Wahoo Tower, Remora, Dugong, Manatee, Mermaid, Oluk and Polychrome Ridge Peaks
It wasn't that long ago when I first got into ski touring and into skiing in general and only after few months we were already talking with Ben about going somewhere for a week or two and after some researches our eyes got caught by the Manatee Range area which is described in John Baldwin's ski book.
It was our first big trip, especially on skis, none of us ever had to a trip with more than few days into backcountry so this was all new for us.
So soon I contacted Tyax Air to get a quote for the flight into Manatee area which was super cheap and of course we decided to fly in and ski out.
Our plan was to stay in the area for 14 days and have food for an extra day or two and mostly do the peaks in Manatee area and from there make our way Lillooet Peak.
After canceling the trip few times because of the bad weather we finally had our window and decided to go for it.
Day 1
The night before we drove 2 cars on Lillooet Road which was super muddy and we weren't going that fast, just few km before the bridge we had to stop since it was way too muddy and steep for my 2WD and we stopped there and took a nap in the car.
The next morning we woke up and drove Ben's car a bit further up the road to the bridge where we left it and left a not when we are coming back and then we walked back to my car from where we drove back to Pemberton Airport for our flight.
Once we got to the airport we had some bad news, it was still pretty cloudy in Pemberton and the pilot was a bit concerned about flying in and decided to wait for a bit and see how it will go if the weather will improve at all or not.
The clouds started to lift and we got good new from the pilot that we can give it a try but he said if it's too cloudy up there he won't be able to land at our location and he might land down in the valley which wouldn't work for us since we weren't prepared for something like that, since we had cardboard boxes with our food and that won't work at all for us.
Soon we started our flight from Pemberton Airport and it was still looking pretty cloudy and we were a bit worried that he might land in the valley and just before Harrison Hut area we got through those clouds from where we could clearly see our destination Manatee Glacier.
After doing a lap around the peaks the pilot landed on the glacier and warned us about the depth of the snow which was pretty deep.
Once we got out of the plane and took all our gear out we looked at each other and start saying Wahoo, Wahoo which probably looked weird for the pilot.
After few photos with our ride our pilot took off and we started to dig our basecamp.
Took us a bit to make a decent hole for our tent and soon we got everything inside our tent and after few snacks we started our way towards our first summit of the trip which of course was Wahoo Tower.
We soon crossed the glacier and got in front of SE face of Wahoo Tower, which was a bit tricky to get on, a bit steep and the snow was getting softer already.
Once we passed the tricky section we started skinning up the face and soon it was getting too steep and the snow was getting too soft for that time of the time so we switched to bootpacking.
The views were incredible on our way up, we couldn't stop taking photos and looking at the other peaks that are near our campsite.
Soon we got on the summit of Wahoo Tower, the views were fantastic, we definitely took our time on the summit enjoying those views and taking lots and lots of photos.
After lots of photos we started our way back down to our skis where we left them before the summit from where we skied back down to our camp.
Once we got back down at the camp we did some more digging, made some area for our kitchen and our bathroom and after a nice sunset and great dinner we went to bed.
Day 2
Our next day started with beautiful sunrise colours and we decided to go towards Manatee Peak.
After our breakfast we started our way to Remore-Manatee col.
Getting to the col was pretty easy and not too steep but there was few crevasses that we had to navigate through.
Once we got at the col we decided to go first for Remora Peak which wasn't that far away from the col.
We skinned for a bit more after the col towards Remora Peak before leaving our skis and started bootpacking towards the summit of Remora.
The bootpacking wasn't too bad, we had to by-pass a small subsummit and the summit was pretty much a small pyramid that would barely fit one person.
After few photos we started our way back down to our skis.
Once we got down to our skis our plan was to go down to South Face of Manatee.
The snow was already getting pretty soft and sticky and was hard to skinn while traversing to the bottom of the South Face and we aimed for bootpacking.
Once we got closer to the face we made a decision that it's too late in the day and we shouldn't try and get up that face and decided to turn back and head back to our campsite.
Once we got back up at the col we got into some thick clouds which made skiing down not so fun.
Soon we were back at our camp and made our dinner and went to bed.
Day 3
This was our first day of bad weather, we woke up and the tent was almost half covered in snow, our kitchen was gone, and of course our washroom was gone too.
We spent the entire day cleaning up the tent from time to time and looking at the maps we brought and hoping that it will clear later in the day and we could get out but that wasn't the case.
Day 4
After a full day in the tent we got happy to wake up in the morning with some clear skies again.
After our breakfast our plan was to try and go for Dugong Peak since we tough that we should leave that South face of Manatee for some other day after all that snow that we got the day before.
Then we followed the glacier for a bit while going towards Dugong Peak.
Once we started skinning up the crevasses started to get a bit winder and had to do some navigation there and closer to the summit there was visible icefall which we had to go around.
Soon we got on the summit but it was getting pretty cloudy again and we decided to start our ski back down to our camp.
Day 5
This was another day of bad weather, it wasn't snowing as much as the other bad day we had but we were in thick clouds for most of the day.
We tried to go up towards Mermaid Peak but after an hour from our camp we got into those thick clouds and wasn't looking that we will get through them so we decided to just decided to ski back down to our camp.
Day 6
Day 6
We decided to give Manatee Peak another try on this day so we woke up pretty early and start our way towards Manatee-Remora col with headlamps following our previous gpx track.
It didn't took us too long to reach the col from where we skied the short downhill section to go towards the South face of Manatee Peak.
Soon we started bootpacking up the face.
The snow was pretty deep and in some spots it was challenging to make the next step.
It took us way longer than we tough that it will take but we finally got closer to the summit and the face was less steep.
Soon we finally reached the summit of Manatee Peak from where the views were beautiful with that morning light but we didn't spend too much time up there since we wanted to get down that face as fast as possible.
Once we climbed down the face we skinned back up to the col from where we enjoyed a nice and short ski back down to our campsite.
Day 7
On this day we decided to go and give a try to Mermaid Peak which was just beside Wahoo Tower.
After our morning breakfast we started our way towards Mermaid Peak skinning up next to the icefall.
The last section to get to the summit was a pretty broken ridge, probably class 3 which is not fun to do it in ski boots, there was some tricky moves along the ridge, once we saw the rest of the ridge we left our skis and started our way towards the summit moving pretty slow and careful not to destroy our ski boots on those rocks.
Soon we made it to the summit of Mermaid we still couldn't see that famous face of Wahoo Tower but we found an old watch on the summit which also had a piece of paper but it was all frozen together, wondering how old that thing was.
After few photos we started our way down to our skis from where we skied back down to our camp.
Every day we will have the same scenario that in the afternoon the snow will just turn in mashed potatoes and you didn't want to be on any of those slopes, so pretty much every day we only had time to climb something in the morning and then relax for the rest of the day.
Day 8
Another early morning for us and this time our objective was Oluk Peak.
We had to ski down a bit from our campsite so we could loop around Mermaid Peak and get to the slopes going towards Oluk peak.
We got lucky that day since we had some overnight freezing and the snow was pretty hard and super fast for us to get there and it didn't took us that long to get up Oluk Peak.
Once we got on the summit we could finally see that massive and impressive face of Wahoo Tower.
We for sure took our time on the summit taking lots and lots of photos of that face and once the snow started to get softer we started our way down skiing some nice corn snow.
Our plan was to go and try for Dolphin Peak, so we skied half of the slope and accessed the ridge going to Dolphin Peak.
After almost an hour of slowly making our way on that broken ridge we decided to go back to our skis and enjoy a ski run rather than trying to get to the summit which was still far from us and it was all just a narrow broken ridge which is not fun to do in your ski boots.
Once we got back to our skis we skied all the down into the valley to the toe of the glacier which was a fun and long ski run.
For the first time in few days we could finally have some shape under some trees and hear some birds around us.
Soon we started our long way back to our campsite.
Day 9
This was another bad weather day and we started to think about our way home, thinking how long it will take and wondering about the weather if we will have good weather to get out.
Closer to the end of the day while we were in our tent we started to hear a voice, somebody yelling outside my name and it was getting closer so we got out and it was Dean, he just arrived at our campsite.
He wasn't able to join for our trip because of the dates that wasn't working for him so he decided to just join us by skinning in.
Day 10
We woke up the next morning and the weather was looking ok so we made the decision with Ben to get out while the weather is good and unfortunately leave Dean alone.
Took us a while to pack all our gear and food and we still had a lot of extra food which made our packs pretty heavy for a ski out.
After we had our breakfast and got our packs ready we said Goodbye to Dean and wished him luck and started our way down the glacier.
Wasn't too long until we got to the toe of the glacier where we had to cross a creek and start our way up Polychrome Ridge.
It took us way longer than we tough, that slope was just going and going and we kept looking back where we could where our campsite was and where Dean's tent was now.
After a long day we finally reached Polychrome Ridge Peak and form there we skied down a bit to Mosaic Glacier where we decided to stop and make our camp.
Day 11
The next morning we woke up, got our stuff packed and started skiing down Mosaic Glacier staying on the left side of the valley.
At the point the valley was getting pretty steep with something similar to a wide canyon so we decided to start traversing and make our way into the forest to look for a better way to get down.
The forest wasn't too bad but the snow was getting pretty bad.
Soon we finally got out of the forest and no we had a long way back to the car along the valley.
The valley is pretty much flat but there are lots and lots of creeks to cross, on some creeks we had to do 2 trips.
After all those endless creek crossing we finally got to the road which was already melted in 2 weeks and we couldn't drive further on it since it was full with snow and soon we reached Ben's car where we decided to take a nap and the next day in the morning start driving back.
It was definitely a great trip even that we didn't do as much as we planned to do initially and got out with lots of extra food.
Here is the video of the trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZY2VG6sxcs
It didn't took us too long to reach the col from where we skied the short downhill section to go towards the South face of Manatee Peak.
Soon we started bootpacking up the face.
The snow was pretty deep and in some spots it was challenging to make the next step.
It took us way longer than we tough that it will take but we finally got closer to the summit and the face was less steep.
Soon we finally reached the summit of Manatee Peak from where the views were beautiful with that morning light but we didn't spend too much time up there since we wanted to get down that face as fast as possible.
Once we climbed down the face we skinned back up to the col from where we enjoyed a nice and short ski back down to our campsite.
Day 7
On this day we decided to go and give a try to Mermaid Peak which was just beside Wahoo Tower.
After our morning breakfast we started our way towards Mermaid Peak skinning up next to the icefall.
The last section to get to the summit was a pretty broken ridge, probably class 3 which is not fun to do it in ski boots, there was some tricky moves along the ridge, once we saw the rest of the ridge we left our skis and started our way towards the summit moving pretty slow and careful not to destroy our ski boots on those rocks.
Soon we made it to the summit of Mermaid we still couldn't see that famous face of Wahoo Tower but we found an old watch on the summit which also had a piece of paper but it was all frozen together, wondering how old that thing was.
After few photos we started our way down to our skis from where we skied back down to our camp.
Every day we will have the same scenario that in the afternoon the snow will just turn in mashed potatoes and you didn't want to be on any of those slopes, so pretty much every day we only had time to climb something in the morning and then relax for the rest of the day.
Day 8
Another early morning for us and this time our objective was Oluk Peak.
We had to ski down a bit from our campsite so we could loop around Mermaid Peak and get to the slopes going towards Oluk peak.
We got lucky that day since we had some overnight freezing and the snow was pretty hard and super fast for us to get there and it didn't took us that long to get up Oluk Peak.
Once we got on the summit we could finally see that massive and impressive face of Wahoo Tower.
We for sure took our time on the summit taking lots and lots of photos of that face and once the snow started to get softer we started our way down skiing some nice corn snow.
Our plan was to go and try for Dolphin Peak, so we skied half of the slope and accessed the ridge going to Dolphin Peak.
After almost an hour of slowly making our way on that broken ridge we decided to go back to our skis and enjoy a ski run rather than trying to get to the summit which was still far from us and it was all just a narrow broken ridge which is not fun to do in your ski boots.
Once we got back to our skis we skied all the down into the valley to the toe of the glacier which was a fun and long ski run.
For the first time in few days we could finally have some shape under some trees and hear some birds around us.
Soon we started our long way back to our campsite.
Day 9
This was another bad weather day and we started to think about our way home, thinking how long it will take and wondering about the weather if we will have good weather to get out.
Closer to the end of the day while we were in our tent we started to hear a voice, somebody yelling outside my name and it was getting closer so we got out and it was Dean, he just arrived at our campsite.
He wasn't able to join for our trip because of the dates that wasn't working for him so he decided to just join us by skinning in.
Day 10
We woke up the next morning and the weather was looking ok so we made the decision with Ben to get out while the weather is good and unfortunately leave Dean alone.
Took us a while to pack all our gear and food and we still had a lot of extra food which made our packs pretty heavy for a ski out.
After we had our breakfast and got our packs ready we said Goodbye to Dean and wished him luck and started our way down the glacier.
Wasn't too long until we got to the toe of the glacier where we had to cross a creek and start our way up Polychrome Ridge.
It took us way longer than we tough, that slope was just going and going and we kept looking back where we could where our campsite was and where Dean's tent was now.
After a long day we finally reached Polychrome Ridge Peak and form there we skied down a bit to Mosaic Glacier where we decided to stop and make our camp.
Day 11
The next morning we woke up, got our stuff packed and started skiing down Mosaic Glacier staying on the left side of the valley.
At the point the valley was getting pretty steep with something similar to a wide canyon so we decided to start traversing and make our way into the forest to look for a better way to get down.
The forest wasn't too bad but the snow was getting pretty bad.
Soon we finally got out of the forest and no we had a long way back to the car along the valley.
The valley is pretty much flat but there are lots and lots of creeks to cross, on some creeks we had to do 2 trips.
After all those endless creek crossing we finally got to the road which was already melted in 2 weeks and we couldn't drive further on it since it was full with snow and soon we reached Ben's car where we decided to take a nap and the next day in the morning start driving back.
It was definitely a great trip even that we didn't do as much as we planned to do initially and got out with lots of extra food.
Here is the video of the trip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZY2VG6sxcs
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