Mt Frosty: A Friesen Attempt on the West Summit

TLDR: Mike and I geared up for an adventure in Manning Park. We didn't summit, we barely skied. But it was still a day in the great outdoors!

Back from school for the week, Mike messaged me about getting up into the alpine for some skiing. I had just driven back from Whistler with Jas. Rainbow Mountain was the plan. Glacier travel, use some rad gear, test out the ski skills. Awesome.

But how would I survive another drive to Whistler? Probably 5 hours of driving for the day trip.

Oh well, other ski partner got food poisoning. No Rainbow.

Foley Ski Peak? Mt Outram? Frosty West Summit? Bingo. New summit, adventure skiing. What's not to like?

Oofta, 5:00 am wake-up, 7 am in Manning Park. On the plus side, the sunrise was pretty. On the minus side, it was -20˚C in the parking lot.

We skinned across Lightning Lake, and towards Flash Lake, then diverted towards an old avalanche path, labeled "Flash Lake Slide" on FatMaps. What ensued was probably the worst bushwhack of my life, mostly because we had to A-frame our skis on our packs to cross the fallen trees. At one point, it looked like a log cabin fell apart around us! Suffice to say, bushwhacking in ski boots was not high on my to-do list.

We eventually got the old avalanche path, but we found it grown in with terribly thick alders. And to top it all off, the snow was so sugary that I couldn't even use my skins on my skis! Back to A-frame bootpack. Argh.

Finally, we broke into thinner trees, and up into the alpine. The snow was mega wind-loaded. Mental note taken, don't send it on the steeps today.

We got our first view of Frosty East, another summit for another day. Perhaps a larchier day.

Five hours in, and already past noon. Shucks. Bootpacking is slow.

Stop for food. Hiding as best we could from the wind. I took a forlorn look at the West summit, a formidable looking ridgeline away from us...

The wind-scoured ridge had too many rocks to make a skintrack. Guess we'd ditch the skis. Mike suggested it would be a quick 20 minutes to the top.

I chuckled, "okay Mike, let's see where we get in 10 minutes".

As I suspected, this was a mountainous mirage, and the summit was further away than it looked. We had barely moved across the level portion of the ridge, punching through crusty snow and onto rock with each step.

We'd been out for 6 hours, and without the benefit of skiing through the entire downhill to the car, I called in my veto. Time to turn around.

So turn around we did. We got a few decent turns in the thin trees before reaching the alders. With my longer skis and lesser skill, I had to A-frame down the thick trees, post-holing to my knees as I trod downhill. Meanwhile, Mike meandered his was down the old slide path on his short spring skis. Eventually, we were both forced to A-frame for the final stretch of catastrophic cabin logs.

Soon, we were back at the trail for Lightning Lake. We make quick work of the skin across the lake, and made it back to the car for a 9 hour day. Will I ever attempt Frosty West again? Definitely not in a record-low snow year. Will I fly by the seat of my pants with Mike again? Every chance I get.