Matier NW Face / Joffre Aussie Couloir / Slalok N Face

Original, un-edited Trip Report: https://engineeredforadventure.com/joffre-matier-aussie-slalok/

Background

The Coast Range may only be 4 hours from my 'home' but it feels a world away sometimes. My blinders for Washington often keep me so focused on the home range that I don't consider the mountains just to the north.

The Joffre icecap has been on my mind for a few years. Sky's trip report of skiing the NW Face of Matier (in September, mind you) first brought my attention to the zone. My friend Todd's trip report of skiing up on the icecap further built the stoke. Friends went out to Keith's hut, Cody Townsend posted videos about Joffre, etc. The icecap seems to be the center of big mountain skiing out of the Duffey.

The linkup of Matier-Aussie-Slalok made it's way into my brain as one of the many 'man, I gotta do that some day'. But just like many other ideas, it got stored away on the bookshelf of infinite ski ideas. Until a PWL at home poked us to think outside the box...

Late Jan/early Feb 2025 brought a PWL to Washington. The normal 'playbook' wasn't going to feel the same. With another high pressure window, Nick and I tossed around some ideas. Thankfully, Nick proposed a quick hit trip up to the Duffey. Further north seemed to have less of a PWL problem than down in Washington and we'd seen recent reports of skiing up on the Joffre icecap. Time to take that book off the shelf.

Trip Report

Michael happened to be heading up to Canada for an ice climbing trip and was easily convinced to join. Nick and I packed up his truck-camper rig and began driving north in the early afternoon. We were stoked to have the camper...temps were going to be COLD, with overnight lows near 0F.

We got to bed by 11:30 PM and agreed on a casual wake up at 6AM. We didn't feel the need to be starting any earlier in the polar cold. By 7AM the next morning we were skinning in the cold valley towards the Keith Flavelle Hut. The impact of the Joffre rockslide was striking. An entire forest, gone. In it's place, wide swath of rocks like a glacial outflow. Huh...I'd never seen it before the rockfall but Nick had. He couldn't believe his eyes.

We made it past Keith's hut in 1hr30 and were headed up to Anniversary. We were grateful to poke into the sun, albeit it briefly. The skin tracks were annoyingly steep up the Anniversary Glacier (whine, whine, grumble, grumble). We saw 6 people in total ahead of us, one group of 2 and one group of 4. Not too bad for such a popular area. Our initial plan was to ski Aussie first, since it's the only solar aspect, then head over to Matier and then exit Slalok. Once up at the col, we chatted with the group of 4. Their plan was to ski Aussie then head out. The group of 2 had already headed over to the NW Face of Matier. People spacing was going to be a factor. With our group of 3, the group of 4 in the Aussie, and the group of 2 on Matier, it felt the better balance to head to Matier first and let the 4 have the Aussie. The NW Face would be able to hold 5 better than the Aussie would 7.

We headed over towards the NW Face. We weren't quite sure whether to take the north ridge or boot the face. None of us had read up on the way up in that much detail. We saw the group of 2 ahead of us flipping; they skied over to us and reported some funky hardslab in spots. They were bailing mostly because they weren't stoked to ski bad snow, less because of safety. We quickly chatted about the plan: we agreed the north ridge was probably the safer option and it appeared there were old boottracks up it. We didn't really know much about the route but we knew it 'went'. It felt the better strategy to come into the line top down if we were worried about snow stability than boot up it, being in the firing zone for a longer period of time.

So, up we went. The north ridge was a mix of variable snow, to say the least. Wind buffed pow mixed with hard slab mixed with some snice. Hrmmm...

The upper ridge was a very fun position. We summited then sighted the downclimb to the saddle where the NW Face begins. Huh, this looks a little more involved than expected. Then again, what expectations did we even have? I went first, one axe and crampons were enough to get it done. The downclimb was mostly just exposed rime. It was still a little sporty in spots.

Atop the col, we looked down the NW Face. The top 30' or so looked properly steep and pretty firm, then things seemed to ease up. I went first, made a turn or two in the steep firm, then found good soft wind-chalk-pow (a classic mixture). Seemed like great conditions for steep skiing. I radioed up to Nick and Michael, that things looked good. Nick went next, then Michael.

The face was beautiful, planar, and fall-line, as almost anyone that has skied the face will report. For the most part conditions were pretty good, although near the bottom it turned from wind pow to wind board of the breakable variety. Darn! We were glad that we had taken the north ridge; we agreed that if we had gotten to the bottom of the face and found the unsavory wind board, we probably would have bailed, not knowing that it was only temporary. And the north ridge was a fun way to spice things up...and added a summit.

We ski traversed over to the Aussie. Looking up, we saw that the 4 ahead of us were still booting up. We waffled on whether it was appropriate to start booting up or not, but agreed that there were plenty of safe spots to hide. We thought we might be able to catch them and began moving up with a hurried pace.

Not fast enough...we ducked quickly over to a nook in the rock walls and waited for the 4 to make their way down. Unfortunately they took out the booter...sad face. I guess that's fair, considering they set it. The snow in the couloir looked variable, a mix between firm and punchy. The position of the Aussie was what we were there for, though. The rock walls are steep and splitter. We looked back at the icecap, seeing our tracks on Matier as well. The momentum of the day was building and we were stoked to be putting the pieces together.

We topped out the couloir and pushed on to the summit. An easy, quick traverse across a hanging snowfield put us on top of Joffre. The summit has an amazing vantage over the Duffey. We looked over at Cayoosh, Slalok, Matier, Saxifrage, and the Wendy Thompson zone. A few fist bumps and we clicked back into skis and scooted over to the top of the Aussie.

I found a perch to snap some photos of Nick and Michael making their way down from the top. The first few turns atop the couloir have a fair pitch, then the pitch eases. The snow wasn't great and the turns were quad burning. We all tried to take the couloir in one-go and by the bottom our turns were getting a little sloppy.

We took a snack break at the bottom and basked in the sunlight. An easy flat skin over the icecap would take us towards Slalok, the last line of the day. The light was turning soft and the legs had a little lactic acid in them. I always love that feeling, slight exhaustion with the peaks showing off. Makes me feel alive.

On our skin across the icecap we looked over at the east face of Mount Spetch. Pretty cool, worth a ski sometime. Not today though.

We skinned to the shoulder of Slalok, took a quick booter up the ridge, then skinned over towards the summit. We booted up the final summit pyramid and tapped poles. Tired legs, full cups. Light was getting even softer, so were the legs. We skied down the north face from just below the summit and found, wait for it...more variable snow. Position over condition, we reminded ourselves. Skiing the north face in boottop pow would be outrageous, Nick exclaimed.

The north face of Slalok is the chillest of all three lines but the position is incredible (feel like I'm using that word a lot but it really is). The upper face chokes into a couloir-like feature which takes you down to Upper Joffre Lake. The snow was quite bad at this point, very punchy and the couloir had been skied to hell.

Down at the lake we donned skins and began the exit. I had read that the exit from Joffre can be quite rugged in low snow so we were hoping that wouldn't be the case. We all down skinned the first section from the 3rd lake to the 2nd lake. Things got a little too spicy for down skinning on the section between the 2nd lake and the 1st lake. Nick had already switched to skis and I did just in time, before the summer trail turned to sections of water ice and wooden stairs. The 'luge' was a fun mixture of engaging and a little fucked up. Great way to end the day.

After much pushing and poling around the bottom lake we were back at the car and ready to go sip whiskey in the truck camper.