Garibaldi Neve over Easter Weekend

An Easter Weekend trip across the Garibaldi Neve.

My last trip across the Garibaldi Neve was bizarre. A good friend of mine desperately wanted to do the traverse, and I found myself agreeing to try despite a marginal weather forecast. That night, we huddled in the tent cooking dinner while the wind blew down the Glacier. Suddenly, a group of headlamps appeared on the ridge above us and started descending in the dark. Tired from a full day, sheltered from the cold and the wind, I was amazed that these folks had the energy to be doing bonus laps in the dark. Only when the headlamps arrived did we learn the truth - the headlamps were half of a group of VOCers who had become separated from the rest of their group. They had stopped for a break and a brew, and while they rested, the wind erased the tracks of the front runners, who, of course, had the only tent. In the dark, they had seen our tent, lit up from the inside with headlamps, and made a beeline for shelter. One of the VOCers was pretty much hypothermic, so there was no way they were going anywhere. The tent was crowded that night, but at least it was warm. Of course the next day, the weather came in, we were completely whited out and I navigated the rest of the way across the Neve by compass and GPS, tapping the snow ahead of me with my avalanche probe so I could see which way the slope went.

So, since then I've made the sensible decision not to return unless the forecast was bomber. And on the Easter weekend, Sarah and I had great conditions and fantastic weather. Friday was a bit overcast, which suited our purposes really well, since the partial shade helped reduce the avy danger in Ring Creek. Our first day passed without great incident, except that despite everything we could do to prevent it, Sarah's feet ended up getting pretty blistered. For years Sarah wanted to ski AT instead of telemark, but nobody made boots small enough to fit her feet. Finally, last year she managed to find a pair of boots that mostly fit, but even so they're still a little bit too big for her.

Elfin Lakes was crawling with people taking advantage of the long weekend. We saw a 7-ish year old kid who made it all the way in to Elfin Lakes with her dad on snowshoes. We asked if they were staying the night and he replied nope - we're just in for the day. Hard Core!

We followed the well tracked trail to Ring Creek and crossed to the other side without incident. From there we climbed to our campsite on the Bishop Glacier, a couple of klicks east of Atwell. We set up camp in the sun and were cooking dinner when suddenly, we heard a rumbling noise. At first we thought it was rockfall, but when it didn't stop, we turned and saw a big slab avalanche coming full path down the east face. The trigger was probably a serac from the icefall above. Spectacular - and a little sobering, considering that I had been considering the avalanche conditions to be pretty much bomber.

We got up the next morning to sunlight and blessed full vis. We skiied without much difficulty to the Glacier Pikes, with a bit of scouting to find a good way down to the North Pitt Glacier.

From there we skiied down the Sentinel Glacier (breakable crust), across Garibaldi Lake (frozen solid), and down the Garibaldi trail (good conditions, soft snow skiiable to within two km of the trailhead) back to the car without incident, although, in Sarah's case, not without some complaint due to her sore and blistered feet.

All in all, good trip in great conditions, albeit with some type 2 fun thrown in the mix.