Wedgemount Lake Snowshoe

December 16-17, 2005

Trip Report | Photos

The weather forecast almost looked too good to be true. Avalanche risk was low even in the alpine, there was a full moon at night and the days promised sunshine. With the promise of such perfect conditions, I really wanted to climb something. Having a hut to sleep in was appealing so that narrowed the options to Brew, Marriott, Cerise Creek or Wedgemount Lake. In a moment of what I now realize was temporary insanity I suggested climbing Mount Weart from the Wedgemount Lake hut. Insanity must be going around because Paul & Radmila thought it was a great idea.

We planned to leave downtown at 1pm on Friday, hike up, eat, get a few hours of sleep and start climbing at 4am on Saturday. We wanted to allow 14 hours hut to hut. Then we'd pack up and head down.

On Friday morning, Claire decided to join us so I picked her up on the way. After a couple of stops for avy gear & MEC we crawled through the Friday afternoon traffic on our way to pick up Paul & Radmila downtown. Getting overnight winter gear for four into my little car is always interesting but I think this was the biggest challenge yet. It's truly amazing how much stuff you can cram into my car.

After a complete repack at Paul's, we were on our way. It was very slow going and we were all very happy when we broke free of the pre-Christmas traffic congestion and made our way up the Sea to Sky Highway.

The crux of the trip was to be driving to the trailhead. We turned off the highway, making our way up the gravel road which leads to the trailhead. The road looked much like the one on the way to Elfin Lakes with hard packed snow which my car had managed easily two weeks ago so I didn't think twice about heading up. The grade got a bit steeper and I had to slow down for a waterbar at the top of the hill. Suddenly, we started sliding backwards down the hill. I tried to accelerate hoping that the all wheel drive would find some traction but nothing happened. So I tried braking. Still nothing. Emergency brake... still nothing. We were gaining speed very quickly and a crash seemed inevitable so I decided I'd rather crash sooner rather than later and tried to steer into the ditch. Still nothing. I was out of ideas. I told everyone 'ok, we're going to crash' and continued to work the brakes. I was wondering if the gear crammed in the back might actually lessen the impact on Claire & Radmila who were seated in the back when the car stopped almost as suddenly as the slide has started.

With adrenaline still pumping through my veins, With Paul co-piloting, I somehow managed to get the car off the worst of the ice and drove back up the hill to a place where I could turn around and pull over. I appreciated everyone remaining calm. We were obviously not going any further but the prospect of driving down that hill was not something I was looking forward to. We blocked all the tires with rocks and hoped it would still be there when we returned.

Packing up was a cold, slippery job. Radmila was ready long before the rest of us and waited patiently, never complaining. We were about half way up the road to the trailhead so we had another kilometer to hike to get to the trailhead. A few tentative steps made it clear that crampons were in order. The ice on the road got much worse and I was feeling like a rather large idiot for driving up as far as I had. I stupidly assumed that because it looked the same as the road to Elfin it was the same. I won't make that mistake again.

The Wedgemount Lake trail is unpleasant on a good day in the summer. In the winter it's downright hateful. It was steep and very icy. On these death grunt type trails it's nice to be able to just zone out and put one foot in front of the other but it was so icy you really had to think about every step.

I hadn't been all the way up this trail in about 14 years so when we came to the boulder field, I mistakenly thought we were almost at the final grunt up to the ridge. The snow was sparkling like magic on the boulders with huge crystals twinkling in the moonlight. My euphoria was short lived though. We re-entered the forest which I had expected to end but it just went oooooooooooon and oooooooooooooooon. Just when it seemed like we'd be trudging through the forest until dawn, it finally spat us out into the deep, baby powder soft snow of the meadow below the ridge.

The full moon allowed us to see just how much further we had to go. The ridge seemed a looooooooong way up. It seemed even longer as we began climbing. We'd take a step and slide back about three quarters of the distance we'd just gained. Our progress was agnozingly slow and I willed everyone not to ask what time it was. I didn't want to know. Claire was really suffering. She'd been sick and was still on antibiotics but she soldiered on long past the time I probably would have curled up in a snowbank and gone to sleep. Soon some avalanche debris came into view so I stopped to re-evaluate the situation. I hadn't expected that. The top of the slide seemed to be just under the cliff bands so since there didn't seem to be any more to come down, we decided to continue up, happy to have the hard packed snow to climb on after the soft powder we'd been swimming through.

It was nice to be gaining elevation at a reasonable pace for a change. Something flashed up ahead, catching my attention. I looked up, searching for what had caused the flash. In a few more steps my headlamp revealed the likely cause of the avalanche: a sheet of sheer ice. I'd climbed high enough that I could now see the cliff bands and realized what was going on under the snow on this slope. Frozen waterfalls and rocks encased in ice twinkled in the moonlight which would have been beautiful had we not been surrounded by unconsolidated powder blanketing slopes of sheer ice. I shouted down for everyone to stop and retreated to give them the news. Continuing was no longer an option. If we couldn't find a way out of here and on to a safer slope, we'd have to go back.

Paul forged boldly ahead on the least steep section leading away from the ice. The rest of us waited for him to get to relative safety before following one at a time. I was very happy to be out of the icy section but we were now facing a terribly steep ascent to gain the ridge and we were back in the baby powder snow. Paul continued breaking trail tirelessly while I stayed back to keep Claire awake. It didn't look like we had that far to go but if we'd been moving any more slowly we would have been going backwards. When the grade finally eased it seemed like the end may be in sight, Paul & Radmila went on ahead to get some water boiling. Claire and I finally crested the ridge and were practically giddy with pleasure as the hut came into view.

There was Weart looking seductive in the light of the full moon. I entertained a few fleeting thoughts of grabbing a cup of soup and going to climb it. It was 4am when we reached the hut which had been the time we had planned to set out for Weart.

The Wedgemount Lake hut is nothing to write home about but it looked pretty damn good to us after 9 unrelenting hours of snow and ice. We quickly decided that everyone was too tired to do anything but go to sleep so after some chicken noodle soup and Two Bite Brownies (thanks to Radmila for hauling an extra large bag of up them!) we turned in. It was 5:52am when I turned off the light.

The natives started getting restless at 9:30. It was hard to get up but I was rewarded for the effort by a beautiful view of Weart through the only window in the hut. My boots were soaking wet (the result of another bonehead move of mine... I thought I'd forgotten my gaiters but they were actually in my pack all along) so I wasn't in a big hurry to come down from the nice dry loft. I volunteered to pack up everyone's sleeping bags & pads if someone would make me breakfast so I could put off putting my feet in ice cold wet boots. Claire obliged and soon I was chowing down on hot cereal and tea in the relative comfort of the loft.

After breakfast we packed up & poked around a bit taking pictures of mountains we hadn't climbed. Radmila was ready first and waiting for the rest of us again. We hit the trail around 12:30 and took the right route this time. We were back down in the meadow in no time. A good look at our ascent route really drove home one of the lessons of this trip: if you're traveling at night, stay out of areas where you need to see more than 12 feet. It was very obvious in daylight that there was a lot of ice on that slope and I would never have gone anywhere near it if I'd been able to see.

The rest of the way down was uneventful (fortunately!) with only a few minor slips. The only serious casualty was Radmila's trekking pole which snapped when she slipped on the ice. Better a pole than an ankle. We 'fixed' it with some duct tape and a couple of sticks. It wasn't pretty but it was better than nothing. There were a couple of huge frozen waterfalls on the way down that we'd missed in the dark but other than that it was just a very long hike through frozen forest. We made it back to the car at 4:30 and hurried to tackle the final tricky part of our trip before we lost the light completely.

I had hoped that it would have warmed up a bit by the time we got down but the road was still frozen solid. I inched the car slowly down the hill trying to stay off the ice and made it down the hill without further ado. It was dark now so I left the lights on so we could see to pack up. 10 minutes later the battery was dead. I was pretty confident that we’d be able to jump start it though so we continued packing up and changing out of our warm clothes.

When we were ready to go, Claire went up ahead with my headlamp to light the way while Paul & Radmila pushed the car. I screwed it up and tried to start it in 1st which didn't work. The road ahead was starting to curve to the right and getting steeper. I was still shaken up from the slide yesterday so having to think about keeping the car under control and off the ice while attempting to jump start it while going around an icy corner in the dark was just too much for me to handle. We were only 1km from the highway so it didn’t seem like it was worth the risk when help was relatively close at hand. I bundled up as best I could with the limited clothing I still had available after packing all the warmest stuff away in my pack and ran down the road in hopes that I could pick up a cel phone signal. Fortunately Claire has BCAA so I was able to call for a jump start when I finally did pick up a signal near the highway.

They promised to rescue us in 40 minutes or less so I ran back up to wait back at the car. Everyone was getting pretty cold so when 45 minutes went by with no sign of help we were getting a bit nervous. I ran back down the road to call back and had spent about 10 very cold minutes on hold Scott, our knight in shining Toyota, arrived. I jumped in the truck and thoroughly enjoyed the hot air blasting through the vents during the short ride back up the road to my car.

Soon the engine was running, the heat was blasting and we were Starbucks bound! It had been an adventure but we'd learned several lessons along the way. Thank you to Paul, Radmila & Claire for the great company and for not freaking out when I nearly killed them. Lets do it again.... in the summer!

Trip Report | Photos