Horstman Peak (Blackcomb N2) - February 18 2023
Spearhead Range, Whistler, British Columbia
2351m
This will be a pretty quick report, just a short bootpack in the middle of a ski day with my cousin Adam. We started the day with no peakbagging intentions, just trying to hunt for some good snow the day after everyone enjoyed an epic pow day at Whistler/Blackcomb. We got an early enough start to make first chair, and warmed up with a quick lap on Jersey Cream before we found 7th Heaven to surprisingly be open before any other alpine chairs, even Crystal Ridge. Given the long weekend for both Canada and the U.S., we were very much in favour of chasing opening chairs to avoid what we were sure were terrible lines. So off we went, and we managed to find some pretty good snow in the trees, albeit with some tight turns involved to uncover those stashes. But there was like, no line when we got there, so we were pretty happy.
Sadly, that didn't last long, as the line was much longer when we got down, and the chair shut down for a few hours just before we managed to get on. At least we weren't the ones stuck on it for that time, hope those guys get some serious comp, hours stuck on a chair sounds pretty brutal. So, we instead made our way back to the main area of the mountain, where we discovered the Glacier chair was ALSO down (not a good day for mountain ops, clearly). So off to Crystal we went, as that was the last "good chair" still open. We got 1 run in on Outer Limits, which was pretty fun, and less skied out than other areas. Once we got down, we saw 7th was open again and Glacier was closed with no ETA, so we got ourselves to the gondola midstation, and back to 7th.
Why are you telling me this, you might ask? Well namely to fill space in an otherwise very empty post, but also because of the type of activity I used to record this trip, I don't have a GPX that follows my path to the summit, so I feel compelled to explain how we ended up at the peak, since the GPX doesn't really reflect that all too well. Anyway, back to the trip!
At this point, it was around 12:30 or so, and the sun was shining, and conditions were altogether "pretty rad". However, with Glacier now offline, and lines getting bigger, I spied some really nice looking powder lines on the chair up, and thought "I'd hike for those". I suckered Adam into it, and we decided to bootpack our way up to find the last vestiges of inbounds powder.
The path was broken quite well up to the cat track where there's some sort of old hut, not sure if that's old from the T-Bar or maybe for ski patrol to do bombings from, but if nothing else, that's when I convinced Adam to put his skis on his bag vs just carrying them up, since I had straps to make that happen. It took some finagling since his bag doesn't have side straps like my ski bag, but we eventually got a mostly-diagonal ski carry going, which made things easier for him.
Past here, there was more like one track to follow, and it disappeared about 40m of elevation below the peak, where I started breaking trail. I had skins, and they'd have made things easier, but I figured if I was going to subject Adam to this, the least I could do is suffer with him. Plus, since I was testing out some new touring boots I had just got fitted, it wasn't really very annoying to be walking, as they're quite flexible.
As we got past the well-broken trail, we slowed down as Adam came to terms with the harsh realities of bootpacking, which given his longer skis, heavier weight (he's thin but super tall), and worse boots for walking, came crashing down on him somewhat, with lots of awkward steps and postholing. Despite not being a peakbagger in any capacity, though, he did push through and come up all the way, even though it wouldn't meaningfully increase the quality of the skiing for the last few stretches. I'll convert him into a peakbagger yet!!
About an hour into the bootpack, we arrived at the top. If you do this with "not super heavy gear" and any kind of touring boots with a walk mode, you can probably bust this out in 15 minutes or so, especially if you have the trail broken for you and/or are more used to bootpacking. It's only about 100m of elevation gain from the chair, if that.
We spent some time on the summit enjoying the views, as the sun was warm and the wind was nonexistent. Eventually, though, we geared up and skied down. The top was a bit rockier than I'd have liked, and I may have scratched my fairly new skis a bit, but at least no cores were shot? Once we got through the first half-dozen turns, though, it turned into excellent skiing, and we had a blast in fresh pow getting down to the cat track. From there, we skied down in some more trees, headed up 7th for our last chair of the day, finally skied Saudan Couloir (been on the bucketlist for a while) as the entrance had been snowed on enough to make it not "just treacherous", and skied down to the car, which surprisingly wasn't even stuck in traffic as we drove home despite the long weekend and great conditions.
A very nice day indeed, and who can complain about an unexpected peak+powder in the middle of it? 10/10 recommend booting up to Horstman Peak, bagger or skier, just to enjoy some good snow and views if nothing else.