I’ve wanted to explore this side of the Ashlu Valley, ever since a few years ago when a group of us skied across the Ashlu-Elaho divide. After climbing to the summit of Mount Charlie Charlie, Tim pointed out the sprawling glaciated massif that is Mount Jimmy Jimmy, and suggested that it was a great July ski trip. Ever since that day, I’ve tried to convince somebody to slog out there with me.
So when Greg asked me if I wanted to go on an ambitious day trip, naturally I thought of Jimmy Jimmy. In my mind, it was going to be a great ski trip, maybe with a little bit of bushwacking, and not overly strenuous as I haven’t skied much in a long time. As it turns out, Greg has never done a trip in Ashlu or Squamish River valley, so this was perfect.
Greg leaving the ski area boundary at the second branch of the Pokosha Creek road. Paul Kubik and others have put in a great effort on this road, making the walk up much more enjoyable.
I did not pay enough attention to the part in the description where it says to “cross a major avalanche gully.” This turned out to be the physical crux of the trip, battling through thick slide alder before finally reaching the forest. Of course, if we had done this trip a month ago, when the snow line was still down to 800m, there would be no problem.
Greg and I near treeline, wrecked from the bushwhacking and carrying skis for 1000m, but stoked to finally have views of the alpine.
Greg approaching the exposed glaciated bench above Coin Creek. There is another route which crosses the head of Coin Creek lower down and then climbs up southeast facing slopes, but we thought they would be quite slushy by this point in the late morning.
After crossing the glaciated bench, which we roped up for, we continued to ski across the flat north glacier towards two bumps which we thought were the summit. As it turns out, we first climbed the wrong one. The true summit is actually behind Greg in this photo.
Greg on the false summit, with views of the Ashlu-Elaho divide behind him. Skiing with a meteorologist ensures good weather!
We did not linger long at the summit, as we were still worried about snow conditions on the glaciated bench. The snow in the alpine was still soft, not quite a consolidated summer snow yet.
Looking back across at our tracks across the head of Coin Creek. Those are some impressive ice cliffs!
The skiing in the forest was quite interesting, involving precarious sideslipping down spines between deep tree wells. We skied down to ~900m, at which point we were forced to enter the slide alder hell again.
The whole time here, I kept thinking about the nice maintained trails that we could be hiking on elsewhere to access the skiing. It’s been a while since I’ve felt like I’ve been scratched by a swarm of angry cats.
After what felt like a very long walk down the Pokosha Creek logging roads, we finally arrived at the car, tired from the early morning wakeup, and physically beaten by the bushwacking. The skiing was definitely the easiest part of this trip! A highly recommended adventure. It was great to finally stretch out the ski legs on a nice sunny day in what feels like a never ending spring.
Wow! Nicely done
Thanks! We were definitely too late in the season for this to be a nice ski tour though. The BCMC led by Paul Kubik has done some fine work on the Pokosha Creek road, so it should be nice to go back there in the spring.