Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

February 23, 2017

2579m

Pemberton / Duffey Lake Road, BC

Thank to the proximity to the three Duffey classics – Mt. Matier, Joffre Peak and Slalok Mountain in the heart of Joffre Group, this not-so-prominent Mt. Spetch seems overlooked in the mountaineering community. This is a bit unfortunate as Mt. Spetch is such a gorgeous peak and offers aesthetic routes on all sides. There is no walk-up route to the summit, however. For skiers two routes are commonly used – the NW Face which goes at a continuous 40-45 degree run from the summit down to Matier Glacier while the “NE Couloir” offers a steeper and shorter variation. The SE Ridge from Spetch/Hartzell col has also been used by scramblers and goes up “3rd class”.

For me the choice is simple. The NW Face is by any mean the easiest route to reach this summit and regarding skiing vs. snowshoeing I’d go with snowshoes as they’re much more robust for the peak-bagging purpose. Speaking the approach, Anniversary Glacier from Cerise Creek is the most obvious one but having already done it two times (for Mt. Matier and then Joffre Peak) I wanted something different. The Matier Icefall approach from Joffre Lakes is exactly what I was looking for. It’s a little bit more complicated and hazardous but on the other hand, it’d be more fun. Having made my mind at the last minute I left home at 2:30 am on Thursday morning and three hours later I found myself gearing up at Joffre Lakes parking lot. There were only two others cars parked there and it’s such a quiet scene comparing to what it usually is. It makes sense as it’s damn cold and still in pitch dark…

This was my second time doing the Joffre Lakes approach. On my first visit when going for the N. Face of Slalok there were some steep sections between the first and the second Joffre Lake and the trail was as hard-packed as one could expect. Knowing this in advance I opted to bootpack up the trail while carrying snowshoes. This was a good call as the trail was indeed very packed and in fact, it was almost too icy to hike without traction device. I was not in the mood to don crampons this early in the day so “tip-toed” most of the way up, and made to the second lake nonetheless. Onwards I skirted around the left (east) side of the second lake and had no issue following the trail to the third lake. The sky was finally bright enough at this point and I did the first gear switching of the day – swapping head-lamp for my camera. A mandatory food break was taken at the same time, of course.

Plodding across the upper Joffre Lake I soon strapped the snowshoes on. I did not have to at this point but it surely sped things up. Regarding the climber’s left side approach to Matier Icefall, the correctly way is by taking the crest of the obvious moraine up and then cutting a long traverse near the top. The main reason is to avoid the serac’s drop zone. The route I took is further to the climber’s right and the reasoning was to avoid that side-hilling higher up. It wasn’t obvious to me from my perspective in the faint morning light, but this was a poor choice as the terrain kept forcing me to go further to the right and this exposed me to the serac hazard from above. Ascending the debris was slow going and at sections I had to maneuver around some icy patches that even my Lightning Ascents couldn’t bite firmly. At the same time there’s that very cold katabatic wind blowing down and I did not like it at all. Around a corner I finally got myself out of the serac hazard but the wind only got worse. There were two more steep rises and both had to be overcome by cutting some tight switchbacks, before arriving at the plateau on Matier Glacier.

Needless to say it was a long haul from upper Joffre Lake to Matier Glacier but once there the scenery was really good especially looking at my objectives – Mt. Spetch and Mt. Hartzell. Neither of the two looked easy though but at this point I had already picked up a set of skin tracks and it seemed like they were leading towards the direction I wanted. The track weaved around a few large saggings and eliminated any route-finding issue for me. The rest of the glacier travel to the base of Mt. Spetch’s NW Face was straightforward but looking up I could see the tracks stopping about one third of the way up the NW Face. Upon close examination I could see that a small pocket soft slab was triggered by one of the skiers and that explained why they turned around.

A bit hesitating at this moment but any instability was only on the very top layer, and it’s soft and dry. Swapping snowshoes for ice axe and crampons, and then up I went. I stayed to the left of the skier’s tracks and went more-or-less straight up the face but trending a bit to the left, being extra alert on any presence of wind slabs. The steepest part was actually near the bottom (40-45 degrees) and quite short-lived. The middle section was fairly mellow and for the upper face I had the option to either merge onto the ridge or keep going up the face. I opted for the latter and after another steep, but short pitch I arrived at the broad summit.

The views were incredible towards all directions with Joffre, Matier and Slalok stealing the snow, but having another objective to do and knowing the weather was going to turn later in the day I didn’t do much lingering on the summit. The soft snow had made some easy plunging down the upper mountain. Nothing really moved except for some small sluffing. For the steep section near the bottom I turned my face in and easily plunged down.

Grabbing my ditched snowshoes I continued boot-packing down for a while until the grade became flat. A few minutes were then spent swapping gears and then I immediately turned my attention to the nearby Mt. Hartzell. Regarding the peak I just ascended I’d say it deserved more attention. Although it’s considerably smaller than Matier, Joffre or Slalok it offers some equally-exciting mountaineering opportunities.