Cougar Mountain - April 23 2022
Coast Mountains, Whistler, British Columbia
1540m
Alright, finally a successful post for this blog! I was getting really tempted to start posting old trips (might still, though it still feels weird to have posts out-of-order, and many would be without much detail or GPS tracks). But let's focus on the positive, Cougar Mountain!
After the last couple trips didn't result in successful summits (and last week being a quasi-successful first attempt at backcountry skiing not worth posting), we (me and Logan) really wanted to feel a summit again, so after perusing the choices that should be feasible without having a melting cornice fall on us, but still taking advantage of the higher-than-normal snowpack for the lateness in spring, we landed on Cougar Mountain. After all, it's less than 10km and under 1000m of gain, should be easy, right?
We got to the trailhead and headed out at about 8:45, thinking since it's a shorter peak, we'd probably summit before things get too wet+loose, and be able to handle the steeper areas on the way down before the same. It started out fairly easily, and for the first time in a while, we actually got to walk on dirt for a meaningful distance! About 15 minutes in, we took a couple pics at what seemed like the first somewhat notable view, and kept on going, feeling invigorated by the ease of walking on actual earth.
Of course, about 5 minutes later, we found a much better place to snap pics, so we took a couple here too -_-
About 30 minutes later, we started hitting consistent snow (probably 850-900m). At about 1100m (about 1hr 20min in, or about 10:05), it got soft enough that we we punched through to our ankles a few times. 15 minutes later, we were rewarded with a decent viewpoint, and the site of our first misadventure.
To this point, the trail had been mostly but loosely followed, so we decided "what the heck, lets have some fun and scramble up here, it looks fun". And it was, maybe 4th class or early 5th at some parts. Definitely not the path, though, and the ground was more loose dirt/moss and a bit of snow than nice, grippy rock, so don't try this if you're not comfortable with the idea of yeeting yourself off the path for cheap thrills and views you'll usurp later. We are such people, of course, so we had some fun and got these rewarding views.
At about 10:50, we got to the top of this little hill, and realized "oh wait that's a cliff in front of us, and the trail back down to the left". So that wasn't great. We had to downclimb a fairly steep section in our boots, and refamiliarized ourselves with the unique skill of "heel kickstepping" to make our path down. So, if you want to have some fun to scramble up, be prepared to find a path back down to the trail on a relatively steep slope. In summer it'll probably be less of a challenge, though.
After we rejoined, I made the mistake of letting Logan take the lead, and we wasted 10 minutes chasing a ghost trail to nowhere, so I took the lead back as the man with the GPS on his arm instead of in his pocket. A short while later at about 11:20 (or about 1200m), we lost the trail, and decided it was time for snowshoes, so we strapped those on. I still think that was really weird, as it was a totally nothing place to turn around, no viewpoint at all, not the "top" of anything, just a random spot in a valley. Oh well, their loss, and even if it's a bit more work, it does feel rewarding to break trail.
Of course, not 15 minutes later, one of my poles plunges deep into the snow, and decides it doesn't like its basket anymore, and I lost that to the depths. I spent about 10 minutes trying to dig it out, but didn't have any success, it was pole-deep and all I could see was more snow no matter how I looked. Perhaps this is a sign that my investment into backcountry skiing poles should come sooner vs later... This definitely didn't make the rest of the hike as easy as it could've been, as the non-basketed pole routinely plunged all the way into the snow without catching. But I wasn't about to let that stop me, so onward and upward we went.
The next hour and a half or so were fairly uneventful. Since the trail we were attempting to follow via GPS was probably made in summer, it doesn't really switch back and just goes straight up the mountain. At times, this resulted in some rather steep sections to snowshoe through, so going was a bit slower than we'd like, having to cut in switchbacks and try to avoid sliding down the late-April snow/slush hybrid snowpack. But, at 12:30, about 33/4 hours in, we got to the base of the lake.
We decided to follow the path, but of course failed at doing so, and ended up cresting the ridge to the left of the lake after 15 minutes, which looked nice, but added some unnecessary undulation to the trail (but far from our worst transgression in this regard, it was only a little down from here before we hit the trail again). And the view was pretty nice.
After this, it was about an hour slog up to the peak. On the way, we had more awkward guessing at the best path-alternative through the trees, carving switchbacks on our snowshoes, navigating our way on top of a rather suspicious mushroom of snow, whose cresting showed up the summit area, and a couple cornices we were not happy to see water dripping off of. But at the end, we reached the high point, just about 5 hours in, a lot later than we expected.
After about 10 minutes of snapping photos, we decided to sit down and have some lunch, which I'm glad I brought despite thinking I'd be down by this time 🤣. It was pretty windy up there, before the summit we just had t-shirts on, but I decided to put the shell on at the top, and after eating, I put some gloves and a hat on as well. Mountain forecast claiming 5-10km/h was a lie!!!!
We spent about 20 minutes eating/relaxing, before deciding it was time to head out. I was a bit tired from breaking trail the whole way up, and now that we had a path to follow, I finally let Logan lead and got to relax a bit. The summit area was pretty chill to descend. Once we got past the big snow mushroom, however, the "fun" began. Snow was a lot looser past 2:30. Going down steeps in snowshoes is also a lot harder than going up. It took us about half an hour to get back to the lake, which honestly wasn't too bad. This time, though, we were smart! We decided to just cross the lake instead of go over the undulating terrain, since we saw it was frozen and snowed over, and would be a lot flatter. Plus, you know, walking over lakes is cool.
The crossing was only about 5 minutes, much better than the way up. The first hour and a half of the descent were pretty smooth, all things considered. However, at about 3:30 (63/4 hours in), we started getting to some pretty nasty steeps in some very loose snow, and some less-than-fun stuff happened. In the span of about 15 minutes, I managed to re-sprain my MCL from having one leg on the path and the other sliding its merry way down the steep slope as I attempted to awkwardly step across it. Sadly, it was too deep and soft for boots/spikes/crampons, so I kinda just took the L there (thankfully, though, as I'm writing this, it's not feeling as bad as my original injury felt so I think I'll bounce back fairly quickly).
After navigating a few steep sections like this, and getting past a dirt-covered patch, we hit a harder pack, and ditched the snowshoes. This made not slipping on the steeps a lot easier, and we started making much faster progress. As I was going through the "fun" of playing try-to-descend-without-tearing-a-ligament, we saw a party of a couple people sitting on a rock off the trail, asking how long it was to get up. We told them, and of the conditions (and how they'd be warmer+softer than we we got there), and they wanted none of that, and came down behind us. They kept pace with us as we awkwardly descended on snowshoes, but once we transferred, they fell behind quickly. Hopefully, they got out safely as they had some navigational challenges, but thankfully cell signal is strong and the path fairly easy to navigate past that point, so I have faith.
Not much else to say past this, we got going at a much more respectable pace once we got on our boots, and got out later than we expected, but with plenty of time to grab dinner in Whistler and drive home to Squamish and Vancouver with daylight to spare.
So while this was a bit more than bargained for, it was finally a successful summit to post here, ended up being pretty fun, and the views were pretty great. It's not the highest mountain around, but it is fairly prominent in the general vicinity, so there's lots to see from there.