Archive:Lillooet - Homathko Icefield Traverse April 14 - May 6 2006

Scott Nelson, Tim Blair, Sebastian Oppel and Sandra Nicol are planning a traverse of the Homathko Icefiled. This page is being used to help them plan logistics.

Next Meeting: Friday night (March 31st) at S&S.

Food

• Contact for food drops is Dale at Tyax Air: 1-888-892-9288
• Sandra and Tim will call him Sunday night (April 2nd on our way down from duffy) to make a plan for the week.
• Whoever goes to meet him needs to take the topo maps, GPS, Flagging Tape (Scott?), Shovel, Bamboo poles.

Schedule

• Tim: April 4,5 (preferred),11
• Scott: April 3,10,12
• Sandra: April 6,7,13

Trip Dinners (for 4)

• Tim - 5 (including 1 heavy one for cache 2)
• S&S - 11 (Including 1 heavy one for cache 1)
• Sebastian - 5

Trip Breakfasts (for 4)

S&S are bringing one group breakfast, in the first food drop

Travel Day

• April 14th - lunch, dinner at restaurants somewhere along the highway. Dinner might be hard to find along highway 20.
• April 15th - breakfast at the car - must bring something along (purchase in William's Lake)
• May 6th - last day of skiing, breakfast and lunch are in the meal plan.  ? for dinner. Possibly make arrangements with Bluff Lake or Homathko Camp, or buy food at Taseko Lake lodge.
• May 7th - get food from restaurants, etc on the drive home.

Note: 1 hot lunch expected from each of us for the group

• 4 hot lunches
• 18 cold lunches

Travel Logistics

April 14th: We'll take two cars: Madeline and the Green Turtle. We'll drive to Bluff Lake and leave the Green Turtle there, then pile everyone into Madeline and return to Taseko Lake Lodge, where we'll leave Madeline. We'll stay the night there, then in the morning the Taseko Lake Lodge folks have offered to canoe us across the river so that we can pick up a logging road for the ski south to the Tchaikazan.

End of trip: The Kings will fly us to Bluff Lake, where their ranch is, and we will all pile into the Green Turtle and return to Madeline at Taseko Lake Lodge, then home.

Group Gear

• Sat Phone (received)
• EPIRB
• 2 X 30m ropes
• 2 stoves (Tim's XGK and S&S Whisperlight)
• Fuel, 110ml/per/day = 9.24L = 2.3L/person
• First Aid Kit (list items here)
  • Tim will bring: 2 tensors, 2 triangulars, bits and pieces...
  • We need: Ibuprofin, muscle relaxant (purchase in Lillooet/Chilliwack), benadryl (purchase in Lillooet/Chilliwack)
• Binding repair kit (Tim has parts, S&S will bring theirs)
• sewing kit (Sandra)

Gear to borrow

Skis (Received)
VBL (Received)
3L Pot (Received)
30m Rope (Received) Tent for Seb and Tim (Received)

Phone Numbers

• Tim's Mum (Jill): 604-929-0806
• Mark Grist: 604-987-6336
• Tyax Air (Dale): 1-888-892-9288
• Homathko Camp (Chuck): 250-286-0962
• Mike King (Whitesaddle Air): 250-476-1182
• Taseko Lodge (Sigfried Reuter): 250-305-6368 (leave message only?)
• Kerstin Bleitgen (Sebastian's girlfriend): 778 999 6084
• Sandra's parents (Tom and Julie): 604.228.1029
• Scott's parents (Annette and Ross): 604.736.1253
• Elkins Creek Ranch : 250-394-7054 or 250-394-7354
• CAA avalanche forcast : 1-800-667-1105
• East side of traverse weather: Tatlayoko Lake
• West side of traverse weather, if the weather is coming from due west: Port Hardy
• West side of traverse weather, if the weather is coming from southwest: Campbell River

Trip Plan

Trip Length	Weather Days	Peak Days	Travel Days
22	4	4	14

Day	Distance (km)	Elev Gain (ft)	Elev Loss (ft)	Days of Food	Camp Location	Notes
1	23	0	0	7	South end Taseko Lake Depends on how far we can drive
2	14	1000	0	6	@ 5500' south of RCAF Peak	Easy valley travel if snow covered.
3	16	1000	0	5	6500' @ toe of Tchaikaza	Ditto.
4	10	2600	1000	4	@ 8200' on Edmond Glacier	Pretty easy glacier travel with one short steep climb and one short steep descent.
5	13	2700	3200	3	At food drop GR395426	Long descent, steady not steep climb. 7 days in drop
6	17	3500	3500	7 to 9	SE end Ramose Glacier	May be too far with big packs? Could easily split up this section
7	17	2000	3100	6 to 8	N toe Norrington Glacier	Variations possible
8	17	3100	4100	5 to 7	@4600' in Boulanger Creek.	A long day. Some relatively low elevation travel down Boulanger Creek at the end of the day.
9	14	3100	800	4 to 6	@6900' on Stilly Glacier.	Longish day. Some valley travel around 5000'; some potential avi hazard in terrain trap (south and north facing slopes).
10	14	3000	2200	3 to 5	@7700' in Sasquatch Pass. Longish day. Taking the big horseshoe variation around the steep slopes west of Stilly Glacier.	6 days in food drop. Food cache in the vicinity of Sasquatch Pass
11-17				8-11	On the Homathko Icefield	Exit Galleon Creek 6 days later

Map

Starting at the north end of Lower Taseko Lake, ending at Bute inlet (traveling from east to west).

• Link to Stikine: Stikine-Iskut_2009