[TR] Squamish - Alpha South face couloir ski descent. 5/14/2014

[mkschuster]

We (Ben and Martin) hiked to Lake Lovely water on the 13th of May 2013 in the afternoon and camped by the hut. The trail was mostly clear of snow except for the last steep section. Slushy conditions all around. Went to bed early. On the 14th, we left camp at 3 AM and started our way up the Alpha west ride route. Skinned to the base of the cliff above the snowfield (close to the serratus-alpha col). We boot-packed the rest of the way up to the summit. Conditions were slushy thus making us sink to our knees and even thighs all the way to the summit.

We reached the summit at 8 am. On the way up, as soon as the sun came out (around 5 am) we observed a some natural activity consisting of LARGE wet slides triggered by cornices failing. We dropped lookers left of the summit into an exposed couloir. There is another option to drop into the couloir but it would require more work to get there and a rope depending on ability (it is around 55 degrees at the start of that option).

It is between the summit and the sub-summit of alpha on the right. We could only do a few turns at the time due to incredibly heavy sluff that would start various wet slides. However, this couloir is slightly slanted to lookers left allowing us to keep traversing into "safe zones". There were some pretty big runnels running down parts of the couloir, however, they were not directly in the way of our ski line.

Except for a few, one of which was around 1m or more in depth with vertical sidewalls forcing us to jump it with some speed. This couloir is not fully ski-able, there is a cliff at its ending. So, we traversed high at the end and crossed over onto the lower slopes of the alpha west route joining back with the skintrack.

We traversed (fast) directly below the cliffs on the South face of alpha bombing down as close as possible towards the outflow of the lake. Once at camp, we packed up the rest of our gear and skinned out. On the skin out, at the sign, we decided to follow the Niobe meadows trail for the first 5 minutes and then took a left off the trail. We then skinned up a little ridge on the right and transitioned to ski mode. We dropped on the right side of the ridge and skied all the way down to where the trail come out of the forest to cross the creek. This, allowed us to avoid having to down climb the steep and icy section of the trail that is directly alongside the waterfalls right before the hut (last steep pitch on the hike up).

 

Time splits:

3h car to the hut

4:45h from camp (by the hut)to the summit.

3h from hut to car

 

Gear Notes:

1 Ice axe each

Crampons (we did not use them)

skis

 

Approach Notes:

Dynafit tlt5 buckle broke off right at the top of Alpha (unable to put the boot into ski mode). Thankfully, I had a few BD ski straps that let me temporarily fix the problem.

[JasonG]

That's a pretty bold descent with the warmth we've had the past few days. Glad you had a safe trip, and thanks for the report!

[mkschuster]

Yes, it has indeed been very warm. We also did it very early in the day. Our timing actually worked out perfectly. We had some crust this morning and it was good right as we dropped in. Take care.