A really fun steep technical ski mountaineering line just 15 min skin from the top of the Curvey chair life in Remarkables ski area. Like the South Face Classic it is better known as a M2 winter climbing route, but I think it deserves to become a classic ski line! Warm up on the sunny west facing slopes before rapping into the steep and rowdy south face. You want fat conditions before venturing onto this face. I skiied this line in Sept 2021 after a series of late season storms had left the S faces of the range coated in well bonded stable powder and had boot-top pow the whole way down. This was the first time the line had been skiied, and Will Rountree and myself had been eyeing it up for a while. When the weather window came around Will was stuck at work so I had a moment of guilt and considered waiting and getting on it together…that didn’t last long though and I headed out to get the first descent solo. Sorry Will!
- Length – 300m
- Steepness – 40 deg initially on the west face. The main ramp on the S face is around 50. The step connecting the two is extremely steep, around 60
- Exposure – Not too bad on the first section, but severe and continuous on the south face. Left trending ramp over large cliffs, a fall here will likely be fatal
- Aspect – West and then South
- Extras – Rap from the West face to the south face. Currently you need to leave a picket or some rock gear but Im planning to put a DBA there this winter. Another short downclimb or rap part way down the S face
- Difficulty – 5.1 E4
- Equipment – 60m rad line. Crampons, 2x tools. Snow stake, rap tat, nuts for anchor if needed.
While not as popoular as the South Face Classic, this is still a climbing line so be super aware of climbers beneath you that will not be expecting a skiier to come down on top of them. This line is pretty safe from that perspective as once on the S face you can see the whole way down, and as it trends left your sluff goes off the cliff and not down the line, but still take care
APPROACH
Two options
- Top Down
- Quicker, but doesnt give you the option to scope out the conditions. As for the South Face Classic, jump on Curvey chair or skin up from the base aiming for Wye Saddle. Skin up the East Face of Single Cone to the ridge and then head up almost the whole way to the big rock band where the couloir up to Single Cone summit starts. This is where you drop into the West facing start of the line. There are a bunch of large boulders on the ridge and youll have to peek over and find the best way in. Ive marked my drop in point in red on the photo
- Bottom up
- What I would recommed unless youre very confident of the conditions on the route. Skin to Wye Saddle as above, and at the point you would start heading up Single Cone instead head West aiming for a snow gully that takes you down to the base of the South Face. Traverse back across for a few hundred metres to the base of a large snow fan at the bottom of the route. The climb up is generally straightforward when the conditions are fat – booting up steep snow. There is a narrow rock band to get through towards the top of the first ramp which isi pretty straightforward. The crux however is the section joining the South and West faces which steepens up significantly to around 60 deg. When I was there this section was poorly bonded to the underlying rock and crampons were going straight through onto scratchy steep slabs and is above seriouos exposure. It was too much for me without a rope, so I skiied from here back to the base, and then skinned back around to Wye Saddle and up the East Face to the top, and dropped into the first section top down. The skiing here is much easier and so I was happy skiing it top down armed with the knowledge the conditions lower down were good
DESCENT
Pick your way down through the top section between the boulders, sticking to the right side of the face. The gradient is easy and so you get a good warm up before the serious stuff starts. After a 150m or so you come to a small flat section which drops off steeply to the left down onto the south face. The snow is often icy / firm here and the exposure down the south face is serious, so I transitioned to crampons to go up to the edge and scope it out. As above, this section is extremely steep and exposed and had poor snow when I was there so I didnt attempt to ski it (but in the right conditions it would be possible – the first full descent is still up for grabs!). Im planning to get back here this winter and put some rap rings here to make this a bit more accessible as a ski descent but currently you need to either leave a snow stake or some nuts (no decent sling spots). A rap from here gets you to the main couloir on the south face.
Once your in the main couloir the skiing is heroic – 45-50 degrees, narrow but wide enough to make good turns, and holds good snow when the conditions are on. About a third of the way down theres a narrow gully that I downclimbed before skiing the remainder of the line. Theres no collecting feature on the downhill side of the couloir, and as you cut across the face your sluff falls off the line beneath your feet – a constant reminder of where your going to end up if you fall…a good way to help focus your mind!
At the bottom the line opens up onto a large snow fan and you can hoon it all the way down to the base. I linked it up with a ski down to the lake at the base of the Wye Creek Route before skinning back up to Wye saddle.
Peak Exposure 