Amidst a season that's making most BC skiers want to shoot themselves, there's still plenty of missions to be had if you're willing to work for it. This past weekend, for lack of anything better to do, we came up with the weekend's objective... The Super Couloir. Spotted on a past trip to Mt Atwell in the Diamond Head area above Squamish, this aesthetic 3,200 ft steeply walled couloir stands boldly in the distance beyond the Garibaldi-Neve traverse, where hundreds of mellow ski tour groups unknowingly pass in and out of it's view every spring. It had been haunting us for over a year. Snapshots became screensavers, topo maps were adroned with a big X marking the spot, and we added it to our lengthy 'to do' list for winters to come. Obsession, yes. The only thing we forgot to do was make not of how far it was...

The clock struck 11pm at Pepe & Gringo's in Squamish, as good a time as any to gear up and head into the backcountry right? Hmmm, the moonlit hike was a sure-fire way to digest the beers and burritos, but hiking the last few kilometers were anything but fun at 2:30 in the morning. Causing a ruckus in the Elfin Shelter, we clambered to bed after waking a few eager backcountry skiers (insert mental picture of early bedtimes and gore-tex sombrero's here). Knowing we had a short Day 2 ahead of us, we slept until the earlybirds had left for the day, then packed up our gear and slogged up to the highest point on the Garibaldi neve below Mt Atwell. The slog quickly became a 'slosh' when some ice gave-way on my creek crossing, leaving me knee-deep and bewildered in the middle of a rushing creek. But we carried on, reaching our 'camp to be' and viewpoint in the early afternoon. Looking way across the expanse of the Neve, our screensavers came to life more impressive than we remembered, and WAY FURTHER AWAY.

Upon first glance we immediately abandoned our plans, dropped our bags, and sat lazily on the flat glacier in the blazing sun. There sat the Super Couloir, taunting us more than ever before, miles and miles across and below the Neve traverse. Sitting became lying, as myself, Andre Charland, and Mathieu Miller collectively passed out in the sun, daydreaming about the distant couloir we came to not ski. Heck, we didn't even know what it was called, how steep it was, or what lay between us and the base, apart from the obvious horizontal slog with refrozen 'creek' boots. But as lazy as we became, we all knew the only thing worse than slogging big backpacks for several miles to ski, is doing the same grunt work for nothing. So we dragged our sorry asses off the snow, and went for a quick scouting walk to check things out. Combining our topo map with our rusty high school math, we figured we could traverse to the couloir, climb it, ski it, climb black up the neve, and traverse out to hut and beyond to the car in about 16 hours. So with 12 hours of daylight per day, our shoddy math skills gave us the green light.

Skip to 3am, we rolled out of our bivy's, boiled some water, and went for broke. After dodging a few crevasses by moonlight (with our ropes back at camp) we continued down the glacier to the foot of the couloir, watching it rise higher with every pole plant. Staring up at 3,200 feet of hard-packed buff, we were able to throw on our crampons and bomb up the chute as if hiking a steep cement sidewalk. Guess there's some perks to a really bad ski season!

Topping out without incident, we buckled up our boots (now thawed and soupy) and pointed our skis towards the 3,200 ft straight-shot elevator shaft, all the while hoping to catch a Scott Schmidt sighting. Dropping into the couloir, the boilerplate conditions made the otherwise easy-going pitch a bit more lively, as the 3,000 foot laundry chute tumble wasn't too appealing. Arbitrarily flipping our skis from side to side, we put our rail sliding practive to the test until the lower half gave way to some carvable buff, and before we knew it the Super Couloir was a thing of the past.

Faced with about 7 more hours of walking, we threw on our sun hats, shades, and t-shirts (yep, in early March) and slogged across the white desert of the Garibaldi Neve, frequently twisting to steal a glance back at the couloir. Back at camp we reluctantly resumed our sherpa status, slumped our packs over our backs, and headed for home after one last peek at the couloir. The 'couloir too far' had been skied, leaving nothing to haunt us but the 6 other awesome dog-legged couloirs crammed into the same steep corner of the valley, but that's another story.

DETAILS

The many morals of this story include, don't be dumb like us, keep your feet out of creeks, bring ropes and headlamps that work, and if you have enough redbull and chocolate, there's 7 steep elevator-shaft couloirs waiting for you in Garbaldi Park.

This couloir and several others lare ocated in Garibaldi Park at the North-East end of Spire Peaks, past Pyramid Peak. You can catch a glimpse of the tops of Super Couloir and the neighbouring 'Camel Toe' from any highpoints on the Garibaldi neve, or from Atwell Peak or Dalton Dome. The area is crammed full of skiable couloirs and some crumbly but probably climable rock walls. Access from Elfin Lake Shelter.

We have know idea what the couloirs or called, nor if people ski them regularly. What we do know is the area rules, and if you haven' t been there it's worth the trek. If you know anything about this couloir, please email us at 007@doglotion.com and we'd be happy to add your comments. Keep on shreddin'