Chris Christie's blog

North Joffre Ice

Chris Christie — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:46:51 -0400

Rating

Got a call from Bruce Kay the other day to join him on a project he had in the North Joffre area. I'm alway's a little apprehensive when BK calls, an epic is usually on the menu.. He must have been pretty far down his phone list cause I had hardly swung an ice tool on anything steeper than 50 deg in the past 2 years. Anyway, Before I knew it we were heading up the drainage towards the wall and I started to wonder what I had signed up for. The route was waaaaay bigger than he had suggested. The snow ramp to the 1st pitch of ice was steeper than anything I had skied this year. Bruce took off like it was nobody's biddness and 40 feet out with no gear, started to get hammered with spindrift from 1000 feet up. It lasted about a minute at a time and breathing was super difficult not to mention the ice cream headache from having half the mountain stuffed into your helmet. After some time BK climbed the 1st pitch and I started off.Stupid hand, buldging calves and screaming barfy's quickly became reality . The route consisted of blue ice, Snice, ( mix of ice and frozen snow) sticks were pretty good with sparse protection. The cruxes were usually overhanging sugar snow with no gear in sight. A BK speciallty and he is so damn casual about the whole problem. Anyway the route ended up going a 1st ascent at 8 Pitchs, WI4+ with a few mixed rock moves thrown in.. We simu climbed the last 3 pitches with constant heavy spindrift.. I was getting clobbered by his leftovers.. Pretty dry mouthed the whole time. He forgot his headlamp and we topped out at 8pm in the dark not knowing the way down.. Crossed a 400 foot 45 degree hanging hanging slab for more pucker action above our route and found a fairly easy snow ramp down to the bowl and another 30 minutes to our skis. Images of the climb were shot from the hip as the walls of snow coming down were pretty pant shitting.and I was already multitasking untangling frozen ropes and dodging bullets... Left the truck at 8 am returned at 10pm. Not bad for 2 chocolate bars and chomping on ice for hydration, Cheers, CC

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Currie Wedge TR

Chris Christie — Mon, 14 May 2007 21:26:38 -0400

Rating

TR??..TR. Currie 2 Wedge.. Jimmy Martinello, Kelven Vail, John Burko and Chris Christie, I think we broke a record with 3 consecutive days of good weather, (well almost!!)

Saturday morning we did a heli drop on Mount Currie and traversed to Mt Weart (9000 ft roughly) and attempted to ski the Owls, 1500 feet 50 deg.. Snow was buttery on the 10km traverse to the base with North facing variable verglass to some winter pow.

The main couloir actually looked like it held a feathery surface dusting of good winter snow so we started the climb. Not far into the ascent it was obvious things were pretty firm. I fell behind as usual trying to take photos and was getting my ass kicked by debris so I decided to turn around and take images from a vantage point. Not soon after my buddies turned as well because of snow condish and debris from above. We carried on another 10km to the North Ridge of Wedge and bivied in an amazing location. Casual morning and then we climbed the ridge and tried to ski off the summit but again, deceiving feathery pow appearance to sketchy variable ice.

On the summit my friend Jimmy Martinello spread a small portion of ashes from a buddy that passed away in an avalanche a couple of years ago. Chris “Beeker” Romeskie.

Low valley cloud lifted so we had to hunker down on the summit for a while and edge our way down the West Ridge close to some huge cornices to the NW Couloir. The entrance appeared bunk so we opted for the huge south facing chutes you can see from Blackcomb. 2000 feet of surprisingly great spring butter..

Did the wrap around to the Wedge hut. Passing under the NW couloir we saw 2 skiers booting up towards the low cloud late in the day, we figured they must have come over from Blackcomb??. We then braced our knees for the descent down to the highway in late season character building conditions..

Cheers, Chris

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Dalton Dome line 2

Chris Christie — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 09:34:17 -0500

Rating

Skied Line 2 on Dalton Dome NE face Jan 13.. It was our 3rd time up to the face and it finally let us have a go at it.. Anyone have any idea if it's been skied before?? Super asthetic, steep and sustained beside the ice fall...

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