Elevation Gain: 2,069m
Distance: 22.77km (includes e-bike)
Total Time: 9 hours 57 minutes
Date: November 24th, 2024
Alex had been away the past few weekends travelling abroad and was finally back and in search of the same thing I was: a big day out doing some trail breaking with some uncertainty and unknowns. The weather always has the final say in where such things transpire and this weekend it was the Manning Park/Coquihalla area with the best conditions. Alex did some sleuthing and landed on Tulameen Mountain. It’s not normally done in winter conditions and there was definitely a good chance we’d get shutdown. The biggest concern was the avalanche terrain and risk. Avalanche Canada was calling for Moderate/Low/Low with the primary problem being wind slabs along ridges and in steep sections. Our plan was to take the west ridge and traverse along the southern side and we felt we could avoid most of the wind slab problems this way. However, we’d have to feel things out and back off as necessary. The avalanche terrain on Tulameen is no joke and there’s several massive exposed slopes one has to cross to reach the summit. If conditions weren’t right we planned to bail and go for nearby Mount Snider.
One final sting in the tail is that Sowaqua FSR was purportedly closed at the beginning for extensive repairs. However, both of us had e-bikes and snow line notwithstanding, we might be able to get all the way down the road regardless of any impasses. So the destination was settled, the plan drawn out and all that’s left is the execution.
I met Alex at the Grandview super store around 4am and 2 hours later we were driving down Sowaqua. To our surprise the road was not blocked at the beginning and we were able to drive all the way to the 7.5km mark. A large rock truck blocked the rest of the road off, so we hopped on the e-bikes and rode the rest of the way to the trail head. The sun came out just in time for the start of our bushwhacking and after a short stint in the cut block we actually landed on flagged trail. The trail was faint in spots, but we were able to follow it all the way to 1420m roughly. Here we followed a snow free ridge up to 1480m where continuous snow finally started.
We took turns trail breaking up deep mash-potato like snow until reaching the top of a wind scoured rocky ridgeline. From the top of the ridge we merged into a pocket of forest and then up through steep trees to gain the west shoulder of Tulameen at around 2000m. The trail breaking had been a big effort up to this point and it was nice to finally have the bulk of the elevation gain out of the way. Now too, we could get a better sense of what the snow conditions would look like. To our advantage, the large sections of the ridge were scoured bare or sitting under only 20-30cm of snow.
From the shoulder we continued east dropping down a short steep slope and following the ridge all the way to the west/false summit of Tulameen. This false summit presented the crux of the day. Several gullies intersected our planned traverse route with huge run outs and certainly a popular zone for avalanches under more favourable conditions. We had been confident in the snow so far, as even wind loaded areas were proving to be very stable. Nonetheless, we’d test the snow carefully before making any exposed traverses. Soon after our assessment we reached the first gully and sure enough the snow was solid. Where the snow had become slabby from the wind, there was no propagation or bed surface to slide on and it was well bonded to the snow underneath. In most places it was just airy snow down to the ground.
We proceeded around the mid point of the false summit and then swapped into crampons to negotiate a rocky snow covered band. This marked the final tricky section to the col and then we were able to slowly make our way up the wind scoured and rime-covered summit ridge line. Near the top we mistakenly took the first pinnacle to be the summit and started scrambling up one of the rime channels. I peered around the corner before too late and noticed the actual summit just beyond. We gingerly down climbed and then walked over to the easier true summit where a wind blasted cairn awaited us.
With a few celebratory photos we quickly descended in search of a reprieve from the gusty winter air. Our descent down the summit ridge went smoothly and we found shelter in the col. I lead the post holing back up to the rock band traverse on the false summit and we kept the crampons on until we’d made across all of the exposed sections of the false summit.
Now that all of the difficulties were out of the way we marched back to the western shoulder and took a long break refuel. The descent from this point was not all that eventful, save for some tedious rock snow shoeing on the lower ridge. We reached the bikes with light to spare and landed at the truck just as the dark set in.