Pemberton Icecap – Longspur, Apa, Famine, Torah Peaks

Pemberton Icecap – Longspur (8,448ft), Apa (8,005ft), Famine (8,123ft), Torah (8,232ft) Peaks

April 15-16, 2022

Eric and Steven

45 miles snowmobiling, 21 miles skiing

I hadn’t been to Canada since the border closed in 2020 and was hoping to use my upcoming long weekend to bag some peaks in British Columbia. I really wanted to try for some peaks that would benefit from a snowmobile approach and my truck, and Steven suggested a handful of peaks on the Pemberton Icefield, just north of Whistler. The road to these peaks isn’t driveable till late spring, and by then the glacier gets all melted out. But the road approach is snow covered in the winter and early spring when the glaciers are in good condition. So, this area made the most sense to approach by snowmobile.

The Pemberton Snowmobile Club grooms the Rutherford forest service road for 14 miles from highway 99 to their cabin at the edge of treeline. From there it is a popular snowmobile route to follow the valley up to the Apa glacier and beyond to the main Pemberton Icefield. One of Steven’s friends had snomobiled up and climbed Longspur a few years ago, so we knew the route would work. I was a bit concerned about the terrain being too technical for me to snowmobile with a rider, but I knew we could at least get to the cabin at the end of the groomed section. Worst case, Longspur was 8 miles beyond the cabin, so we could ski that as a long day trip or overnight.

If we were able to snowmobil farther in, we hoped to try for a few bonus peaks. Torah was the farthest away and would be a nice prize. Another of Steven’s friends had climbed Torah over a four-day trip from the southwest, but with the snowmobile approach we hoped to maybe sled all the way to the base of it. There were also a handful of other bonus peaks we hoped to tag on too.

Luckily the weather forecast looked good and we agreed on a Friday-Saturday overnight trip to maximize chance of succes. Thursday night after work I loaded the sled in my truck and drove up north. I had to fill out my covid vaccination information in advance on Canada’s ArriveCan website, which was pretty easy. At the border at 9:30pm there were zero other cars. My ArriveCan information was already uploaded in the system, and I made it through after about 2 minutes of questions.

I spent the night at Steven’s Place and we were up and driving out by 3am Friday morning. By sunrise we reached an unmarked dirt turnoff just after the Rutherford Creek bridge near the Pemberton dump. We crossed the railroad tracks and started up. There was soon a small building on the left where a $25/day fee is collected to use the trail. There was nobody there at 6am, though, and we couldn’t figure out how to pay, so we continued up. We soon hit patchy snow a few miles up, and stopped to scout. I ran ahead and saw a long stretch of gravel. We continued up through the snow and through a longer stretch of gravel until we reached the edge of continuous groomed snow next to a big gravel lot with a groomer parked.

We were the only ones in the lot, and quickly unloaded the sled and packed up our gear. I was happy to have the truck, since it would have been tricky making it up there with my forester and trailer. By 7am we were sledding up the road, and it was surprisingly smooth. I think it had just been groomed Thursday, and that was the last groom of the season. It was a bit icy, but we didn’t overheat. The weather was supposed to be clear, but it started snowing for half the ride, and I started getting a bit concerned. Snow and whiteout would be bad news up above treeline on the icecap.

The road got surprisingly steep in sections, but we eventually popped out at the small triangular-shaped cabin. I recognized this from a few pictures online. The trail continued and didn’t look to bad, so we kep sledding up above treeline. At a flat section over Capacitor Lake I had Steven get off so I could rev the engine a few times, and then we continued up. This was only the third time I’d ridden off road, but there were so many other sled tracks I wasn’t too concerned.

We made it up a steep slope and then emerged on the enormous Apa Glacier. Now I understood why this area is so popular for snowmobiling. It’s an enormous low-angle icefield with peaks dotting the side and endless terrain to ride in. And this is just the beginning of the Pemberton Icecap. We rode up higher through untracked powder and it felt like January with all the cold fresh snow. The terrain actually reminded me a lot of the icecap on Ellesmere Island near Barbeau Peak. Up there, like on the Pemberton Icecap, there are enormous expanses of gentle wide glaciers with intermittent peaks poking up. Distances can be deceiving because the area is so large.

We decided to tag a warmup peak first before our main objectives, so stopped at the base of Apa Peak (labeled “Petersen Peak” on peakbagger). We had brought small day packs strapped on top of the gear on the back of the sled, so we took out our skis and started up. Steven led the way breaking trail up soft powder on the gentle southwest slopes. We rounded the corner to the south face and then made it to the summit. There were three bumps of similar height, so we made sure to tag them all.

Views were amazing of snowy peaks in all directions. It looked much more wild than anything in Washington, and I’ll have to make more trips up to BC now that the border is open and I’ve seen the terrain. Interestingly, there were two flags on one summit that were likely from heli skiers. It’s a good sign that you’re deep into the mountains when other people access the same area by helicopter.

We skied fun turns back to the sled then loaded back up. We rode up to a pass, then turned southwest and descended into the next valley, which was even bigger than the first. We sledded around to the southwest face of Longspur and parked again. As before we brought our day packs up and took turns breaking trail up the face. When we were partway up we saw a few other sledders riding in the valley, highmarking on the opposite side.

Longspur was a bit taller and had a steep section at the top that we took skis off for. At the summit we found another set of heli-skier flags, and some ski tracks from a few days prior. I think most people access the icecap purely for snowmobiling, but a handful ski peaks on the side like we were doing. From the summit we saw our fartherst objective, Torah, and our other objective, Conscience.

Unfortunately on our way to the base of Longspur my fuel guage was showing only 60%, which was confusing. I’ve taken a lot of data points over the past two years and consistently get 10 miles per gallon (granted that is on roads that are mostly flat). So with a 10-gallon tank I should have a hundred mile range. We had only ridden in about 20 miles, so it should have showed 80%. But maybe since we were at high elevation (around 7,000ft), with two people and overnight gear, riding in powder up steep slopes, it was using more fuel. I didn’t want to go past the 50% mark and jeopardize running out of gas, so we decided instead of sledding all the way to Torah we’d just go to the next col and then ski from there. I regretted not packing my spare fuel tank, which I sometimes take but forgot to this time.

Note: in hindsight I now realize the fuel guage sensor is only accurate on flat terrain, and can read incorrect measurements when the sled is pointed steeply down or steeply up. In fact, we were still getting exactly 10 miles per gallon even at altitude, with heavy load and in powder, so we could have sledded another 30 miles before turning around.

The ski back down from Longspur was more fun powder, and even more descent than from Apa. We soon got back to the sled and loaded back up. As we started riding again a group of ten sledders came into the valley and blasted up to the col. They looked like they were perhaps a guided group, and appeared to be on a mission to get somewhere fast. We would later discover their interesting destination.

I rode up to a shoulder above the Longspur-Famine col, to a location not in the way of any major route, and parked the sled there. This time we loaded up our full overnight packs. The plan was to ski over Famine in as direct a line as possible to Torah, then make camp at the base. When packing for the trip we had assumed we’d be camping near the sled, so hadn’t been as concerned about weight. I’d brought my heavier pad and tent, and kind of regretted that decision now. To save a bit of weight I removed the vestibule from the tent and left that, and we ditched any luxury items that were not essential. I wasn’t too concerned about anyone stealing gear at the sled this far in. I feel like the farther you are from the trailhead the nicer people get, and we were about 23 miles in at that point.

We skinned up the slope above us, then rounded the NE ridge of Famine Peak, and skinned all the way to the col west of Famine. There were sled tracks up to the col, and I probably could have ridden there if not concerend about the fuel. Though, it is a bit trickier balancing with a passenger and a ton of gear strapped on the back. Indeed, we were the only ones I saw in there with two people on a sled. Everyone else had their own sled. I’m pretty sure we were also the only ones there camping out.

Steven said he hadn’t found any beta from people climbing Famine, and it had looked pretty steep and technical from the north. But luckily the southwest face looked doable. We ditched our skis and gear and put crampons on. Then we took turns kicking steps up the steep rime face, and soon topped out.

By then the weather was starting to deteriorate and the surrounding peaks were going in and out of whiteout. We got glimpses of our planned route to Torah. One option was to drop down the south side of the col and continue down the glacier, then round a corner back north to the base of Torah. The sled tracks at the col continued down, but turned around at what looked like an icefall down lower. So that option sounded potentially difficult.

But if we stayed high and traversed west it looked like we could avoid the icefall and go directly to our planned camp. That seemed like a good bet. So we downclimbed back to the skis and skinned over to the west. Soon the slope got too steep and we packed up the skis, roped up, and kicked steps up. Then we got caught in a whiteout. Steven started over the ridge and descended the other side, but it soon got so steep he needed to face in and downclimb. In the whiteout we couldn’t tell where the snow cliff started and where the air ended.

I gave Steven a body belay down, and it turned out to be only a 10m step. I followed down and luckily the whiteout abatted then. We put skis on and intercepted more sled tracks going in our desired direction, so it appeared the route would work. Once it got to be all downhill we ditched the rope and changed to ski mode.

We took turns skiing fun powder down the huge northwest face all the way down to the main glacier. The snow was perfect powder, just like January conditions, but here it was mid April. The sun was setting and we got great pictures looking across at Torah Peak. We intercepted more sled tracks and followed them down to the middle of the glacier. By 7:30pm we found a nice flat spot on the glacier, probed around, and set up camp. Melting snow took a while, and I was happy to have brought my extra warm puffy jacket. I think the temperature dipped into the lower teens or upper single digits based on the forecast.

We got some good sunset pictures and made it to bed a bit after dark.

Saturday morning dawned sunny and cold, and we slept in quite a bit. By 8:30am we were up and moving towards Torah Peak. It looked close, but as I learned from Ellesmere Island distances can be very deceptive in terrain like this. We first followed the sled tracks a bit towards Torah, and this appeared to be from the ten-person group. The tracks diverged and ended at a curious location in the cirque to the north, so we continued breaking trail west.

We gained a nice ramp, then hooked left, and zig zagged up the low angle slope to gain the east ridge of Torah. From there we skinned up a few steep sections and eventually reached the summit by 11:30am. It was cold and windy, but the skies were clear and the views great. Steven pointed out a bunch of very remote peaks even farther west that he’d helicoptered to in the past. We saw Conscience Peak to the north, and it looked pretty far away.

The cold wind hastened our retreat, and we were soon skiing back down. This would be the longest ski descent of our weekend, and was very fun. We made dollar signs around our up tracks and shredded powder all the way back down to the valley bottom. We were soon back to camp and packing up.

Based on our speed climbing Torah, it appeared we would not have time to do Conscience and get back to the sled before dark. Distances were just too deceptive. I didn’t want to risk sledding out in the dark because navigation could be difficult on the huge icecap, and if low clouds dropped in navigation might be impossible. I usually sled in and out to trailheads in the dark in winter, but that’s on forest roads where navigation is trivial. This was a vast icecap, so very different.

Thus, we decided to save Conscience for another trip and ski directly back to the sled. We followed sled tracks north of camp and a few groups of sledders rode by. We stopped to talk to them, and they were actually doing a big traverse. They started at Rutherford in the morning and were continuing to Brandywine. That sounded amazing, and maybe one day I’ll be skilled enough to do that.

We continued over the Conscience-Famine col and skied fun turns down to the base of Morain Peak. We then turned right and skinned back up to the Longspur-Famine col. By then a whiteout started setting in and it started snowing. Two guys snowmobiled out around us and I think they were the last ones on the icecap other than us. It was starting to get late, and the whiteout made staying on the icefield not appealing.

We finally reached the sled by 6pm, with two hours of daylight to spare. Fortunately, the low clouds started clearing and we could again see the route. We didn’t want to miss this window, so quickly packed up and started riding. Now with the sled pointed downhill the fuel guage was reading higher, and I realized that the slope angle was messing up the measurement of the sensor.

We rode back around Longspur, and then up the steep slope on the southeast side. I saw a lone snow bike parked there with nobody in sight. It appeared it was abandoned,

perhaps because it was having mechanical issues. This reminded me how it was probably wise to go in a group of more than one sled that far in, though worst case we could always ski out if needed. The slope was steep enough that I had a bit of trouble balancing and the sled started turning left. I had Steven jump off, then I stood on one side and leaned way over while feathering the throttle and managed to get it pointed back uphill again.

We soon got back up to the col, and it was downhill from there. We had originally thought of tagging a few bonus peaks near the col on the ride out, but with the risk of low clouds coming back in the dark we decided to just get back below treeline as soon as possible. The slopes were a bit steep, but we soon made it back to Capacitor Lake and the edge of treeline. I had Steven jump off again while I revved the engine some more, and then we continued back past the cabin and on to the groomed trail.

The snow was slushy and the whoomphs not too bad. Down lower there were a few places starting to melt out, but we made it on continuous snow all the way to the lot. I looped back up the trail one more time to rev the engine, then rode back through the gravel parking lot onto the truck. This time there was one other truck in the lot, and I suspect it was from the person who left the snow bike up on the icecap. We were packed up and driving down just before sunset. After burgers in Whistler I rolled in to a forest road turnoff to spend the night in the truck while Steven continued back to Vancouver.

 

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