McBride Ski Traverse

The epic McBride Ski Traverse travels from Whistler to the outskirts of Squamish through the beautiful Garibaldi Provincial Park. Not for the faint of heart this trip takes 5-6 days and covers a lot of very technical but exceptionally beautiful terrain.  If you've done one of the classics like the Spearhead, Tantalus or Garibaldi Neve and are looking for the next challenge then this might just be the ticket!

The Route:

The McBride Ski Traverse travels from the Blackcomb Ski Resort all the way to Garibaldi Mountain on the outskirts of Squamish (the BlackSheep variation) over about 5 days.

The traverse starts at the top of the Glacier Express T-bar the Blackcomb Resort and follows the same route as the Spearhead traverse for most of the first day. While a lot of people camp in the Crossover Glacier area on the Spearhead, we push a little past that and ski down the Naden Glacier and into forest at the bottom for our first night. From there we climb back out of the valley an into the McBride Range.

The next few days are spent traversing amazing alpine ridges, crossing broken glaciers and, if the weather's nice, enjoying superb mountainous views. A few days later we traverse pass The Sphinx, high above Garibaldi lake. But instead of following the typical route which involves a looooong walk across Garibaldi lake to reach the Rubble Creek trail for what is arguably one of the worst ski-outs on the coast, far worse than the infamous Singing Pass Trail, we stay high. This allows us to traverse over to the Glacier Pikes and then onto Brohm Ridge. From there we can ski down the road or, even better, catch a short helicopter ride back to the valley for a well deserved beer! It's kinda nice to tag the end of the traverse and be back in town 10 minutes later! The helicopter flight is not included in the cost of the trip.

Booking:

As the McBride Traverse is a larger trip that appeals to select skiers we typically just run private trips though we do have a scheduled trip this winter. If those dates don't work and you have a friend or two that's interested let us know and we can talk some alternative dates!