Tantalus

For me, getting into the Tantalus was one of those sorts of things where you realize that for a long time you were looking for something and its been right in front of you the whole time. I've been kind of realizing this for a while in snowboarding, and have to thank my mom and stepdad for moving us to Western Canada 20 years ago. BC is blessed with mountains that are on par with anything, anywhere else in the world. It's started to become starkly clear when I would go on a trip to Switzerland, or Russia or some other incredible destination snowboarding, and I would be so, so, excited on coming home.
The last couple of years for me have been about trying to get after some objectives that were closer to home. Stuff that I'd looked at for a long time, and just never quite gotten to. Well, its pretty much impossible to drive the sea-to-sky highway on a clear day and not look up at the Tantalus in awe. It is cracked ice, and jagged spires rising nearly out of the ocean that rival Alaska in every way. Living under them in the Squamish Valley only added to my once-removed intimacy with these mountains - I watched the sun rise on them nearly every morning that I woke up at home.
The last time that I was up there we rushed into a bunch of stuff with a helicopter and got our asses handed to us. One of my nine lives used up, and definitely one of Ryan's. We had done two runs (one on Serratus and one off Tantalus) and on our third run on Serratus the whole thing fractured wall to wall (probably class 2.5 or 3) and thankfully ripped full path by itself, leaving us clinging to the top of a now icy mountain with our stomachs trying to climb out of our throats.
This time was the polar opposite of that trip. We had a bigger crew, were dropped off up there well prepared, with camping gear, and the intent to climb all of our lines on foot. The best way to feel anything out is to take your time going up it. You have to be really confident in something before your willing to spend hours climbing on it.
Likely, the coolest part of the trip for me was bivying at the top of Tantauls' north ridge. I wanted to ride a line that I looked up at from my place, but the trick was that it got light starting at about 7am and by about 10 or so am you didn't want to be anywhere near it - it would be getting too much sun and the avalanche danger spiking. The rumbling glacier itself only added to this, because though there was a bench to stop on, below was holes and crevasses that you wanted nothing to do with. I decided that the best plan for the line that I wanted to ride would be to climb up it in the evening, dig a bivy at the top of the line and spend the night. I've always wanted to wake up in the morning from a small perch, look over the edge at the line, get my stuff together, throw my backpack with my sleeping gear for a good tumble, and then ride down light to go get it.

Slalok Cont.

The first photo here is starting the last leg of the climb up the backside of Slalok after crossing the Matier glacier. Thanks to my dogs for their unending patience while I galavant silly slopes on my toboggan! The 3 riding photos are all the same run. I think it was somewhere near '3000ft and one of the most fun runs I've done on a snowboard. The top felt like rallying Dave Murray Downhill on Whistler - only it lead into three beautiful hallway couloirs. As good as any heli run. It still continues to blow my mind what you can do on a splitboard!!

Slalok

"We spend so much of our lives in control, and there's something terrifying and exhilarating in losing it."

I read this the other day in a book about surfing. I thought that it does a pretty good job of describing my love affair with the ocean. And my other love affair with feeling so very small, to the point of insignificant, in the mountains.

Ryan and I had been chatting about this on the 5 or so hour approach. And his point, I thought well spoken, was that there really is no control. We spend our whole lives living in this illusion that we wrap ourselves in.. of control. And it is those moments, in the teeth of the most powerful ocean or the peak of the most uninterested mountain, that we can connect with the infinite. Living in the purest sense, in that moment.

"Because I don't really believe that it is outside of us... it is in us. It is in each and every one of us, and it is in everything."

I had left Ryan with my dogs about 4/5ths of the way up the climb. He had told me that that he wanted to go on a mission, but not a huge mission - he was just getting over being sick. I guess I had underestimated the size of our undertaking. I had wanted him to join me in the last leg but understood his circumstance. Needless to say, I was walking accross an enormous icefield and towards the summit of one of the bigger peaks on the duffy by myself and feeling very small amoungst it all.
But that's just it. Walking across that glacier, and feeling so very small. Alone, but not at all. The mountains don't care if I summit or not. They don't care if I'm even there or not. Here today and gone tomorrow, my friends past were all there with me. And they always will be. And as I realized, so too will I.

If you look in the picture from the summit you can see the first Joffre lake way off in the distance. Trying to negotiate my entrance was interesting to say the least. I was happy to finally get my first glimpse of the 3rd lake, below me, and my entrance.
What a place to stand and take it all in..

Campbell Cont.

Joffre cont.

Thanks a ton to Chris Ankney for climbing up that thing with me, and for letting me use his photos here! check out chris and the mount currie coffee company here mountcurriecoffee.com

Joffre

The first time I saw the Joffre I was 13 driving over the Duffy Lake road with my mom headed to the Westbeach classic. I was on my way to a pipe contest, and the drive over the 'duffy' seemed to take forever. There was a lot of dirt stretches still and I was in high anticipation of the contest we were headed to. Needless to say though, driving over the duffy that clear afternoon, there was no way that I could miss seeing the massive 'main' couloir that splits Joffre down the center. It is simply the most impressive peak on the Duffy Lake Road, towering beyond the Duffy lake when you approach from the east, and inspired awe in me a as a kid to see that there was a rideable line through its towering cliffs right from the summit. I think that Pehota and Trevor probably skied the first descent of it sometime around when I first saw it, but I wouldn't learn that till many years later.
Helicopters, snowmobiles, and the bright lights of being a 'professional' snowboarder stole my attention away from many things, the main couloir on Joffre being one of them.
This was the second time I've gone up it now (the first was last year). Both times were with friends, and though we tried to shoot some sort of evidence of it, it doesn't lend itself well to photos or video. It never gets sun, and is simply too steep for too long to ride in any sort of 'charging' manner. That said, there is almost nowhere in the world(that I've stood) more impressive that at the top of the Joffre main. You are at the height of all the adjacent mountains at the base of the couloir itself. It feels like you can see to Lilloet from the top of that thing!

Campbell Icefields

When I was a kid my mom seeded my love affair with the mountains by dragging me into remote backcountry cabins to play in the pow.
This last week was about getting back to basics. I spent it with a few of my very best friends, my lil bro, my mom, her boyfriend, and his son and his friend in a little remote lodge called the campbell icefield challet. We didn't get a lot of sun, hiked for every single turn, and shot a few photos too, but more than anything, we had an absolutely amazing time laughing, cooking ourselves past cooked in the sauna, and shredding really good pow. Thanks Harry!!