Alpaca Peak (Zupjok ⇾ Alpaca Traverse) - January 7 2024
Anderson River Group, Coquihalla, BC
2063m
This trip report finishes things off from the top of Llama Peak, which I'd previously ascended on the way to Alpaca, the end of the traverse from Zupjok.
The descent down from Llama to about 1870m is quite short, so that was only a couple minutes of skinned-skiing (still didn't want to waste time with any transitions until I topped out Alpaca). That plus the short walk to the flat spot where the ridge turns northwest took about fifteen minutes, and then it was basically all uphill to the top.
Another 10 minutes covered about half the remaining distance on very easy terrain, though I was slowing down in my now-quite-tired state. I found a cool little wind scoop formed around a rock on the ridge, which I bothered taking a picture of. The fun, easygoing terrain was about to end though, because after a short drop down a couple metres, I was faced with something I didn't expect: a crux. There was a steep, rocky cliff that was too steep to skin, and went all the way across the ridge, which was not going to help with my goal of "get it done as fast as possible".
This little rock step ended up causing my quite the delay. I couldn't go left (too steep, and it dropped off into the valley), I couldn't go straight up on skis at least (too steep, no room for switchbacks), and the right also dropped off steeply over the exposed ridge. So, I skinned towards that exposed edge (naturally) as far as I could safely, since it was the mellowest terrain. Then I had to pop my skis off and try to boot up the dozen or two steps that'd be necessary to get back on solid footing. The first dozen were miserable swimming in waist-deep snow, until I eventually got onto a part of the slab with enough variation in the rock, with a helpful bush to get me going, and I could start taking steps up. Once I took the first couple, it was much easier going to get back on top of the ridge proper, and I could put my skis back on. The biggest problem was that it "just took 10 minutes" which I really would've rather not spared, as I was really hoping to summit by 3pm.
Instead, I topped that rock out with 8 minutes til the hour mark, and I still had over 100m to ascend! The good news was this was the only crux, and it was straightforward skinning to the top, so I managed to grind out the last ~150m of elevation in about 15 minutes, topping out at 3:10pm. The true summit was a fun little rock to clamber on top of, where I spent about 10 minutes taking pictures and transitioning to finally ski for the first time all day (awkwardly "getting down" with open boots, free heels, and skins on does not count).
The skiing off of the summit was not great, to be honest, since the ridge got hit pretty hard by winds and didn't have a strong base, so it was slow snow on the wind crust, combined with an unfortunate few scrapings over thinly-veiled rocks. The fact that I couldn't see more than a couple metres and had to follow my skin track didn't help. But hey, it beat walking.
At least, it did until I got to the spot where the ridge turns southwest towards Llama, and I had to do some rather annoying ski-stepping and a few steps of bootpacking to get back on a high point before I could ski down to the bottom of the Llama-Alpaca col. That was annoying.
Once I did that, though, it was easy skiing down to the bottom of the col (basically just straightlining it, rocks notwithstanding), then a quick skin back up to the top of Llama. The whole process took about 40 minutes, and I was rewarded for my effort with some nice sunset views, better visibility, and the promise of some better skiing off of Llama towards the bumps between it and Zupjok.
The ski down the ~200m descent from Llama was quite nice, as the wind-affected crap from above was replaced with soft, deep powder, no scraping, and generally pleasant turns on open terrain. I'm glad I bothered to rip skins on the way back, or I'd have just suffered all day for nothing. Unfortunately, as it tends to go with traverses, my few minutes of pleasure were quickly over, and replaced with 60 minutes of skinning up and over the 2 bumps, and the Zupjok itself. I was pretty dead at this point, so it was a longer process than it probably should have been. I could've eaten something, but I felt it'd take just as long as skinning up without waiting, and the latter would be less cold. It was not a warm day, my gloves were freezing up if I left them off my hands for more than a minute. So, I just suffered my way up, cursing at the fact that skiing down doesn't break a useful trail at all, so I had to do so just to get back to the first peak.
Bump #1 took about 15 minutes, the next took about the same, and the last push, surprise surprise, the same as well. The lost 15 minutes were lost to the short descents between bumps, since those aren't as straightforward when you have skins on compared to "actually skiing".
On the summit, I pulled the headlamp out, closed all my zippers, locked the boots + bindings up for the last time until the forest road, and started my descent at 5:25pm, a casual 8 hours and 17 minutes after we started the day 🙃.
The skiing was actually easier than I was expecting on the way up. It seemed like some people had followed us up, which might annoy some due to "poached lines" but for me in the dark, just showed me more viable options to get down, which was nice. The upper couple hundred metres skied great, and I managed to link a good few turns with only a couple tight spots that made me stop and shuffle through a constriction in the trees to get myself down. This only took about 20 minutes, mostly due to "needing to take it slow, because it was dark".
Unfortunately, below 1600m that did not last, and I started hitting a ton of roots, rocks, and other debris lurking below the shiny new snow. It wasn't so bad that I was tripping and falling or anything, but boy did I regret not bringing my rock skis, I winced on behalf of my bases dozens upon dozens of times in the lower forest. It was still fast, though, and 15 minutes took me down to an alternative skin track presumably set by the other party that came up (they probably wanted to cut off our longer meandering along the full ridge, which they also probably didn't know actually brought them up Zupjok at all). I foolishly followed a fork that went down to a creek and ended, and had to backtrack uphill for a while. So, I spent 10 minutes crawling on my knees because I was too lazy to transition, until I got to the high spot on the correct fork, and could continue skiing down.
That wasn't a long ski, and in a couple minutes, I hit the "main track" that was shared with Iago, which in my head marked "being back in civilization again", as it was all easy from that point on. Of course, though, I again refused to put my skins on, and instead side-stepped up for another 10+ minutes until I got to the high spot above the forest road, where I could actually ski once more. I really need to become more willing to just put my skins on for these sections. In my defence, it was dark, and I couldn't tell (or remember) precisely how long the small hills were.
Getting to the car from here took about 40 minutes, covering just under 4km. The first half to the log bridge were great, consistently downhill and easy cruising, but after that, I again was too stubborn about not putting skins on, and probably ended up slowing down my return by side-stepping up a few small hills to try and keep the skins only for "the final walk" out. I'd recommend skinning from "the first spot after the bridge that you stop going down" to the 1km mark from the parking, and from there, you COULD rip skins for about .5km, before finally needing them for the end. Instead, I just stubbornly suffered up the undulations until that last 0.5km, where I finally put the skins on, and walked back to the parking at the Zopkios Rest Area.
Tanveer was either nice enough to wait around to make sure I got out okay, or had to wait because I had a compressor and he had a slow leak in his tire, not sure which 🤣. We chatted, congratulated each other on our summits, and went our separate ways in the evening. I, of course, wasn't content with just waking up at 5, breaking 10+km/1000m of trail, and driving 3 hours back home, but also stopped to meet some friends in Abbotsford for dinner just to make the night extra-late (was totally worth it though).
As for my overall thoughts on this traverse, I'd say a couple things. First, wait for more snow, so the forest doesn't ruin your skis. Second, I agree with the assessment made by John Baldwin in his book: save this for a day when snow conditions make more fun routes infeasible. It's a lot of skinning and ups/downs, not a ton of shredding. But for peakbaggers, it's pretty good value, has minimal avy risk, and easy to access, so "go for it"!