Mt. Sproatt - March 4th 2023

I've been pretty bad at posting to my blog so far this year but thats not because I haven't been doing anything I just haven't gotten around to it. With that said I'm going to post my last few weekends of trips while my memory is still fresh! Sam was in Calgary for the weekend and I planned a trip with two of my partners from Mt. Baker (Gabby and Fred) to do some ski touring. I wanted to get out and so did they so I didn't really care were and let them pick. 

 

After some back and forth on where and evaluating the avalanche conditions (not great) we settled on Mt. Sproatt. I left Abbotsford at 4:45am on Saturday morning and drove to Squamish to pick up Gabby. I got there around 6:30 and we ended up waiting nearly an hour for two other members I wasn't familiar with (Anthony and Nikita) who were late. 

 

We had originally planned on starting at 8am and doing a Sproatt->Tonic double bag but with the late members and traffic we didn't end up starting until 9:30 and already our chances of bagging both weren't looking great. The beginning was nice, Fred, Anthony and Nikita all had heavy overnight packs as they were planning on camping near the top to practice for some future endeavours. Gabby and I only had light packs and you could see it was hard on Anthony and Nikita, especially Nikita right away. We let them set the pace. The first 3 or 4km is very gradual and most of it is on a road of sorts so its very easy going. There were a couple bridges that were a bit sketchy to cross on skis but nothing too bad. 

 

We made it to the split between the Rainbow trail and Sproatt trail after about an hour and a half. We had originally planned on going up the NE aspect of the mountain where the avalanche terrain looked minimal but everythings different once you actually got out there. None of us were willing to break a heinous trail up the mountain so we just followed the skin track. Makes me kind of wonder about avalanche safety when its so easy to sacrifice a plan in the heat of the moment. 

 

Anyways once we left the Rainbow trail things got more difficult quickly. There was a steep section in the woods that was a huge mess. I ended up having to take my skis off and boot pack up a section and so did Nikita and Anthony. Fred and Gabby got up but not without much difficulty. While we (especially me were floundering in this section we were passed by two groups who looked considerably more proficient. Next we were in the beautiful meadows between Sproatt and an unnamed peak (thought it was Tonic but I was wrong). At this time we could tell Nikita was suffering as he was slowing down a lot and taking a lot of breaks. We offered to take some of his weight but he refused. 

 

 We skiied through the relatively flat meadows and eventually the skin track started switchbacking up the final ~450m to the summit of Sproatt. After not too long Nikita and Anthony decided to take a break. They told us to continue to the top and they would follow behind or just set up camp. We had walkie talkies so we agreed and Fred, Gabby and I set out for the top. The remaining ascent was beautiful but difficult. I would be lieing if I said I didn't feel it especially in my legs, I wasn't too good at this skiing thing. Thankfully we made it to the top without too much difficulty (one short steep icey section I had to boot pack again). 

 

The top was very cold and windy, we stopped to take a few pictures and descended a bit to get some cover and had a quick lunch before the best part, the way down! The ascent down from the top to the meadows was MAGNIFICENT. The powder was deep and you couldn't mess up if you tried. All thoughts of avalanche were gone from my mind as I just wanted to pick the steepest most beautiful path I could however I was also aware of how tired I was and did NOT want to get stuck in some ugly terrain trap and have to thrash my way out, well aware of the time we had taken on the way up (it was already 3) and that we had well abandoned the idea of bagging Tonic at that point. 

 

Gabby Fred and I snowboarded down together stopping periodically to wait and film each others descent and the part that had taken us 1.5 hours to ascend took maybe 10-15 minutes to descend. Once we got back to the meadows we quickly found Nikita and Anthony who had set up camp. They had tried to come up a little while after we split but one of them lost their jacket and they decided to just call it. We had a beer and took some pictures before splitting, with Fred staying behind. We still had a while to get out and we wanted to descend without too much darkness. 

 

The way down was PAINFUL. The terrain was awful for splitboarders, I had to constantly switch between ski / board mode and I was very tired. Pair that with one of my skins being rendered useless by snow (inexperience) and it was really awful. I pretty much made up my mind at that point to get a ski touring setup next year as Gabby looked to be having a much better time. Anyways I made it down eventually by ~6pm and that was the day. Very hard day but fun time!

Me at the top of Sproatt

Gabby, Fred and Anthony on the early sections

Little bluff in the meadows