Neve Traverse Ski Touring
2019-03-23 The Neve Traverse is definitely one of the most iconic ski traverses in British Columbia. Nestled in the Southwest of the park, it spans from the Diamondhead trailhead to Rubble Creek trailhead. After nearly three years of touring, I finally got the opportunity to check this trip off the to do list.
I just finished my last week at my old company and had two weeks before starting my new job. This meant I had ample time to plan and prepare this trip without losing my mind. For this trip, there is the added stress of shuttling cars before the start. With my car being a lowly Toyota Corolla, I knew that the last 2 KM up Diamondhead added an extra bit of excitement near the end.
The trip can be done either north to south or vise versa. With most parties opting to go South to North as there is better skiing that direction and more elevation drop. We opted for the better skiing route. The actual route itself is phemonenally beautiful. Distant ranges in the Garibaldi Park gleam with dignity, with its unique terrain unperturbed.
During planning, there were a few landmarks that we wanted to avoid at certain times of the day. On the Facebook group, South Coast Touring, we saw that Ring Creek, just above the Gargoyles, had slid. This put into question how far we could make it in a day safely with overnight packs. A group ahead of us had triggered some wet loose slides as they crossed the avalanche field much later in the day than we would have. Once you cross the creek, you then have to contend with a west facing slide path along Opal Cone. As we were reviewing our trip planning, we noticed that it would be hard to get past ring creek and Opal Cone at a reasonable time so we decided that we would make camp at elfin hut instead of pushing further on Day 1.
Once through the avy paths, the slope opens up and the expanse of the Neve can be seen, along with the dramatic backdrop of the Coast Mountains. It's at this point we roped up as an impending whiteout loomed in the distance.
When you're on the glacier, the feeling of being insignificant begins to settle in. The shear size of the ice you're standing on, the behemoth, encompass you in a sense of reverence. Even as we stood on top of millennia of glaciation, we stood knowing just how fragile the giant is. Every year, the contours that represent the glacier on topo maps recede and changes the dynamic of the traverse.
By the time we passed the Neve Icefall, our visibility started to deteriorate and we started to navigate by wire. At one point, we could eke out a feature on what was supposed to be a flat icefield. This feature looked to be a depression of some sorts and stunted our lateral progress. You can see from the GPS track, we kept getting pushed further west partly due to visibility and this phantom object between us and the path. Eventually we settled on skiing back down our original tracks to circumvent the object we could not see.
Once we backtracked and tried to get closer to the route, we eventually got a break in the weather and were able to see again. That was such a relief as it gave us sight of the sharkfin and marked the end of the crux for our trip. What layed ahead, unbeknownst to us was some phenomenal north face snow! Just as we thought we got a break in bad luck, one of our bindings malfunctioned. The spring tensioning the brake on a pair of Dynafit TLT Radical 2.0 broke and we quickly jerry-rigged a leash system with some cordellette to push our pursuit for some solid turns.
There are really two sections you can get some decent turns in. If you traverse high, you can ski down to the Sharkfin and down skier's right of it. The other section you can ski is from the last saddle down to the Glaciology hut. After enjoying some turns down to the hut, it took another several hours to traverse all the way down to the bottom of the trailhead. Skiing from Sentinel Bay to the Garibaldi campground over the lake offers some dramatic landscape. In total, we skied about 19 hours over 1.5 days and did around 45km of skiing, plus a few kms of walking down the rubble creek trailhead.
Gear List
While typically, I would write this section as a list, I would like to include here some thought on what I would have done for gear as well. Firstly, given the time of year we did this trip, ice screws are virtually useless. We brought a picket as it offered the most secure anchor in the conditions we faced. Additionally, it is the fastest anchor to set. However, in future, I may just use a ski anchor if conditions allow for it.
One final note on gear, given the length of the traverse, I think in future attempts, I would do this as either a day traverse or a three day traverse. The last day was too long with overnight packs.
the winter essentials
ski touring essentials
winter sleeping essentials (traded my winter bag for my summer bag + fleece blanket)
cooking essentials
overnight pack 65L
trail running shoes
crevasse traverse essentials
60cm picket
2x long ice screws
camera