Chris Neate and I executed a fairly hastily planned visit to what was hoped would be Nine Peaks, but ended with the tagging of Big Interior. Given Chris’s schedule, he’d hoped to do Nine Peaks in 2 days, but as things turned out that a) wasn’t physically possible for me and b) probably wasn’t possible weather-wise.
We headed up to the Buttle Lake area Friday after work, and after an enjoyable burger in Campbell River, made camp on the side of the lake around 9pm, the last rays of the late May evening slowly disappearing. We got an early start the next day, packing up around 5:30am and getting onto the Bedwell trail at 7:15am. We were the only car at the trail head, but did see 2 elk, 1 black bear, and several eagles on our way.
I continue to develop my backcountry packing list, and even after what I thought was a fairly brutal assessment of “what is needed vs wanted” my pack weighed close to 50 pounds. This wasn’t helped by having to carry my fat powder skis and 4 buckle boots, items which work well in deep snow in the Rockies when carried by helicopter, but are really less than ideal for island slush and long approaches.
Many will be familiar with the Bedwell Lake Trail, which is all in all a fantastic resource given the total lack of Swiss-style high altitude gondola access to the backcountry on the island. As we neared the Baby Bedwell drainage, our choice of late May for this trip began to wear on us, as we encountered fairly deep snow in patches, post-hole’ing our way to the lakes. Probably the “too snowy for hiking and too melted for skiing” season is not the ideal time to visit! I began to fantasize about a frozen lake allowing for a smooth and relaxing ski over to the main Bedwell campground, especially as we gained (and then lost) 20-30m clambering up and over the divide between the Lakes. This was made more real as we saw the melting remnants of a skin trail across said lakes.
We nonetheless gained the main campground by 10:30 or so, relieved to be able to skin up and, while carrying the same weight, relieve our shoulders of the burden. Route finding proved tricky as we searched for a continuous line of snow up the Cream Lake trail, and we ended up having to take off skis a few times to cross rocky stretches. By the time we got to 1100metres or so we were fine, with deep snow everywhere. It was still possible to cross the outfall from Little Jim Lake on skis, although the snow bridges were rapidly shrinking. We circled our way up the ridges on the other side, as I once again realized that Phil Stone’s Island Turns and Tours directions can be terse to the point of frustration, although the new edition with GPS coordinates makes it possible to figure out if one is indeed on the “flat bench”.
We finally transitioned to skis for the last slush-ski down to the cirque at the base of Big Interior, around 1200m in elevation. That still required taking off skis and clambering up the rock bluffs to gain the last snowy descent, an effort which seemed to drain the last energy I had. There’s something about wearing ski boots, holding skis, carrying a big pack, while noticing the significant exposure to the right, that requires a lot of mental energy. Of course this is why I love backcountry skiing, because it is hard to worry about the fate of the world when one’s focus simply must be on the task at hand. But regardless the legs were screaming.
We got to the cirque around 2pm, or close to 7 hours after leaving the car. I am not the fittest skier - see Stefan’s 12 Hours of Pain at Cain for someone who is - so this feels slow, but blame can partially be laid at the feet of the conditions. Even skiing down was slow, as we went through a top 2 inches of slush that 7-11 would be proud to serve. I called an impromptu group meeting at the cirque, and suggested the following. Given how exhausting all the clambering about had been, and the high likelihood of poor weather the following day, and the encroaching high-altitude clouds, I suggested we drop camping gear at the cirque, then take light packs and go for the summit of Big Interior. This of course meant no Nine Peaks, as it is (quite literally) over the summit of Big Interior, but conditions and fitness seemed to make that a non-starter anyway. Chris agreed with this plan, and after some water from the now-conveniently melted out stream in the cirque, we continued on.
The last part was a long trudge up to the summit, some 600m of vert, through the slippery snow conditions which meant every side hill step would result in the top 2 inches of slush sliding, along with the leading ski, a foot downhill. We could see the summit of Big Interior, though, and this led us on. We gained the left most side of the final ridge, with only minimal cornice formation, and made the last few metres up the ridge until things got so steep we could not continue on skis, and we booted up the last ridge to the top, by 5:30pm. At this point I could see Nine Peaks and realize how difficult a 2 day visit would have been. I later found out some enterprising individuals have done Nine Peaks/Big Interior and Septimus in 24 hours, which is pretty astonishing.[1] Given the wind gusts on the ridge and the fact we brought a new tarp as our shelter, it was probably just as well that we didn’t attempt to camp up on the far side of the summit, which was our intended destination.
We skied back down to the cirque, getting a few nice turns in through the slush on the gloriously open north face of Big Interior. At that point it was time for us to try the hitherto untried tarp shelter, which we’d brought to save weight. We dug out a snow pit with sleeping benches and Chris tied the tarp down to skis and poles, which worked well enough in the occasional wind gust. A quick dinner and we were soon inside sleeping bags and off to bed.
The next day we woke early to overcast skies and darker clouds, the weather forecast being bang on with predictions. It validated our call to skip Nine Peaks, as the summit of Big Interior had disappeared from view. Sadly the way out starts with a 200m ascent onto the ridge towards Little Jim Lake, and the moist conditions had made it very hard to keep skins dry. With some extra ski straps we were able to keep them attached enough and got to the ridge where we could safely stash skins for the duration. A better route down to the lake meant we didn’t need to take skis off, and all too soon we were putting skis back on packs for the long clamber back to the car. On our way we passed one tent at the lake, and two more parties heading up, one set in light trail runners hoping for Cream Lake. They seemed a bit disappointed when we told them there was at least a metre of snow past Bedwell Lake. We were soon back at the vehicle and heading home after a great trip to Big Interior.
Lessons Learned
As usual, many lessons learned, but a few:
- I still did not eat enough calories during the day. My goal is around 5000, but it gets hard to choke down yet more nuts and formless bars. Worse, you carry the food back with you!
- Frozen lakes are better than carrying skis around the lake. I feel like this is a lesson that you should not need experience to teach, but that’s how I learn I guess.
- It’s nice to have secondary objectives. In this case, somewhat fitness determined, but weather is another good reason. You still feel like you did something.
- There’s no point in a one night trip. By the time you carry all the crap up for a night, you might as well stay for 3 nights. Next time we could have been more realistic and just done a one-day return trip to Big Interior. Ditching 15 pounds of sleeping and food gear would have made us much faster. Although it was fun overnighting on the snow field!
- Unless you are expecting a gale or snow/rain-storm, or you are staying at a base camp for a few days, a tarp / bivvy sac is more than enough for spring snow trips especially on the island.
- My Suunto compass/altimeter watch is not very useful. The compass keeps needing to be calibrated, and the altimeter is only good to +/- 100m.
Big_interior.gpx (259.6 KB)
I still don’t get the name Marjorie’s Load, nor am I too thrilled about names for mining company investors, but anyhoo. I am intrigued by Lindsay’s mention of bivvying in a mineshaft though! ↩︎