New Haute Route Speed Traverse Record

Just recently, French skiers Laurent Fabre and Yann Gachet, beat the previous speed traverse record on the Haute Route.  The speed traverse route starts in Chamonix and finishes in Zermatt.  In 2008 Stephane Brosse and Lionel Bonnel completed the traverse, for the first time in a day, in 21 hours 11 minutes.  And now Fabre and Gachet have just taken the new record completing the traverse in 20 hours, 28 minutes, 5 seconds.  


Originally three skiers to start, Anthony Frassard abandoned in the afternoon, with Fabre and Gachet continuing.  To make the trip harder, they were forced to break trail through large amounts of new snow, and still make it!   These race style efforts truly are the sharp end of where ski mountaineering is heading.  Light and fast efforts, over vast amounts of terrain, with monstrous amounts of elevation gain and loss.  With efforts like these it shows that we haven't yet scratched the surface of what is possible on skis yet.  Well done gentleman.  (Photo Left:  The three at the start in Chamonix Credit:  Lindsay Meyer the Examiner news)


For more info check out the Examiner's article here, and skimo.org's here.

Spearhead Traverse - The Old, New, And Future

The Spearhead Traverse is one of the best training grounds in the West Coast.  The first traverse in May 1964, was tackled by a group of students in the Varsity Outdoor Club, and was one of the first extended high alpine ski traverses in the Coast Range.  It's first traverse was done in 9 days, and with no lifts, pure and simple.  Today the traverse is done in hours or days, depending on how much skiing the party wants, and how fast people want to move.

Pure traverses these days are rarely done, as Blackcomb's lifts are usually taken to gain access to the alpine, rather than going valley to valley and peak to peak.  A quick shortcut is usually taken on single day traverses and speed traverses, Singing Pass an escape route from the bottom of Cowboy Ridge, which eliminates multiple uphills to Whistler Peak.  Both multi-day parties and faster day parties do usually skip the last few uphills forgoing the pure and classic finish.
(photo left:  Dave Booth Climbing The Tremor Glacier)
The first traverse in a single day was by done by Brian Finnie, Brian Sheffield, and Graham Underhill in 1984. At the time, this was a visionary speed traverse, which now gets repeated on a regular basis.  Stano Faban skied a cool speed variation starting in the Village and finishing in the Village, also going all the way to the top of Whistler before skiing down, in just 8 hours and 10 minutes!  New variations include Greg Hill's 13 hour 32 minute epic not only doing the traverse from the valley up, but enchaining 11 peaks along the way, and gaining 20, 600 ft of elevation.  Currently, it looks as if Greg has the speed record for the traverse as well, skiing from the Boundary sign on Blackcomb to Whistler Village in 4 hours 1 minute.  The only contender for this record would be Keith Reid, but there is no official time available.

With all these what is there left?  There is always more we can do.  More variations, faster times, and creative enchainments can easily be thought up.  The traverse done from the lifts links together 13 glaciers, almost all above 2100m, and holds about 2000m of elevation gain.  Peaks and steep descents are waiting for new link ups.  In a time where we thought everything has been done, creativity and a new perspectives hide in shadow, where new possibilities of the Spearhead are waiting to be found.  (photo right:  Ty Petrusic on The Overlord Glacier)

Note:
To time your speed on the Spearhead, start your time at the Blackcomb Boundary sign, and stop it in Whistler Village, so there is consistency to these results.

First McBride In A Day - Video Online For Real!!

After much playing around, Craig has managed to hook this great video up of our First McBride Traverse in a day.  

Enjoy!

First McBride Traverse In A Day

            Last year the goal we had in mind was to complete the Mcbride Traverse in a single day.  If you haven’t heard of the Mcbride it is one of the true Coast Range classics.  The 70km traverse begins on Blackcomb Mountain in Whistler, and ending at Rubble Creek at the base of Garibaldi Lake, boasts approximately 5000m of elevation gain.  Most parties complete the traverse in about 6-8 days, although some really fast parties may complete in 3-4 days.  It’s previous speed record was approximately 48 hours.

Map Courtesy of Google Maps

            We left at 1:00am on April 28^th, from the Horstman Hut (a Blackcomb patrol hut), to get the first part of the traverse we knew quite well done by sunrise.  We had had a fantastic weather window that froze the upper snowpack, so travel was fast, but required ski crampons.  We kept the pace fast, trying to stay warm for the first section, and partly from excitement.  We arrived at the Naden Glacier, the descent into the first crux of the route, just as the sun began to warm the horizon.  Filling up the water bottles in the creek at the bottom, we downed as much water as possible, and continued on our way up to Mt Sir Richard, a long and big ascent.

Crux #1 Naden Pass to Sir Richard

 

View of the McBride Range from Mt Iago

            With the sun beating down on us now we were feeling pretty good at the top.  Topping out as high as our route would allow us on Mt Sir Richard, we bumped into some friends just waking up after spending the first night of 3 on the Mcbride.  They laughed at the size of our tiny day bags being so far out already. 

            Moving on towards the next crux (Drop Pass), we traversed and climbed through large gaping crevasse ridden glaciers, barely even having a chance to take in the beautiful views as we hammered by.  The day wore on, but by Drop Pass, we had run out of water and were ready for the first break of the day to brew up.  After 11 hours on the move, doing race transitions to keep the pace, stopping to air our feet out was great.  But no rest for the wicked as we had to keep moving as soon as our speedy Jetboil was finished its job and our water bottles were full again.

            Continuing on up our second crux of the trip, Drop Pass, we climbed our next monster climb, to regain our elevation we lost after a long ski down.  We skinned a ridgeline towards Hour Peak and its unbelievably gorgeous North Face.  I love this face, and skinning right by it was hard.  Being on the move for a long time now, we had pretty much found that solid food wasn’t going down as easily, and liquid food was the fuel of choice.

Hour Peak North Face & Route after Drop Pass

            Quickly finding ourselves at another crux of the route, Grey Pass, we descended through a series of massive benched convexities.  Picking our way through these benches, and crevasses, we were at our last uphill of the day.  Skinning up felt like we were done, but not yet!  Reaching the top, the massive expanse of Garibaldi Lake was in front of us.  We had lucked out with our timing, as the Lakes surface had frozen, and we were able to skate ski across to the head of the Rubble Creek Trail.

            Finding ourselves in darkness again, we put our skis on our back, and continued walking down the trail to the parking lot.  Just as we came into the parking lot, we were greeted by Lori, and Marcia with stew, water, cookies and fruit, we were pumped to be home. Video here.

Photo:  Craig McGee

First Mcbride Traverse In A Single Day

Time:  18: 21: 23

Left 2 Right:  Keith Reid, Alex Wigley, Craig McGee

Thank You To:  Dynafit, Blackcomb Patrol and Bernie, Lori, Marcia, Heidi, & The Escape Route