Ski Shenanigans of the '25-26 Season (Pipe Dream Couloir + Wahleach Ski Traverse)
- Greg Luesink
- 3 days ago
- 10 min read
After a lack-luster winter snowpack, our expectations for skiing caught a snag. Despite the bipolar conditions, we made the most of it and enjoyed some great days on the planks.
In this post:
Mt Ann & Pipe Dream Couloir
The Wahleach Ski Traverse (plus a YouTube Video)
The winter started off seemingly strong with snowfall in November. However, it was quickly followed by a December deluge... ahem... I mean atmostpheric river. The snowpack melted out, causing streams to wreak havoc on many forest service roads and streams. I had been working on a trail near my house, and this rainfall washed out the tree I had slabbed with a chainsaw. I was pretty bummed after spending many hours creating it.
I heard from a friend that Zoa Peak's make-shift bridge had been washed away, eliminating one of the best ski touring spots in the Coquihalla. Sensing an opportunity for redemption, I whipped together a bridge with some wood lying around our place. Jas and I strapped it to the roof of our CRV and I recruited a few friends to meet us at the parking lot to carry it to the creek. In an ironic twist, it turns out that my friend had not noticed a patch of alder spanning the creek, which many users had already been using to cross. While it was not entirely necessary, it did reinforce nature's bridge!
Over the next few weeks, we made the most out of that bridge, enjoying powder laps, pipeline party skis, and some good ol' uphill exercise. We spent other days skiing Iago and Flatiron, another two excellent spots for winter turns. Sam and Jesse snapped some great film photos along the way.
As winter rapidly shifted to spring (and I mean rapidly), we were hit with yet another devastating rain storm, which washed away my bridge on Zoa. Bummer. Our attention soon turned to things like rock climbing, hiking, and biking. Still, the background of my brain was a Spring-Ski-Scanner, searching the forecast for melt-freeze conditions to set up some good corn skiing.
Mt Ann & Pipe Dream Couloir
April 18, 2026
A bucket-list item for me this season was to ski my first couloir. Many people chase after these so called "lines," the foremost among them is Cody Townsend. Jas and I have enjoyed many evenings watching episodes of The Fifty Project, watching as Cody side slipped and skidded down green-brick conditions. I didn't want to ski a "couly" in just mediocre firm snow, I wanted to ski some great snow. I did a bike-scouting mission for the Priest-Coupe couloir on Rexford, but access was poor due to the rainfall. After checking out the line through the 'nocs, I was also pretty intimidated by it's steepness... So, I suggested to Sam and my friend Cade that we go for something else. Sam suggested Mt Ann, which we had seen a couple Washington boys do earlier in winter. It looked like a much mellower introduction to couloir skiing, as none of us had done one before.
With our objective decided, I proposed that we meet at 2:30 am before crossing the border towards Mt Baker Ski Area. I had a feeling that the earlier we arrived to the line, the better. I set my alarm for 2 am, and got a decent sleep before waking up and grabbing my things. Eating "breakfast" (midnight snack?) on the way, I drove into town to meet Sam. We picked up Cade next, and seamlessly crossed the border before winding our way up the scenic road to Artist Point.
It was about 5 am by the time we had skis on and set off from the resort parking lot. The sky was much more clear than expected, and our day turned into an absolute blue-bird! Unfortunately, this meant that the snow was icy, causing our undulating skinning to be rather... adventurous. I am not ashamed to say that I took off my skis to walk down some atrocious sections of frozen ski tracks. Punching through thru crust was better than tearing a knee! Off in the distance, morning light hit Mt Ann, with Pipe Dream chuting down off a sub-summit to the left.
After slogging through a long approach in trees and over snowbridged creeks, we made it to the wide open slopes. The snow was pretty hard still, causing some slippage, but we were soon met with gracious rays of sun to warm up on the chilly morning. Sunshine illuminated Baker, and crept down to touch Pipe Dream's rocky walls.
We followed a wind-covered skin track up to the ridge, discovering even more undulating terrain. I took off my skis for a few icy sections rather than take my skins off. As the sun warmed up the south-facing slopes, we boot-packed the last punch climb to the summit of Ann, arriving just before 10 am. We enjoyed the incredible position of Mt Ann, perched perfectly between Baker and Shuksan, snapping some photos on film and phones.
The slope down to the entrance of Pipe Dream was quite steep, so Cade and Sam booted across, while I put my skis on and skied across the slope from lower down. We all reached the top of the line and were ecstatic to find that the snow was wonderfully fluffy! All of us were excited to ski our first couloir... and also jittery.
We stared down at the steep slope and rising walls... "so who is going first?"
Without a moments hesitation, I said, "I think Cade should go first, he has more ski days this season than Sam and me combined." We all nervously laughed, and Cade took on his role as guinea pig like a champ. He did some stomp tests, and then slid into his first jump-turn... blissful. Sam and I watched as he hopped and carved his way down the narrow chute, and heard a burst of elation over the radio once he reached the bottom.
"11/10 best run of my life!!" Cade said over the Rocky Talkie.
Sam was up next, and I watched as he made his run down Pipe Dream. At last, it was my turn. I made some hesitant jump-turns at first, quickly discovering the amount of sluff that I let loose would catch up to me. As I neared the outlet, I let loose a little, whooping and hollering as I danced back and forth over the sluff I created, opening up the throttle once I hit the open snow below.
We continued our run down intermittent patches of excellent snow peppered with ever-warming mashed-potatoes. Donning our skins again, we slogged our way back to the car, greatly satisfied with our mission. As we continued back through the forest, we met another group that started wayyyy too late. They would certainly miss all of the remaining powder.
As we plodded on, the sun moved Westerly across the sky, illuminating our ski line, accentuated by long shadows from the towering rock walls.
We made it back to the car after 8.5 hours, having skied 18km and 1300m. Overall, the stats don't really reflect how much skiing we did, as it was mostly skinning. However, the juice was very much worth the squeeze, as we were rewarded with a most memorable ski line in unquestionably perfect conditions.
Up next - a spring ski traverse that I'd long been pondering, this time a bit closer to home.
The Wahleach Ski Traverse
Video followed by the blog post below!
May 22, 2026
Sam and I had been talking about skiing off Knight Peak in the Cheam Range since early winter, inspired by a photo from John Baldwin's guidebook, "Exploring the Coast Mountains on Skis."
We had been eyeing up the weather for skiing some volcanoes, but ultimately we decided that the long drive through Washington was not worth a small weather window we saw. Instead, Sam and turned our attention to a traverse I had mapped out through half of the Cheam Range.
Parking at the base of Airplane Creek FSR, we would carry our skis all the way up to snowline, skin up to Knight Peak, ski off the summit just like John Baldwin's photo, boot-pack up to Baby Munday North summit, ski over to Stewart Glacier, then cross the Wahleach and Foley glaciers, climb back up to the saddle between Welch and Foley, and finally ski down to Williamson Lake and slog our way back to the car.
Sam was down, so we set the alarms for 2 am for the next day. We met up in town and drove up to the base of Airplane Creek FSR. Hoisting our packs with A-framed skis, we started up the gravel road just after 3:30 am. Good conversation and a gentle grade made the kilometres and vert fly by, and pretty soon we got our first glimpse of the alpine.
Our hearts dropped, seeing the dismal snowpack high above us.
We immediately considered what our options might be if there wasn't enough snow to ski the loop. Perhaps we could tag Baby Munday South, but we would wait to see the conditions up higher. A lot of bushwhacking through alders led us along a traversing trail as the light grew brighter in the sky. We descended a short ways down to Airplane Creek, where we crossed a log and made our way to the base of the steep climb to the alpine. In just 1.5 km from the creek, we would gain over 650m of elevation... relentlessly steep! Thankfully, we eventually hit snow and were able to put our skis on (only to take them off/on/off/on and bootpack through patchy sections in the trees).
As the sun climbed higher in the sky, the clock began to tick for the snow's corn-cycle on Knight Peak's South-East Face. Ideally, we wanted to reach the top before the snow got too mushy, but not so early that it was icy.
I figured we would summit around 10am, and we were making good time for that goal as we skinned up below Baby Munday's imposing towers. I'd heard of a recent snow-shoe ascent of Knight, and we soon found the tracks to prove it. The snow was a little icy and firm in sections, making it hard to set a skintrack, and forcing us to rely on our ski edges. Finally, we reached the final climb up to Knight Peak. Every step I scraped the snow with my pole to assess conditions. It was getting pretty soft, so we put the jets on to the top to make sure we summited before it all turned to mash potatoes! We managed to reach the summit at exactly 10am, taking off our skis to scramble to the "pinnacle" (of a very broad, flat summit). I will note, scrambling in ski boots is about as awkward as you might expect.
After a quick snack, we ripped the skins off, clicked into our skis, and set off down a decently steep run off of Knight. The turns were pretty darn good, with just enough slush to carve but not too much to get thrown off. We stopped below Baby Munday, putting on crampons for a boot-pack up a gully to the saddle between North and South Summits. The snowpack was looking good enough to complete our loop, so we had decided to press on rather than switch objectives. Once at the col, we dropped packs and rambled up to the top of Baby Munday North summit. Sam was pretty stoked to tag these two new-to-him peaks.
You might notice Sam's... repurposed chin-guard (actually a nose/cheek guard). Suffice to say, he got burnt to a crisp on Mt Adams the weekend prior, so he was making sure to stay covered up!
Once again, scrambling in ski boots feels like what I assume a baby horse feels like straight out of the womb, but we made it back to our bags without incident. Clicking into skis, we decided to head down to the pocket lake rather than stay high and traverse below Stewart.
In retrospect, I would choose to traverse below Stewart because you would reach the top of a good-looking descent down to the Stewart Glacier, making for an awesome ski run (pink line in photo below).
Meanwhile, we had a good run down to the lake, but had to bootpack around the red-rocks to the top of the glacier. Still, we had a good run down to the glacier, making sure to stay central to avoid cliffing out on the far right. I used some old beta photos from Conway to help us navigate, but in the end, it was a lot less complex than I remembered when Ben and I crossed in the opposite direction for the 2022 Cheam Range Traverse. With more snow, there was less exposed rock-slab but lots of avalanche and rockfall debris, so we took off our skis and walked through the dirty snow. We brought a RAD line, so we decided to rope-up for this section in case of crevasses.
Instead of bottomless fissures, the only crevasses we encountered were about 10 feet deep, where I could see the rock slab below. After perhaps 100m of the sketchiest stuff (which ended up being fine), we unroped and continued boot-packing through the rock-and-dirt-strewn snow. A rather sombre aspect of our traverse was seeing just how bad our diminishing snowpack had become. Soon, the Stewart, Wahleach, and Foley glaciers will be relegated to mere snowpatches.
We crossed the "crux" of our route, and re-applied our skins to our skis to traverse the remainder of the Wahleach Glacier. A few wet-slides had happened sometime in the last week, but thankfully the weather was a bit overcast and cooler, so we weren't overly concerned with getting stuck in a slide.
After crossing the Wahleach Glacier, we had a gruelling 400m climb back up Foley Glacier to the saddle between Foley and Welch. Switch-backing and kick-turning our way along, the climb felt like it would never end. At ~2:30pm, we reached the col, ate some food, and began our final ski descent of the day to Williamson Lake. Much to our surprise, the snow had been super fun to ski the entire day, and our last ski turns were no different as we carved through the light slush. Williamson marked the beginning of our long slog bag to the car, so we filtered some water and ate some food before transitioning back into trail runners and toting our awkward A-framed packs. I'll spare you the finer details of the next 3 hours of our adventure, but the next 2km of trail down was horrendous, filled with deadfall and was painstakingly slow. Once we reached the FSR, it was smoother sailing, but still an absolute grind until we reached the car just after 6pm, marking 14.5 hours on the go. We had covered nearly 30km and 2700m, but perhaps 13km of that was with skis or boots on foot. Sam and I agreed that lugging the skis in was well worth the extra effort!
This spring didn't go exactly how I'd hoped, but it still was a lot of fun. I wanted to ski some more volcanoes this year, but washouts and long drives made other close-to-home objectives a lot more enticing. Besides, I've started to discover that some of the best adventures are the ones that you don't expect. Instead of planning months in advance, a great trip can happen in the spur of the moment, as long as I hold my expectations loosely enough to pivot plans.
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