Alpine Skills 2023 – Face Mountain

Participants: Kevin Lam, Victor Sira, Nelson Fretenburg, Sri Chaitanya Bonthula, Mona Yu, Marko Smitran, Jacob Grossbard, Kaylie Robinson

Saturday July 15 (Kevin’s POV)

This trip started as any other VOC trip, sleeping later and waking up earlier than I would have liked. Fortunately, there was only a bit of car faff this time around, me missing Victor’s initial text that he was here, Jacob groggily waking up to my call with an “oh crap are you guys downstairs?”, and looping around UBC a tiny bit to pick up Sri. The ride was otherwise smooth sailing towards our meetup point at the Pemberton McDonald’s. From there, we headed towards the Hurley FSR and Mona’s car group literally left us in the dust as they cruised ahead.

At the parking lot, the mosquitoes menacingly circling us foreshadowed what we were to expect at the lakes, tons and tons of these annoying insects crawling around our clothes. The hike towards Semaphore Lake was straightforward, with the most difficult part being finding a suitable spot to set up camp.

Marko (left) and Nelson (right) taking in Train Glacier and Face Mountain (rightmost peak) [Kevin Lam]

Net up or get eaten alive [Kevin Lam]

After setting up our tents, we decided to scout out the Train Glacier, which was where we expected to practice roping up and traversing it together the next day. As we began our journey towards the glacier, it turned out that we had to cross a creek – something that I had never actually done before. I’ve seen videos of people doing it and they usually have a smile on their face, so I fully expected it to be a fun experience – a nice warm refreshing soak for the toes in the summer heat. Now, I don’t dip in alpine lakes much and I guess I also didn’t connect the dots that this creek is coming straight down from the glacier, but when I enthusiastically dunked my feet in, my feet were shocked from the cold and basically not very happy with me at all. I stood there, unmoving with two feet in the rushing water and seriously contemplated backing out and just putting my boots on to find a way to rock hop across. But, with half the group already across and the other half in the water, I didn’t want to faff much longer so I forced my legs to take one step at a time and prayed my feet wouldn’t slide off the slippery rocks. After reaching the other side without incident, I slapped my freezing feet onto the warm rocks, feeling like a lazy lizard trying to absorb all the sun’s warmth. (Honestly the creek crossing wasn’t thaaaat bad, I think I just expected creek crossings to be jolly jaunts across warm water… so I was being a bit wimpy).

Cold as balls [Jacob Grossbard]

Anyways, after the creek crossing, we started making our way up towards the glacier, splitting up in two groups, one scrambling up directly towards the glacier and the other following a somewhat marked path, through talus and moraines. The terrain was a little bit more exposed than what I’m used to, so I took my time ensuring I had good foot placements and trying my best not to slip down and die (well probably just injured).

As we reached the glacier, Kaylie and Jacob remarked at how little snow coverage there was, with ice nakedly glistening the whole way up. From their trip last year, it also seemed that there used to be a sizable lake/tarn that pooled at the foot of the glacier that was no longer there, leaving only behind cracked and dusty ground.

Sunny, icy, dusty [Kaylie Robinson]

With the glacier being so snow-uncovered and its crevasses all exposed, we figured that roping up to traverse it wasn’t very necessary. With time on our hands, we decided to explore the glacier a bit and talked about ice anchors and safe travel on ice. We also practiced using ice screws and learned about V-threads.

As we made our way back down, I took more notice of the alpine plants growing in the harsh environments and thought back to the enjoyable intro to alpine plants trip I went on the previous weekend. Thanks to Beth Roskilly for the slideshow talk and Joanna Grower for that trip!

Kevin, loving plants [Mona Yu]

Jacob, loving plants [Kevin Lam]

The plants that Jacob loves [Jacob Grossbard]

Right before dinnertime, most of the group wanted to take a quick dunk in the lake to cool off, which I was a bit apprehensive of, remembering how cold the creek was and wary of subjecting the rest of my body to the same treatment. However, being the easily peer-pressured person I am, I decided to join in, and boy was I glad to! The lake was way warmer than I had anticipated and there was even a little dirt mound at the centre of the lake for us to stand on and chat.

Refreshing dip in the lake [anonymous]

At dinnertime, we ate by the lake, where we watched the sunset shine on Face Mountain, which was our objective for tomorrow. It was a cool experience eating dinner and relaxing, while looking directly at our goal, and me mentally preparing myself for the next day’s adventures.

Enjoying the views of Face Mountain at sunset [Marko Smitran]

As night began to creep in, our conversations began to wander to more random fun things – which turned into a suggestion by Mona to do some tortilla slapping with a mouthful of water, with the goal being to not lose the water in your mouth and to make your opponent spit out their water. To our pleasant surprise, Victor actually had 4 mini tortillas packed and he graciously offered to sacrifice 2 so we could slap ourselves silly. As it turned out, instead of us slapping each other, it became more like a “line up so Mona can slap the crap out of us with half a tortilla”, which was perhaps even more entertaining!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/cCaUSkBTLeg3t4dJA

All in all, it was a great first day of the trip and in this short period of time I had already learned about creek crossings, moraine formations, V-threads, route finding, and to never anger Mona if she has a tortilla in hand.

Sunday July 16 (Nelson’s POV)

The next morning started off pleasantly on time around 6am. Most of the group had decided to cold soak their oatmeal the night before to save time in the morning. However, Marko and I weren’t ready to give up our warm breakfast. It’s hard to believe what the world is coming to – pretty soon, cold mush will be served for every meal. Nevertheless, the group started moving towards our first challenge of the day. Everyone was well versed in creek crossing from yesterday, so it was quickly conquered without any wet boots and we continued on our way. Once again, we were faced with the choice of either a delightful scramble route or a loose scree slope. The majority of the group chose the former, while a few scree soldiers opted for the hands free route.

Soon enough we arrived at the toe of the Train Glacier and everyone was excited to explore further than yesterday. We donned our harnesses and crampons, removed axes from our packs, and set off up the glacier. There were few crevasses in our way, and the ones that did exist were easily avoided or stepped over.

Victor looking like a pro [Jacob Grossbard]

Across the glacier, there were thin paths of water rushing down the surface and draining into deep bottomless puddles. We probed a few of them and couldn’t find the bottom. These streams of water were particularly useful for filling up our bottles, so at one point Victor leaned over to fill up his Nalgene. A few seconds later, the bottle was careening down towards the bottom of the glacier. With a hop, skip and a jump, he proceeded to expertly run after it in crampons while attempting to slow its descent with his ice axe. Only a few minutes earlier, we had been joking about how fun it would be to have a slip and slide down one of nature’s water slides – Ironic. Little did we know, the Nalgene sliding down the glacier would foreshadow how quickly time would slip away from us that day. Luckily, Victor managed to catch and grab his bottle.

As we moved higher up the glacier, we got a better view of our destination for the day. Face Mountain’s menacing south face towered above us. However, there was an inviting looking notch where the glacier joined the ridge and we headed there. As we got closer, the glacier ice slowly turned to snow, and we became more cautious of each step. The people in front started probing each step as they went, ensuring they could still feel solid ice below. There were a few instances where the ice could no longer be felt, indicating probable crevasses below. For the most part, the gap in the ice was less than a large lunge so we were able to step across safely. This provided some excitement as my only previous glacier experience was G1, where all the crevasses has been exposed as is usual in September. At one point the ice underneath us started to disappear, so we made the collective decision to rope up. We only had about 200m to go until the rocky notch in the ridge, but we figured it would be the safest option while giving us some needed practice. Maybe it helped us feel like real mountaineers too. Victor and Marko each took the lead of our two 4-person rope teams, with Kaylie and Jacob in the back providing necessary advice and reminders.

Ropes on! [Sri Chaitanya]

At the col, we took a nice hour-long lunch break to enjoy the views. It was only about 10:30 – lots of time considering how close the summit was. We ran into a few groups doing the Face to Locomotive Traverse, which follows the ridge around the glacier we ascended (Train Glacier). This looked like a wonderful traverse to do on a future trip. While enjoying the views, Marko and I used the rest of our baguette to create delicious sausage and cheese sandwiches. We removed our harnesses and crampons, before starting the scrambling portion of our day. The rock was loose but was nothing out of the ordinary and improved as we got higher. The scrambling was Class 2-3 throughout depending on what route was chosen. When we reached the summit, we were treated to views of the Sessel Mountain forest fire to the north and Harrison Hut area to the south. Everybody spent time trying to spot where Phelix Hut was among the many mountainous ridges, as well as admiring the impressive Mount Sampson. Both Victor and I were very confident in our respective guesses of Phelix’s location, only to look at the map and realize we were both well off the mark.

Impressive Sampson [Sri Chaitanya]

Big Fire [Jacob Grossbard]

It was about 1pm when we set off from the summit to head back to camp. We followed the cairns down the ridge and across a small snow patch. We knew we needed to find a gully to use to descend off the ridge, we just didn’t know exactly where. We came across the 1st gully and Jacob went to investigate. He shook his head and came back with a report of “It might work, but it seems like it drops us off higher than we would like”. With this information, we decided to carry on as it seemed like the real gully would be further along. A few moments later, we came across a second gully. I took a quick look down into the heart of the gully and called back to the rest of the group, “Wow, it looks absolutely horrific and sketchy, but probably goes”. A look at the map confirmed that this gully lined up with the Open Street Maps(OSM) route, so it had to be the correct way, right?

While some of the group deliberated, others looked higher up the ridge to scout for easier ways. Everywhere we looked, there was steep, loose scree with a long fall waiting below. After some time, 3 brave souls (Mona, Kaylie, Marko) decided to give the gully a try while the rest of us waited at the top. Our main concern was accidentally kicking rocks onto one another, so the group of 3 stuck closely together as they slowly descended the gully.

—— Inside the Gully with Marko ——-

“I see footsteps” Kaylie exclaims. “This must be the correct gully”. Hesitantly, I follow her down. “Kaylie knows what she is doing” I think to myself. “Plus Mona is already down there – it can’t be that bad”. Mona and I find a comfortable place to rest and take a seat. Due to the loose nature of the gully we decided to descend the first part one by one to mitigate rockfall hazard. We looked on as Kaylie sent down baby sized after baby sized boulders down the gully.

“Do you want a piece of dried mango while we wait?” Mona asks. “Sure” I say. A piece of mango is just what I need to get me through the gully. However, what happened next still haunts me to this day. Mona did something unthinkable, something that made the whole experience much worse. As she lobbed the piece of mango at me from the other side of the gully she let go a little too soon causing this scrumptious morcel to careen through the air missing its mark by a full 10m – its final resting place on a narrow ledge above me. I had to scramble up to this precariously perched scrap of mango. Standing on my tippy toes I narrowly snatch the mango and sink my teeth into it. Mmmmm, the scramble was worth it.

The rest of the gully involved hanging on to loose rocks by our fingernails, toenails and teeth. “Wow, this rock is pretty cool” I think to myself as an encyclopedia sized rock that was previously my seemingly stable handhold came loose into my hand. We generally stayed to the skiers left side of the gully holding on to the side of the cliff where we could, and bum sliding down the dirt where we couldn’t.

A grueling 45 minutes later we emerged. Mentally tired and bottoms full of holes. We recount our harrowing experience to Nelson and Victor who were patiently waiting at the bottom behind a large boulder. It turned out their gully was much nicer than ours and they had no problem, getting to the bottom in a mere 15 minutes.

——

Sketchy gully [Nelson Fretenburg]

Better gully [Jacob Grossbard]

Looking up at the sketchy gully [Sri Chaitanya]

Suddenly, dark clouds were forming on the horizon. A cold chill swept across the mountain ridge and a worried look was passed around the group. The first 3 were still only a quarter of the way down the tricky gully and no one wanted to be stuck on the mountain in the rain. With the same thought in mind, Victor and I made a dash for the original gully we had come across in hopes that it would lead to a faster route down. Funnily enough, as soon as we got to the bottom of the gully, cairns marking an easy traverse around to the left started appearing. 15min later and we were at the base of the sketchy gully. At this point, we waited about 30min more for the rest of the group to catch up – the three who descended the sketchy gully and the rest who followed our route. Don’t put too much faith in OSM routes.

Time goes fast while you’re having fun. While I can’t confirm that everyone was having fun, this age-old adage aptly described our situation. It had now been more than 2 hours since we left the summit and we had barely made any progress down towards our tents. I did some quick maths and realized that we might only arrive back at the car at 9pm. Our hour-long breaks might have turned this into a 14-hour day.

The rest of the hike down the ridge was uneventful and soon enough, we arrived just below the base of the glacier. We made quick time back to our tents and packed everything up while slapping away the mosquitoes. Jacob, Mona, and Kaylie went for a dip in the lake one last time before we hiked out towards the cars. When we arrived at the parking lot the sight of our trusty steed, Mona’s Mazda (Jenny), made us celebrate with joy. As we drove away, I drifted off to sleep to the sound of rocks smashing our car as Mona went for the Hurley descent speed record.

—

Overall, I think everyone on this trip realized after the fact that we should have done more research about the descent route from the summit of Face. That would have made our life a bit easier. We also felt that we could have done a better job communicating what route everyone was taking, since we were in a larger group (8 people). This didn’t really adversely affect us, but it easily could have if the weather had gotten worse or someone had gotten injured. Some learning that we will keep in mind for next time.

Alpine Skills 2023 – Face Mountain

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