Fissile Peak

March 18, 2023

With a sunny weekend ahead and beautiful conditions, I was looking to tick off another objective on my Ski to Sky list. At this point in the competition, I was starting to fall behind, and decided it was about time to go combine some Whistler or Blackcomb objectives. I’d never skied in Whistler backcountry since it costs money and is too popular; which are the exact reasons I got into backcountry. However there is lots to do in both Whistler and Blackcomb, and there has to be a reason people like these objectives!

Wafa and I met for a leisurely start since Whistler Gondola doesn’t open until 8:30am, but when we got there I quickly realized I’d forgotten my goretex shell pants and was only wearing leggings! Not wanting to be freezing or have my legs get wet all day, I ran around the Whistler village looking for a store that sold any kind of pants that weren’t heavy resort pants. I found none. Oh god, this was going to be an interesting day! I apologized to Wafa for the delay, but when we reached the upper lodge we realized there was no need: the lifts we needed to take up to Piccolo summit don’t even start running until 10am!

After waiting in the lodge for awhile with lots of backcountry tourers who seemed equally surprised by the delay, we finally set off around 9:45, hoping we could at least wait in line at the lift. It was already running, so we were finally on our way to our first summit.

At the top of the Symphony express, we put skins on and made the quick walk up to the official Piccolo summit to tag the peak. We then joined a pretty big group of folks walking up towards Flute summit. Flute and Oboe are both pretty uninteresting – big and flat – but the ski run off of them were fun despite being a little skied over.

Because of all the ups and downs and the transitions we made frequently, when we made it up to Cowboy ridge, it was already past 1pm. We stopped for lunch in the Kees & Claire hut (which I now know we weren’t supposed to do, oops), with some decisions to make about our day. Because of our super late start, I wasn’t feeling overly optimistic about making it up to Fissile. The large peak loomed way above us as we ate, and it felt like it would be too far and too much elevation to accomplish before sunset. That said, it was one more tick mark for the Ski competition, and Wafa was feeling pretty keen on helping me get there. We ultimately decided to continue up towards Fissile, and just assess timing and how we felt as we went up.

Starting off our day, leaving Piccolo summit

Heading up Cowboy ridge

A heli dropping off some sleeping mats at Kees & Claire

Views from Kees & Claire at lunch – Fissile through the window!

Leaving the hut again, Cowboy ridge in the background

Fissile peak ahead of us

The skin track up to Fissile was well laid out with so many people exploring this backcountry area, so all we had to do was put our heads down and walk. I was feeling surprisingly energetic, and I ventured ahead a little to scope out conditions. From the col of Whirlwind and Fissile peak, there was evidence of a few small slides on South facing steep terrain. I knew the side we’d have to climb was not as sun exposed, but I was nonetheless nervous since I knew I’d be making the final call on whether to go or not. Wafa had very little experience backcountry despite being a great skier, and although I’d been skiing a bunch already this year I didn’t quite trust myself enough to make that call for both of us.

I got lucky though: there was a little bit of service so I texted Francis a photo of what I was seeing, and outlined my hesitation. His advice was to simply walk to the base of the slope we needed to climb, and “just go look at it and see what you feel then.” This seemed like sound advice to me, so Wafa and I pushed on. Francis was right: when we arrived at the base of the snow slope up to Fissile, I found no signs of either wind or snow instability, no sign of slabs or cracks forming, and instead simply lots of well bonded powder.

Feeling much more confident, Wafa and I transitioned to crampons and an ice axe for this now steeper section and pushed upwards. I broke most of the trail since Wafa’s legs were suffering, and the post-holing was pretty brutal with thigh deep powder. My legs were utterly soaked at this point seeing as I was still rocking my thin leggings, and snow sank deep into my boots and into my socks. I didn’t want to think about how cold I’d be once the sun set, but we were SO close to the top in what felt like stable conditions so turning around for that reason would have been silly.

The summit was awesome. I’d never seen Whistler from this angle, and I was pretty stoked to see so SO many peaks that I’d done, including an (almost) view of Phylis’ Engine! Looking deep into Garibaldi park was awesome, and I know I have a lifetime of exploring to do in those mountains.

Walking through a wind scoop

The photo I sent to Francis pointing out the problem areas and where we needed to go

The ridgeline to the summit

Wafa coming up right behind me

Wafa and I on the summit

Summit views

As we were heading down, Wafa and I looked around with perfect views of the Spearhead and wondered which point our friend Mike would be at. He was currently completing the traverse with his friend in one long single day push, and we knew they’d be skiing past us at some point. And….

– Wait! That’s them!! Wait no that’s DEFINITELY Mike’s familiar orange coat, blue pants and white helmet!

– Mike!! MIKE!! MIIIIIIKKKKEEEEEE!!!!

We tried to catch his attention for awhile, screaming down to the whirlwind col where we could see him and his friend doing a transition. It would have been funny for them to look up and see us on a cool exposed ridge, but no luck. Eventually they packed their bags and skied on, somehow with no idea that they’d accidentally taken a photo with us in it! We had a good laugh about this missed encounter with him later.

Wafa and I were now on get-out-of-here-fast-and-safe mode, so we all but ran down the soft powder on the face of Fissile that we’d come up. Back at our skis, we didn’t want to transition for a short section, so we walked back the 100 meters or so to the Whirlwind-Fissile col.

The rest of our ski out was long but uneventful. We made a couple more transitions on our way back to the singing pass trail to ski out, and then it was a long night of repetitive left turns. By 10pm we were safely back at the car, ready to crash, and I was more than ready to start trying to warm up my legs. Another cool and really beautiful day completed, as well as 3 more ticks for my challenge 🙂