SkiSickness

South Face of Wedge Mountain, April 18
The weather forecast at this time of year is terrible. They really can't seem to figure out the timing or intensity of any systems moving in.
The forecast for April 17 & 18 (Saturday & Sunday) during the week, went something like this:
on Wednesday: Saturday = Sunny , Sunday = Rainy
Thursday: Saturday = rain, sunday = rain
friday: saturday = cloudy, sunday = cloudy

It rained pretty hard on Saturday. They really didn't know, so they probably should have just put a big ?

On Saturday they forecast the sun to come out in the afternoon on Sunday, so after some last minute calls to Andy , we got a bit of a group that was game to go ski the south face of Wedge.
Originally the plan was to wake up at an undisclosed early time in the morning (Andy said he'd call me when he was on his way up), then we'd go hike up the summer trail to Wedgemount lake, ski up the glacier and north arete, and then ski the south face.
But when I woke the brothers Tras up at 6:30 am, I think that plan disintegrated like so many weather forecasts had in the past week. They actually drove up to Whistler pretty quickly and met up with Bill and I just before 10am at the bottom of the glacier chair on Blackcomb.
note: I almost had to drag Bill out of bed and dress him too, so the Traslins weren't the only ones running late.

We skinned up and over the Spearhead and skied down the Spearhead glacier through sporadic clouds: Then after some fun "North Shore" style route finding we got down to Wedge Creek at 11:30am at 1300m and began our ascent up one of the larger slide paths, while wading through isothermal mush.

We reached a huge bench that runs across the mountain at about 1700m, where the snow firmed up. We grabbed a quick bite and started up with Bill trailing, still recovering from his 10 month bout of Kiewitis.
Mike and I pretty quickly switched to boot packing, while Andy made a burly skin track up some not so soft slopes.

Andy also started boot packing once it got a bit steeper. But Andy's 6 foot something and his steps are a lot bigger than mine, so I tried to take over so I could make my tiny steps, that probably felt like tip-toeing up the mountain to Andy:
We crossed over a rocky rib and took a rest with some epic views of the Spearhead range:
and our route down the Spearhead:
We were a little worried about the intensity of the sun on the thin crust in the chute on the way up, but a nice wind was keeping stuff relatively solid the whole way up. Shortly after crossing the rock rib, we crested up onto the W ridge and skinned to the summit:
We got to the summit (~2900m) around 3:30pm (I think):
and were rewarded with epic 360 degree views. I think we were all looking at everywhere else we could ski, like James Turner:
After a short while we started skiing down the same way we came up. Coming back down on the face felt a little airy, since all you could see was the valley below as the slope curved away out of sight.
We ran into Bill at the rocky rib, and started down into a wide chute. With perfect corn all the way down to 1700m, it was some of the best 1200m of non-stop snow you can get. The last 400m of vertical were a bit mushy to say the least, but still fun.
Bill was pretty exhausted due to his Kiewitis, and we rested till about 5pm. Andy had to get to work by 10pm, so the Traslins left Wedge Creek just before 5 and hammered up Wedge Creek and skirted around the side of Disease Ridge probably around 8pm.
Bill and I trudged up behind them in their skin track, and stopped a few times for water, and to watch a black balloon float across the Decker Glacier during sunset. We got back into the ski resort during dusk and lazily skied all the way down to the bus loop. The beer back at home tasted that much better after a rewarding day in the sun and snow.

Participants:
Andy Traslin
Mike Traslin
Alex Gibbs
Bill Beswick

total vertical: 2600m
distance: 20(ish) km

Good one!

Thanks for sharing....

I think the cloud cover worked in our favour in regards to keeping the avy hazard down....

Back to the ice hockey game,it is not easy being a life long Vancouver Canuck fan...

Just scored!

Giver!

Canucks won 6-4 series 2-2 against LA.I had been staring at that face far too long.It had to be skied.I heard too many brutal
stories about skiing it from the south side,but after those ultramarathons on Garibaldi Lake it didn't seem as bad.Where can you find a over 5000 foot run sustained like that.I am honestly more surprised more people don't get out and ski this face.Yes Decker is a fun but it is so short.The one thing is to to try and time this climb and not be exposed the sun for too long.You can always see it as drive into Whistler.You also get the luxury of riding the lift to the top of Blackomb.It gave me the feeling of skiing the volcanos in the states.Just be prepared for the slogfest out the Decker creek.

Nice work sticking with it even though the forecast is fail. Good descent. The wedge is rad.

Some go pro footage.

Andy, Did you pee "pennywise" in the snow... if so, that's skill.

Thanks for the vid....

Unknown road!