Sky Pilot

Grade I, Class 4
Squamish, BC

Sky Pilot is an 18.5km (1,300m elevation gain) return trip from the top of the Sea-to-Sky Gondola (Matt Gunn's book and others describe the pre-gondola approach, which is considerably longer). The first (and last) 5km are the least interesting, following a wide gravel road then bouldery trail up through the valley to the base of the climber's trail. From there it gets good. The climber's trail is a great bit of new trail-building that quickly takes you up into the alpine with views, first, of Co-pilot and the amazing rocky tooth of Mt. Habrich. Next is some awkward climbing up steep and loose terrain to the base of the small Stadium Glacier. We had the option of skirting around the glacier on more of the steep & loose stuff, but the glacier provides the more direct route to the west ridge we were aiming for, and we had crampons, axes and ropes with us (I was comfortable scampering up in micro spikes).

The scrambling begins shortly after you get onto the ridge with the "pink-yellow" slab. This is the most technical part of the whole route, pushing 5th class for about 15m to a shiny new bolted anchor. We had a full length climbing rope which I set-up for top-roping, but we met a group of three rapping down on a 30m scrambling rope so that's all I'm packing next time! From the top of the slab the route makes its way around to the south ridge with plenty of fun scrambling to the summit. There are opportunities, particularly early on, to get off route, but it quickly becomes obvious when you do (above the initial slab there is nothing harder than moderate 4th class to the summit; if it looks harder than that you're going the wrong way).

We had some stand-out performances in our group from Tyler (10 years old) and Holly. Both got up the pink-yellow slab, and Tyler a little ways beyond it before calling it a day on some of the sketchy (loose) terrain above. They both then turned themselves inside out (actually, Tyler seemed like he could've kept going all night) to make it back in time for the last gondola at 7pm. Even though we were up on the first ride at 9:30am, our group was very hard-pressed to get back in time (we could've spent a little less time snapping photos before any hiking occurred). A good deal of uncomfortable running back down the valley trail was needed (Holly had some impressive blisters to show off the next day), and even then it was only thanks to the kindly gondola attendant that none of us had to face the long, steep hike back to the parking lot. Back at the base station we noticed that the gondola stays open later on Fridays and Saturdays in the summer. Note-to-self.

Participants: Pip, Guy, Jocelyn, Graham, Martin, Holly & Tyler.

Photos   KML   GPX

Recommended gear: 30m scrambling rope (material for bolted anchor if top-roping), harness & belay device for pink slab; helmet; ice axe & crampons or micro spikes for Stadium glacier.

Water: bottles could be refilled at the glacier.

References:
Matt Gunn's Scrambles in Southwest British Columbia
Topo 092G11
Bivouac.com
Sea-to-Sky Gondola Homepage and Interactive Map