I was looking at Mount Waddington area since I've got the ski book by John Baldwin and since Alexis was moving out of BC this year we decided that we should one ski trip together before he moves away and we pretty much had the same idea right way to go explore Waddington area and the we started talking about going up to Mount Waddington NW summit.
I contacted John Baldwin right away which replied just in few minutes and gave me some tips and all the contact information for the helicopter company and the next thing we started to make our team.
We've decided to go in the for more days so we could go for the summit of Waddington but also do some other peaks in the area and soon we booked our flight from Tatla Lake.
We had to change our flight a bit because of the weather but soon there was finally a window that could work for us so we decided to give it a try and we all packed our stuff and we all (Me,Alexis,Ben,Dean) left Vancouver at about 6 PM.
We had to convince Dean to join us and will be ok if he can't pay since the helicopter won't cost more if joins anyways.
The drive to Tatla Lake wasn't too bad, while everybody else was sleeping I was trying to stay awake and following truck drivers for most of the ways.
Once we were getting closer to Tatla Lake we could see the Coast Mountain rising in front of us.
We stopped at Tatla Lake to get some gas but the gas station was closed so we decided to drive to the airport and maybe get gas from there.
The drove up to the airport was pretty smooth and soon we had some gorgeous views of the lake and the peaks around it and after our briefing we started to unload the car and load the helicopter.
The flight was pretty spectacular, lots and lots of big mountains and soon we saw the might Mount Waddington and there it was the entire route to NW summit that we were about to take in a day.
We landed on Dais Glacier, set up our camp and had some food and then we decided to go for a short tour up the glacier and check the route up while there is light.
It was a good idea because that glacier was full of crevasses and we decided to make a track up to the base of the couloir so we could just follow it the next day with headlamps.
After few photos we skied back down to our campsite where we had our dinners, packed our packs for tomorrow's climb and went early to bed.
The next morning on April 12th we woke up at 2 AM and at 3 AM we started moving on Dais glacier following our previous tracks.
As we were getting higher on the glacier towards the couloir the views were getting gorgeous while the light was changing.
Soon we got to the base of Dais couloir and started to boot pack up the couloir.
From the top of the couloir the views were just special with that morning light.
Soon we started to make our way to Angel Glacer and there it was the mighty Mount Waddington with the entire route to the summit.
First we stayed high traversing near the icy rock face but once we got to the bergshrund we saw that it's too big and we might be able to get down bu we might not be able to climb back up so we had to go back and look for a different route.
The second option had also a bergsrhund that was also open but still had a bridge that we took and got down from where we started our long long way up the Angel Glacier.
We were moving pretty slow and then we realized that we forgot to bring a stove, I had it in the gear list for the summit day but I guess we were too excited and forgot to bring the stove so everybody was running low on water.
Higher up on the glacier there was another berghsrund that was pretty easy to cross but near the summit there was one more which was open.
Once Alexis crossed the last bergshrund near the summit block he pretty much collapsed it and had to use a rope to pull me up and as Dean and Ben was further away we decided that Alexis will stay there and pull them up while I kept going kicking steps for the last part to the summit.
Half way up the sloe got super icy so I've decided to stop and wait for Alexis so we could use a rope to continue further up to the summit and used 2 ice screws for my anchor.
Once Alexis got to me we roped up and I continued going up.
Just on my last few steps getting on the summit I started to see that amazing view of the true summit of Mount Waddington, that's a view that you could never forget and one by one we all got on the summit where we took lots and lots of photos.
Took us 14 hours to reach the summit since we left our camp on Dais Glacier, we knew we had to be fast and at least get off Angel Glacier before dark, so soon we started down climbing back to our ski gear and started skiing down.
After crossing the last bergshrund we took another look at that might route and started our way to Dais Couloir.
We had to go down the couloir with headlamps already and skied back down just following our skin track.
Took us 7 hours to reach our camp and once we got there we were tired and just went straight to bed since we for sure won't be doing anything on the next day.
The next morning we all woke from the sun and soon started our breakfasts and later in the day everybody went for a quick short lap above our camp while I decided to stay because i had some blisters.
The next day we had a bad weather day which helped to heal my blisters.
The next day the weather cleared again and we decided to go for The Tit which looked pretty impressive form our camp.
The last section to the summit had a scramble part which wasn't great with ski boots but the views were amazing.
On the next day we decided to go for Regal Dome Peak since from there we could contact the airport and get some updates on the weather and see when we should fly back out.
Regal Dome for sure offered some nice photos of the entire area and especially of Mount Waddington.
On the next day we went towards Franklin Volcano peak which was pretty easy with few bigger crevasses at the base.
On our pick up day the clouds were moving in and we were thinking that we might not be able to fly out that day which happened but the next morning we packed our gear and started to wait hoping that we will be picked up at least today, but it was still pretty cloudy.
And just after an hour once we were done packing we finally could start hearing that helicopter approaching us and soon he picked us up and we flew back to Tatla Lake and had a one last view of Mount Waddington.
We were pretty low on gas but they didn't had any gas at the airport but we made it back to town where we went to the only gas station in town which was closed and after knocking on the door we decided to walk around the town and find somebody that is home and ask for some gas and we got lucky and we were able to buy some gas just enough so we could get to the next gas station.
The drive back was longer and way more tiring then the drive in.
In the end it was an amazing trip with a great team.
Here is a video about our trip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VydjD0uGOE
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