Lauchlan Award 2017: New Homathko Routes Climbed

The following report by Max Fisher is about his and Fred Giroux’s spring alpine trip to the Homathko Icefield, supported by the John Lauchlan Award.

On May 17, Fred and I got on a water taxi and headed up the Bute Inlet and for four-and-a-half days walked, skied and stumbled up onto the Homathko Icefield to climb Peak 9332.

@fred.giroux packed and ready for the hot sunny surf vaca!! #realheavypacks #humanpowered #selfsufficient #alpineclimbing #bccoastmountains #alpineclubofcanada #johnlauchlanaward

A post shared by Max Fisher (@fish_nbr21) on May 16, 2017 at 6:41pm PDT

We got to base camp in time to set up and chill before a two-day storm rolled in. After the storm things cleared up and it was time to go play.

On May 25, we made the first ascent of Mount Grenville’s beautiful northwest face. We climbed through iced-up runnels and over solid granite to sugary snow near the top. We called our route 350-metre route Melquiades M4+ AI4.

The next day we were up early descending from base camp to the base of Peak 9332’s northeast face. We climbed a beautiful line of weakness straight up the face for 600 metres to the summit that we called it Remedios the Beauty, a 300-metre AI3.

@fred.giroux heading up Peak 9332's Northeast Face. We called the route Remedios the Beauty AI3 600m. The name is from the book "100 Years of Solitude" we were reading on the trip. Thanks #johnlauchlanaward #alpineclubofcanada #homathkocamp #bccoastmountains for an amazing trip!

A post shared by Max Fisher (@fish_nbr21) on Jun 4, 2017 at 7:44am PDT

Since we had our skiing stuff, we thought, “Why not go skiing.” So we went back to Grenville with the intention of skiing a steep line on its west face.

After boot packing to the summit ridge and waiting for things to soften up, we opted out of the west face and skied the north face.

A nice 45-degree slope for 300 metres easing off farther down and sliding us right back to camp.

On the 28th, we decided to start making our way out and cruised to the toe of Bute Glacier. We took a long look at the north side of Bute and decided with the warm temps and significant avalanches we were seeing we would have to come back for that. So we decided to go for a scramble up Galleon Peak.

@fred.giroux climbing up beautiful neve on the northwest face of the Mt Grenville 3126m found on the southeastern edge of the Homathko Icefield. We called our route Melquiades M4+ AI4 350m. #johnlauchlanaward #alpineclubofcanada #celebratewild #bccoastmountains

A post shared by Max Fisher (@fish_nbr21) on Jun 6, 2017 at 6:26am PDT

On May 29, we started wandering our way up wet mossy cracks with our ice axes and rock shoes to get to some solid dry rock. We climbed one roped pitch on the lower tier that was about 5.8/5.9 to a large snow ledge.

Then we headed up through the snow to the next tier of beauty stone and climbed two excellent 30-metre pitches to another snow slope. We slogged up the snow and climbed a 40-metre 5.9 pitch to the summit.

We knew there was weather coming and the likelihood of us climbing anything else was low so on May 30, we skied and walked down to Homathko Camp.

Super stoked to have spent two amazing weeks in the Homathko Icefield area with @fish_nbr21. We managed to climb three routes, most likely all F.A's, and ski the North glacier of Mount Grenville. Max is seen here approaching the west fave of Grenville, headed towards the obvious ice features. We named this climb Melquiades M4+ AI 4, 350m (named after the Gypsy in the book "100 years of Solitude"). Thanks to the #johnlauchlanward, #alpineclubofcanada, and everyone else who made this expedition possible.

A post shared by Fred Giroux (@fred.giroux) on Jun 4, 2017 at 10:25am PDT

We had an amazing time hanging out with Chuck and Sheron, the owners of Homathko Camp. Thanks so much for your hospitality and thanks so much to the John Lauchlan Memorial Award Committee for choosing us.

And to all the sponsors that make this award possible: MEC, Arc’teryx, Yamnuska, The Alpine Club of Canada, Calgary Foundation, Lake O’Hara Lodge, Explore Magazine, RAB Equipment, Tony and Gillean Daffern, Don Milliken and Bill Hanlon.

We’d like to thank Coast Mountain Expeditions for the boat ride in and Shayne Vollmers and Carrie Smith of the boat ride out.

Another picture from our Homathko expedition. We decided to leave the ice climbing tools at camp and went rock climbing on Galleon Peak. We meandered our way up the south face and managed to find a few good pitches of granite alpine climbing. Here's @fish_nbr21 sampling the goods on Macondo 5.10, 600m. #johnlauchlanward #alpineclubofcanada #coastmountains

A post shared by Fred Giroux (@fred.giroux) on Jun 10, 2017 at 8:49am PDT