a lesson from risk and adventure in the mountains.

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If you’ve seen anything about winter on the West Coast this year, you know it’s been bad.

Our snow levels in February are some of the worst on record across North America.

This means two things for your local west coast adventurer.

One - good ski days are few and far between.

And two - when conditions for skiing suck, conditions for climbing are often surprisingly good.

Now, I’m not an advanced alpine climber by any means. But my introduction to big mountains was in winter, and I developed a very fond affection for big, steep snow climbs.

As much as it’s nice to ski these lines, often a year like this is safer to climb due to constant melt-freeze cycles which glue the snow together and decrease the risk of avalanches.

So, with a low avalanche risk across the board, my friend & climbing partner Jon and I headed up the Coquihalla this past week with a very specific line in mind.

The Thar Couloir.

I’ve known about this line for a few years, but the conditions have never lined up when I’ve been free.

It’s not a huge day out, but it packs a punch. Up to 55 degree steep snow, with two variations near the summit - a more mellow snow finish, or a steeper mixed variation top-out.

(Mixed climbing refers to a combination of rock, snow, and ice.)

By 8am we were on the trail, and after a few tricky sections around the partially-melted lake, we arrived at the bottom of the line.

There was a ton of frozen avy debris, which was reassuring. It’s always nice knowing that whatever could slide had already done so.

We donned crampons at the base of the line and started the grind upwards.

Hiking poles soon gave way to ice axes, and we slowly settled into the methodical rhythm of the climb.

Kick-kick, thunk-thunk.

On a solid snowpack, it’s incredible how secure you feel with crampons on your feet and axes in your hands.

I fell in love with steep snow very early on. There’s something so pure about it. Steep snow climbs are often in narrow couloirs, leaving you with the undeniable sensation of climbing into a beast.

About halfway up the couloir, we trended right on a branch that looked a little steeper but more direct.

After another 20 mins of steeper snow and névé (frozen snow that feels a bit like ice), we were stopped by a large glide crack.

Glide cracks are when a snowpack cleaves into two distinct parts, right down to rock. They’re usually brought about by rapidly warming temps, when a layer of water forms underneath the snowpack and decreases the bond between the bottom layer of snow and the ground.

We took a break to assess the crack, and while it was climbable, it involved a few awkward moves over some significant exposure - so we decided to down-climb back to the junction and climb up the other way.

After correcting our course, we continued up the line and soon came to a fun little mixed portion, which we cruised through and continued on upward.

Ten minutes later, we hit the final junction in the couloir.

Straight up was a mellow snow finish that would only take us a few minutes. But over to the left was a beautiful, steep line snaking into the fog that looked particularly adventurous.

One of the mottos Jon and I have adopted in the mountains is “go until it doesn’t make sense to keep going.”

We’ve both learned that sometimes you can get so in your head about certain things that could happen that it’s better to just choose to go until you’re given enough information to be able to make a better decision.

Plus, there wasn’t a ton of information online as to the difficulty of the mixed top-out, so we wanted to give it a shot.

The higher we got, the more technical it got.

The snow got steeper, close to 60 degrees. We then transitioned off the snow into some more mixed terrain, with a bit of alpine ice, snow, and rock all thrown together.

The terrain was getting spicy. We were comfortable soloing it, but we knew coming down wasn’t ideal. We nearly turned around, but it looked as if the summit was right there.

Twenty minutes of very focused climbing, and we crested what we thought was the summit ridge… only to look over and realize we were on the false summit.

Between where we were and where we had to go was a short pitch of nearly vertical rock, with fatal exposure on either side.

It looked like that was the end of the line for us… retreat was our only choice.

We took stock of the situation. To reverse our steps back down the mixed section was possible, but seemed a bit too risky for our liking.

However, we had a 30m static line, perfect to rappel off. The only problem was we only had one sling, and no harnesses.

I won’t get too much into the details, but Jon built an anchor and set up a what was effectively a double pulley system. I tied into the end of the rope and he hip belayed me down the 20m pitch, while I down-climbed. Once I reached the bottom, he took the sling from the anchor, turned it into a harness, and made two rappels off the wall to get down to me.

Was it ideal? No. But quick thinking and technical knowledge (especially on Jon’s part) helped us get out of a potentially sticky situation with no trouble at all.

We eventually reversed our steps back down the optional couloir, found the main line leading up to the summit, and then walked off the south face of the mountain without any issues at all.

Looking back, our day in the Thar Couloir was exactly why I love the mountains.

Risk is a necessary component of adventure. If there was no chance of things going wrong, there’d be no point in doing it in the first place.

Mistakes are inevitable… we’re human beings. But keeping your mistakes from becoming fatal is at the heart of everything we do.

Moreover, sharing our mistakes is crucial - it’s the best way to learn from others.

So yes - we made a mistake. We thought we were a bit closer to the summit than we were, and we should have had more of a contingency plan before committing to the mixed pitch.

But, the gear we brought did everything it was supposed to, and calm minds and clear decision-making prevailed.

In the past few days, I’ve realized that there are a lot of parallels between our Thar trip and almost anything in life.

The way to succeed at something isn’t to avoid making mistakes - it’s to learn from them (and make sure you don’t die in the process).

Don’t be afraid of failure - it’s often the best way to learn.

Of course, in the mountains failure can be fatal… which is why we bring emergency back-ups, carry satellite phones, wear avalanche transceivers, etc.

But if you can keep your failures small, and learn from them, you’re well on your way to not only a great lifetime in the mountains - but in any endeavour you set out to do.