When deciding where to go touring last week, my dad and I choose a spot that my dad knew well from heli-ski guiding, but had never toured to. This way he was comfortable in the terrain, but it was also like a new experience for him too. We were planning to go to the top of Cassiope as he had never self propelled himself there, and I like getting to summits. Having heard that Raf and Blythe would be going out the same day, we joined forces with them. At home, my dad discussed that we could come out via Spetch. He has been wanting to do this for a long time and I had heard him talk about it a lot. However, last time we came out Spetch, when we tried to ski Wonderland, it was horrible. So we decided to wait and see how the day played out. Since the bottom of the Spetch logging road is so close to our house, we would be able to send my mum an inreach message and ask for a pick up if we chose to descend that way. At 7:20 we met up with Raf and Blythe in Mt. Currie and left our truck there. Driving up the duffy we lathered our faces in sunscreen, but regretfully left it in the van. When we arrived at the North Joffre parking lot, I was excited to be going somewhere new, I had never been to this part of the Duffy. Organizing our bags and putting our skins on I was really enjoying being in the big Sprinter. I didn’t even need to go outside to get all of my gear ready. While we were getting ready another car showed up bringing a duo of germans. We learned they were planning on going to Taylor. I was surprised to see that the snowboarder would just be walking up with his board on his back, that couldn’t be fun. It was 8am when we set off and we were confused about the route within the first few minutes.
Having taking the left fork, it was descending and veering too far to the left, so my dad said we should turn around and take the other fork. On our way back we saw the germans and they said they had changed their minds and would also be going up to Cassiope. Then we looked at a map with them and concluded that the left fork was the right one. Retracing our steps, it didn’t descend very much and we started to make our way across a really cool valley.
In the meadow the trees were all dead and a bit spread out and the stream cut through the middle of it. This made for some awkward crossings, and the snow didn’t help as it was very hard and slippy. Again, I thought about needing ski crampons. But that morning I had realized that I didn’t actually own the write right ski crampons for this pair of bindings, so that wasn’t even a possibility.
Coming to the end of the valley, we began climbing up a fairly steep slope which led to the trees. We stopped and stripped down to our base layers. I asked my dad if he had brought the sunscreen, but then learned he had not and imagined the burn that my arms would have because I was wearing a t-shirt. It was already obvious that the day would be very warm and sunny.
The slope in front of us was south facing and would be at high avalanche risk later in the day, but since we were early it was still frozen. Climbing this was quite frustrating as skis were continuously sliding down off of the little track.
I had to be really aware of the angle of my skis and where I was weighting them. When the track led into the trees I was glad to be out of the sun and on a slope that was less steep was generally easier in the trees, but there were a few tricky steps and more switchbacks.
The trail went a bit too high and I was disappointed that we had climbed up this part and then wouldn’t even be actually skiing down it, just coasting on out skins trying to not fall over. Going downhill with skins can be very difficult but we all managed it and came to a lake without a name. We saw some landing flags for helicopters at multiple places on the lake. Stopping, we ate some bars and drank some water. I also took my base layer on my bottom off so that I was just wearing my climbing pants. It was 10:30am when we continued across the lake and my dad pointed out where our route would go.
At the beginning of that climb some skins started to ball up, but mine were fine until later on. This was where the heat began to be slow me down, it just felt like it was weighing me down. Breaking for some water was really nice, but I was wishing I had brought more. I then put some skin wax on to keep the snow from sticking to my skins.
There was then a section of terrain that was really interesting, there were these small rolls around us which made me feel like I was a bug in between moguls.
After this, we reached the col which led to the summit of Cassiope. We ate some more food and welcomed the wind on the ridge.
Going up the ridge, we looked at the descent route. I wasn’t sure if I would ski it because I don’t ski a lot of steep things and was not super comfortable with the snow. Reaching the summit I was looking at the same mountains I had seen many times, but the viewpoint was different and I really liked it.
We were looking at Mt. Currie from the East. It is really weird how there are so many mountains on the southern side of it, but none to the north. Also, it is cool how long Currie is but how skinny it is. We could also see the usual duffy peaks, Lillooet lake and the Pemberton Valley. From there we decided that we would go out Spetch as Raf thought it was cool too. Starting down, I looked at the run from the top and watched Raf ski it, but decided to go around the way we had ascended.
When I was at a spot where I could ski down, I stopped and took my camera out. I yelled at Blythe that she could descent and it was cool to be taking photos of the beautiful line.
After clicking away, my camera stopped taking pictures, my card was full. So I yelled at my dad to wait as I erased some photos. Apparently he thought I had told him okay so he went and I looked up as he was just skiing out. That sucked, as I had wanted to see him ski it and he was frustrated because it was one of the most scenic lines he had skied since I was born. I skied down the gentle slope and then we dropped to the other side.
We could see Valentine lake as we descended to it, it is a super neat lake in the shape of a heart. The corn snow made for pretty good skiing down to it, not deep but soft. When we ran out of speed, we unlocked our heels and started to walk across.
Looking around the lake, it looked like an incredible base with a lot of lines close to it. After this part it was just short sections of down with a lot of time spent shuffling along. It was not enjoyable, and all of us fell at least 3 times. The trees were close together and because we didn’t have skins on, it was really easy to slide back in some parts. We were all a bit frustrated as we were going down. I could feel the sun burn on my arms I really need to make sure I have sunscreen every day. Even though this sucked, I still think it was better than the last time we were there.
The snow wasn’t quite as hard and it didn’t get dark. When we reached the logging slash above the road, we were faced with some super hard skiing. The snow was so, so, so sticky. It was kind of scary and it was really hard to control my skis. Finally we came to the road and the light was very pretty. \
Skiing out the road wasn’t a breeze either, and we had to carry our skis at the end, but it was incredible to think about where we had started. To drive around from Spetch to North Joffre it was about 30km but we had just connected them in 12. We arrived at the paved road at 6pm, which was later than expected, but I was just happy we didn’t need headlamps.
Looks like a fun day and beautiful pictures.