Flute Summit - December 30 2022
Fitzsimmons Range, Whistler, British Columbia
2015m
After I bagged Miravalles in Costa Rica, I thought that was my ticket to keeping the bagging-train rolling. Unfortunately, once I came back, I got sick, and my streak ended :( As such, after finally getting better this week and having Friday off, I decided that I needed to do SOMETHING. I got up, realized I didn't really want to offroad much solo as I didn't have any information on road conditions, or do anything technical, so I decided to take advantage of my pass at Whistler and try some resort-assisted backcountry. I hastily checked slope angle maps to ensure I wasn't getting myself into avy terrain solo, tried to sort out a plan for how to get up without ski patrol blacklisting me, and set out.
The drive up took longer than expected; for some reason, despite the conditions being better than many powder days previous, people were just slow. I got myself parked at Creekside and up to Roundhouse at about 10:15, just about when the alpine lifts were opening. At this point, I had figured out what at least some of the uphill routes were, and thought that my best shot was down at the bottom of Harmony. However, I was hoping that I could find a way from higher up on the Peak Chair, and figured if I couldn't I could always ski down from there. I was also hoping to snag Whistler and Piccolo summits along the way.
Once I got up to the Peak Chair, my fears of bad visibility were confirmed, along with my unfortunate expectation that the true summit of Whistler was still closed. I'll have to return in the summer for the “chair-top” summits. I followed the Matthew's Traverse and Burnt Stew trails until I was below the Symphony Chair, and found an uphill travel sign. After some map consultation and waiting around to see if anyone else who didn't make a last-minute “plan” was going to come by, I determined that this would, in fact, get me to where I wanted to go.
The first few hundred metres I managed to get through with just pushing myself along with poles and “skinning” without my skins. Unfortunately, while this lasted longer than I expected, once I exited the area surrounding the Symphony Chair, it got steeper than my skis could handle sans-skin, and I had to don them.
Once the skins were on, the biggest challenge was not the physical exertion or complex terrain (it was not complex), but just “seeing where you were going”. The clouds were so thick, at times, that you couldn't even tell if you were moving toward the skin track or off into the ungroomed powder. The great redeeming factor which made this bearable was the excellent marking of the boundaries (if not always the exact skin track). Up to the Flute Summit, honestly, there wasn't much of note. I snapped a couple pictures when the clouds broke enough for the photo to be something other than just pure white, but it really is basically just “skin up an easy, groomed track until the top, which isn't actually very far/high”.
The peak was pretty much just “the apex of the skin track”, no need to bootpack or break a track to get there. The signs around may have said interesting things, but between the snow on them and the clouds between us, I had no chance of figuring out their mysteries. Instead, I snapped a couple quick photos, and proceeded onward to Oboe Summit, my next and final peak for the outing.