Black Tusk – Winter Style
Very happy to say I finally stood on the summit of a classic Sea to Sky mountain. A peak of many different faces. The snow conditions weren't looking promising for a big ski mission so we shifted the focus towards a more climbing objective. The original motivation of wanting to get up there was to BASE jump from the summit, specifically the NE-facing wall, which looked very vertical and safe to jump!
On Saturday, February 28th, Chris and I drove to Whistler with 3.5 hours of sleep. A great way to start the mission. We accessed the area via Microwave Tower Road from Cheakamus, which was in really good condition, with snow from the parking lot onwards. We got 5 kms up with the snowmobile until the yellow gate. (There is totally a way to sled around the gate, if one wants to, but you didn't hear it from me.) We skinned up the rest of the road without the sled, all the way to the antennas. It went well, just long and slow. Our bags were heavy with all the overnight gear, and our parachutes... weighed about 25-28kgs each. The road is very flat for about 10 kms in between. Around sunset time, we reached the ridge above the antennas, about 20 km from the car.
A calm, cold night, and a beautiful moon set in the morning as we got up around 5 AM and left the tent at 5.30. We traversed the ridge and reached the bottom of the bootpack around 7. From there, we reached the shoulder fairly quickly and got up the chimney without a problem. The 'climbing' pitches and the top were a lot easier than we anticipated, totally fine to solo up and down with good snow conditions, using crampons and one ice axe each. We reached the top shortly and scouted for an exit for about an hour. Unfortunatelly we did not find a good spot to jump, rappelling off the summits, and looking down the wall. It doesn't mean that Black Tusk isn't jumpable, but we did not see an exit! Still a successful mission in our minds, even though we carried the heavy BASE rigs up and down for absolutely no reason...
We descended quite quickly; the snow was incredible. Riding all kinds of slopes, all aspects, we did not notice any signs of instability. The ride down the road was incredible until we started hitting the flat sections and were forced to transition!
Climbing Black Tusk in the winter is the safest way to do that mountain, if you ask me!
Car to camp: 17 km + 1437 m elevation
Camp to summit to car: 22 km + 563 m elevation
Total of two days, about 10-11 hours each, not being in any rush.
Great for sledding up (although not grommed) or skinning up. A couple of creeky sections to cross.
Short answer: no. Attempted and bailed due to lack of snow and quite sketchy / exposed last pitch.
We did not find a proper exit, although it doesn't mean its not jumpable!
Without a sled, Garibaldi Lake would be more accessible.
No gear needed, it was good enough to solo up and down.