How to get a spring backcountry shoot done in a day

Last week Graeme Bell and I skinned out to Mt Pattison in the Spearhead Range to grab some spring touring photos. After a season of such excursions, we’ve gotten a bit more efficient at selecting the location and the terrain to shoot.

Mt Pattison. Shots 1 and 3 were taken from the left and right X's respectively

The goal was to find backcountry peak with good snow and aesthetic lines that we could travel to, ski and get safely home from in a day. Whistler Mountain has been closed as of April 25, so the Fitzsimmons Range was off the day trip list. Blackcomb is currently on spring schedule with the Excalibur Gondola loading from 10am. This was our way to quickly access the alpine in the Spearhead Range. With a 3+ hour hike out to Pattison, I knew we were going to arriving back late. I parked the car up at Base 2 to avoid the much of the muddy hike down at the end of the day.

Much of the snow in the reach of slack country skiers off Blackcomb has been compacted and/or sun affected. To get decent snow you have to head to north facing slopes that haven’t been skied in a while and haven’t already released naturally.

Graeme Bell topping out just before the summit of Pattison

The route to Mt Pattison is the first part of the fabled Spearhead Traverse. Travelling out there you will more than likely find an obvious skin track once you start to head around the Decker Glacier.  Last week the sun baked south facing slopes were fragile and were triggering spring slides easily. At one point we could hear echoes throughout the range from natural slides. Cautious skiing and careful line selection were essential.

The beauty of skiing Mt Pattison (at least this year) is the easy climb to the summit. Apart from just one short boot pack, the climb to the peak is all relaxed skinning. No burly steep or off camber skinning or post-holing onto rock on the boot pack. Once at the top Graeme decides it’s not the day for the burly cliff lines, a smart move seeing as even a small sluff slide could sweep him off the cliff. We opt to shoot and ski the main line from the summit.

The snow on the North Face of Pattison was the best I’ve skied in weeks, that is saying a bit coming off the Whistler’s second snowiest year in history. In May you can’t always go out with expectations of face shots, but I was getting spray up to my chest on most of those turns. Epic spring pow indeed.

Shot 1 - Graeme on the first lap

For shot 1 I used a wide lens to capture both the skier and the silver lining on the cloud. Normally for this kind of shot I would setup closer to the subject, but I wanted the ridge in front of me to give the shot some scale.

Shot 2 - Skinning up for a second round

Shot 2 was a bit of a stroke of luck, taken on our climb up for the second lap. I hate taking my hefty DSLR out when I’m skinning, but this shot was worth the delay. I kept shooting until the cloud blocked the sun out completely, which happened a couple seconds later.

Shot 3 - Same line as before, different angle.

Shot 3 was on our second descent lap of Pattison. I wanted a different shot but we still wanted to ski the same safe (and seriously fun) line. I set up at the top of the line this time and shot down the slope with the 70-200mm telephoto lens. The sluff slides from our previous lap add to the spring theme of the shot.

Shot 4 - The epic sunset

Shot 4 was by far the most work. This was taken on the return leg of the journey just before crossing back into Lakeside Bowl on Blackcomb. Both Graeme and I were tired and beaten at this point and wanted nothing more than to just bee line back to town for beer. The roughly 40 minute wait and numerous position adjustments were worth it for the 3 minute window of golden light.

VS