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Mount Matier

Chasing an old dream at Duffey: skiing Joffre, Matier, Slalok in 5h 58min

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I believe everyone has their mountain dream missions whether it be a ski traverse with friends, a steep line descent, or a new climbing route. Everyone has dreams and everyone gets inspired.
One of mine came to life when I first skied off Mount Matier about 10 years ago. That evening, I and Miki (good friend of mine) imagined skiing the summits of Joffre, Matier, Spetch and Slalok in a day. We planned to have a camp on Matier glacier to allow an early start and a place to return for a nice dinner.
We never went for it.
And in the years since I only skied the N ridge of Matier and Aussie Couloir on Joffre. I never summited or skied Slalok, nor skied the NW face on Matier.
But as time passed the dream was still there, however, taking on a different shape.
I realized that if we ski Slalok then it has to be its north face, otherwise, there is no point.
Then as we progressed it became clear it would be possible to do it all in one big day – starting at Cerise Creek, finishing at Joffre Lakes.
Finally, in the past 3 years, I twisted the dream further as I became more inspired by what ski mountaineering racing was teaching me and seeing how our Canadian skimo racing team was progressing. More came from John Baldwin’s exploratory spirit, Kilian Jornet’s running quests and Ueli Steck’s speed climbs.
The dream was the original but I wondered how fast it could be done.
And an integral part for me is always to do such missions in an unassisted way – you carry all you need, otherwise, there is no point.

The route

At the end I decided to leave out Mt Spetch. Its north face is nice and around 40 degrees but it is only 200m high, and the whole peak is kind of small within its spectacular surroundings.
The final route became – start at Cerise Creek, summit Joffre, ski Aussie, summit Matier, ski its NW face, summit Slalok, ski its N face, finish at Lower Joffre Lk.

Duffey Lake speed traverse map - Joffre, Matier, Slalok
A more aesthetic link-up is possible and maybe even faster - climb Joffre via its SE face/ramp, and climb Slalok via its small and steep E face. And include Spetch in the loop 😉

The challenge

The most fun but somewhat intimidating part of the whole thing was that I would be skiing the NW face of Matier and the N face of Slalok for the very first time. I liked the unknown element.

Safety wise, the worst part would be down climbing Matier summit and to ski its NW face. Once there it felt natural but I made only precise turns as the face was hard frozen. I have never seen so much snow on Matier's summit ridge (which helped), and I didn't expect to skin up right over the summit rock of Slalok (right).

Planning

For bigger speed missions I like to plan well because I hate coming out short-handed. By that I mean either not being able to pull it off or not being able to go as fast as I would like to.
I didn’t know whether it was still possible this year. I didn’t know anything about current snow pack and temps as I have not skied at Duffey Lake since early February. So I dug up some recent weather stats, and started to follow temps and weather about 10 days prior.
I knew data knowledge is good but a personal experience would be the best. On May 13th I went up Cayoosh Mt to get a feel for snowpack, and what temps and sun were doing. Also, that I could snap photos of Slalok’s N face so I could study where is the safest to ski it should the day be very warm.
Final piece of my puzzle have not come together though – a ski partner. However, there was no time to stress about it as it fell through at a late stage and the right conditions (snow, day temps, weather, desire…) were/are running out.
I decided to go through with it solo as I did in the past when I couldn’t agree on conditions with a friend over a speedy Spearhead Traverse mission.

Stano on Joffre, Matier, Slalok
Peace and quite up high. Standing on top of all three within about 2h.

Some facts and the day’s route

I started a bit after 6am (May19) from the bridge over the first creek below the Duffey Lk road at Cerise Creek. The start gave my mission “a bigger life perspective” as there was no bridge/log over the second creek. But quickly I managed to find a log crossing it about 100m down.
In 5h 58min I finished on the bridge over the creek that drains the Lower Joffre Lk, after some summer trail and forest navigating as all Joffre Lakes were unfrozen on their perimeter and couldn’t be skied over.

Joffre, Matier, Slalok from Cayoohs
I snapped this photo a week earlier from the Armchair Gl below Cayoosh.
All in all, my watch measured 2520m of climbing and descending (the start and finish happen to be at almost the same elevation). Fresh hard tracks all day long, up and down.
3 summits, 3 classic descents. What a day 🙂

Further inspiration

There was one thing that struck me during the day – I crampon boot-packed from the bottom of Aussie to the summit of Joffre in about 35min (400m), and I feel couple of weeks behind my fastest this season. That means that someone much more skilled can surely boot it up in 20-25, maybe Steck even faster, that would be something to watch!
Here are some route points and times that further inspire me and can serve anyone as a reference if they want to repeat it:

  1. Start point – bridge at Cerise Cr below the “parking lot” at Duffey Lk road
  2. Up the Cerise Cr drainage, up the right moraine (close to the hut)
  3. Up Anniversary Gl to the col [reached in about 2h]
  4. Ski down to the bottom of Aussie Couloir
  5. Crampon up Aussie and to the summit of Joffre Peak [2h 45min]
  6. Ski off Joffre summit and down Aussie [3h 15min]
  7. Skin and crampon up the North ridge and over the summit of Matier [4h]
  8. Down climb to the top of Matier’s NW face, ski it and down the Matier Gl
  9. Skin up (with a short boot-pack) over Slalok’s Northerly rib to its summit [5h]
  10. Ski down the Slalok’s North face to Upper Joffre Lk
  11. Ski down to Lower Joffre Lakes mostly via the summer trail

After getting it done I believe I can do it quite faster, and it likely could be done under 4h30 by the fastest skimo racing Euros. But not while going solo, skiing two first time lines and visiting new places. That only could have happened in a more balanced way 🙂

Matier from Joffre
Awesome morning atmosphere on top of Joffre, and scanning the planned route over on Matier.
Skiing Aussie Couloir
Skiing in Aussie was tough – very hard snow as the sun hit its top half only 10min before I started skiing, and bunch of funnels through the middle in the lower half.
Aussie Couloir from Matier.
Looking back at Aussie. And so much snow on the summit of Matier.
Joffre lakes forest.
And as all good Canadian traverses end - with a tree skate-ski slalom over pine needles and creeks 🙂

North Joffre Creek mini-traverse: Spring skiing and bush whacking

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This trip took place in Duffey Lake area in the southern part of Coast Mountains, Canada, during May 23-25, 2009. Duffey Lake backcountry skiing is a serious rival destination to the famed Rogers Pass near Revelstoke, BC.

A detailed description of the North Joffre Creek traverse can be found in John Baldwin’s book – Exploring the Coast Mountains On Skis.

Day 1 – bush whacking

Peter fighting some serious flora to get us started.
Peter fighting some serious flora to get us started.

Since spring conditions are one of the best to explore new terrain, due to high snowpack stability, stable weather and long days, we decided to go out on for three days.

Two of us, Stano Faban and Peter Mrazik, headed up the Duffey Lake road on Saturday morning. We parked our car on a logging road (km 3) on the east side of the North Joffre Creek, since this was the spot where we would finish the trip.

The late date and warm days just before our trip prepared quite a bush whacking for us. Avoiding swaps, which are skied over in the winter, by crossing the creek and the valley higher up meant dry boots but very thick bushes. We couldn’t carry the skis on our packs since we weren’t able to move a step forward with such a setup.

Navigation is vital...as is a lunch break.
Navigation is vital...as is a lunch break.
Finally, after two and a half hours (at about 1400m), we made it to some continuous flanks of snow. Once on skis, we moved through the old forest at a decent speed arriving at a lake east of Cassiope Peak for a late afternoon lunch.

From here we headed directly west towards a wide pass (more of a ridge) between Cassiope and Saxifrage Mountain. The lake was in melting conditions, so we opted to stay on its north side by climbing up about 50m higher onto some mellower terrain.

After reaching the wide pass we decided to go little further towards Saxifrage and pitch a tent there to be ready for some morning spring skiing.

Route to a pass east of Cassiope Peak, which is just out of the photo to the left.
Route to a pass east of Cassiope Peak, which is just out of the photo to the left.

Day 2 – ski time

Early morning plans were slightly disrupted by our vacation moods. However, this turned out to work in our favour as the east face of Saxifrage was in prime conditions at around 8.30am.

East of Saxifrage Mountain. We skied down slightly right from the center.
East of Saxifrage Mountain. We skied down slightly right from the center.
We boot-packed up to reach a ridge just right of the summit. From here it was a scramble for few meters and then a short boot-pack in the snow to reach the top. The view was amazing.

Skiing down the east face is getting steeper (around 40-45 degrees) but in those conditions it was perfect. This was a summit and a face that I was eying for some time since it looks quite attractive from Cayoosh Mountain where I go often. Cayoosh is just few valleys to the east from here.

After getting down we packed our gear and headed north through another fairly wide col immediately east of Saxifrage. From here, skiing down to White Lakes was great. Although, on couple of spots right off the top, the snow was bullet proof, it eased to spring corn very soon.

Once crossing the White Lakes we stopped and turned around. The valley looked spectacular and sure worthwhile to stick around for some skiing. We’ll come back in the future.

Our living room, on a shoulder of Cirque Peak, was waaay nicer than any waterfront condo.
Our living room, on a shoulder of Cirque Peak, was waaay nicer than any waterfront condo.
After a long “lazy” lunch in a pass between Mount Olds and Mount Oleg we climbed up to the summit of Mt Oleg and skied back to grab our packs. Then we skied further down the Place Glacier to reach Joffre Glacier.

After good laughs and some more skinning we cooked our dinner on a shoulder that is south of Cirque Peak. We relaxed, talked, laughed and ate in an amazing calmness of the surrounding mountains with no society craziness in sight.

Joffre naming “controversy”

When reaching the Joffre Glacier we realized a funny fact. Joffre Lakes that are on the south side of the Duffey Lake road are fed water from Matier Glacier.

Being on the north side of the Duffey Lake road and standing on the Joffre Glacier we wondered how this geographical naming happened. From the map, it’s very clear that Joffre Lakes and Joffre Glacier have nothing to do with each other except their names. (If someone knows more please post a comment below.)

Day 3 – more great skiing

Since we knew all we had to do was climb around 200m and then ski down and walk to the car, we took our time. There are trips when we travel on a preplanned “schedule” but we decided to make this one a vacation style. Weather was great, jokes were flying, so why not just wander around a tent a bit more than usually.

Skiing from a small summit in the shoulder we slept on was amazing (photo below). It was around 900m run all the way to the trees where we reached NE fork of North Joffre Creek. Here, we followed some older ski tracks down the creek, then at about 1600m we started to traverse into the forest to the east of the creek.

Great view of Mt. Matie just before we ski of the shoulder of Cirque Pk.
Great view of Mt. Matier just before we ski of the shoulder of Cirque Pk.

“Tree skiing” wasn’t as good but at least we didn’t have to hike yet. But soon enough, at about 1400m, we had to switch from ski mode to walking down in an old forest. We got lucky and not too long after the hike started we reached a logged patch which led us to a logging road that took us to our car.

Recommendations for this trip

After completing the route we realized that this is a perfect trip for an introduction to ski traverses and multi-day backcountry skiing. It’s not very demanding with only about 25km in length at around 2200m of climbing. The navigation is quite straight forward and the views are great.

If you want to ski more than just moving along with a big pack then there are plenty of options on various aspects at various angles.

The best time for this trip would most likely be late April since there should still be enough snow to avoid bush whacking, while the snow should be settled enough for great stability already.