it’s a perfect staging post for stepping away from all that, and a welcome base to return to.
Now it’s fair to say you haven’t had a real Coastal Mountains experience if you don’t get intimate with the bush. Canada is big on trees and at some stage you’re going to have to deal with them and all that comes with them, it’s like a rite of passage, it’s just got to be done…. But on closer inspection of our Big sacks, we figured only on the way out, if we were ever going to make it up onto the Icefield, kind of like saving the best bit to last! So with a little persuasion Rob agrees to waive his ‘No chopper flights’ rule this once and the following morning sees us parting with a £1000 (worth every penny!) and flying up through broken cloud to the Saskwatch Pass!
Bigfoot apart the mountain namer in these parts was clearly hooked on Elizabethan history as many of the peaks that greeted us that first stunning day are named after the good Queen Bess and her various suitors and advisors. With a plan no more complicated than knocking them off one by one we established camp and set about our objective. Not surprisingly, the Pacific ocean sits just to the west, a bout of bad weather pinned us down for three days. During which time we honed our snow holing skills, lamenting the decision to leave out our snow saw and caught up on sleep. Our dreams were fulfilled when awaking on day 5 to find clear blue skies and 30cm of cold, hardly wind affected, powder. Frobisher, Pembroke, Waissingham, Howard, Burghley all gave great skiing and sporting mountaineering. By our 9th day we’d cleaned up all the peaks we could reach in day trip excursions and having eaten half our food loaded up our plastic sleds and headed south to tackle the peaks on the southern rim of the Homathko Icefield and sort out our exit back down to the Bute.
This phase of the trip was more akin to Polar travel than alpine ski mountaineering at times and served to re-enforce the enormous scale of this true glacial wilderness. Fortunately the flat monotony was punctuated reasonably regularly by interesting sections of descent with the sleds trying to get away from us. Continuing good weather meant we used the tents rather than snowhole, more cramped but easier on the shovelling. Long periods of sun too saw a gradual transformation of the snowpack from powder to perfect spring snow. Plateau Peak, Janus and our high point Mount Grenville a smidge over 3000m all saw our tracks In fact only our tracks, in 14 days the only others we saw were birds and marten.
Day 12 saw us camped on the glacier beneath the hugely impressive North face of Bute Mountain, our final objective, but the sudden onslaught of spring curtailed an attempt. A day marooned in our tents listening, even at 9pm, to avalanches crashing down around us made our minds up that it was time to finish the ski season and go for the bush whacking descent and our initiation into the ‘Coastal Mountains Explorers Club’. Picture the scene, four grown up men singing the Teddy Bear Picnic song (to warn the bears of our whereabouts) staggering under 50lb packs, carrying skis in 1 hand (the bush is too tight to put them on our packs), climbing over avalanche tree debris, melting in 22 degree temperatures whilst being bitten non stop by blood thirsty mosquitoes for 5 hours, that’s what the wilderness experience is all about! In two weeks we barely scratched the surface of one small sector of the Coastal Mountains, a truly superb ski touring range, worth having to tough it out a little I say!
Last edited by Poster: A snowHead on Mon 18-06-07 13:37; edited 1 time in total
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Rob Collister in a chopper?! Shorely shome mishtake! 
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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