Homathko Icefield Crossing – preamble

 

 

On the 30th of April our franco-kiwi team departs on a 23 day expedition crossing the Homathko Icefield. We’ll slog up to the snow line, ski across the mountainous Homathko icefield, stop and explore/ski a while, then will drop off the icefield and packraft to the sea.

We’ve 15kg of delicious cheese. Handmade gnocchi, pancake breakfasts. We’re also bringing some skis in case the weather is nice.

 

Follow the team

Our progress will be on the fresh alpine line facebook page here:

 

Plan

 

 

Drive 12 hours to the B and walk the purple line until the snowline.

The muddy yellow green is 45km on skis, at the blue marker we’ll stop and ski from a camp for about 5 days.

The red line is packrafting out the southgate river to the sea – there we’ll be picked up by a water taxi

these guys filmed their traverse. We plan to do a similar trip but with more philosophy and self reflection.

 

 

In preparation we have been…

Designing and constructing lightweight home-made gear. I’ll write some how-to’s on these later. We’ve made more glacier harnesses,

 

 

Inflatable PFDs for packrafting,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ice axe that clicks into a shovel to save carrying a handle.

 

 

 

 

Food Drops

Thanks to the ideas from ‘the coast mountain epic’ expedition blog, our food is being dropped from a small plane and needs to survive the fall. We’ve been hiffing boxes of bridges and cliffs to test packaging design.

 

 

Packing food drops:

 

 

And weighing out and packing a loooot of food.

 

 

Beautiful air drop packages, ready to fly.

 

 

We’ve learnt a lot in the process, will post tips in the future. For now – we’re in a bit of a scramble to get everything prepared!

(The car we will be driving to the start of the trip still hasn’t been bought!! Leaving tomorrow morning!)

 

 

 

People

Expedition Team

Joane Elleouet:  La Dragoon De Divine Delicacies, Day Job: Evolution PhD student. Specialty – Leaving the pasta behind, cursing the wind.

 

 

 

 

 

Henry Dengate Thrush: Constructor of Elaborate Snow Shelters, Day Job: Museum exhibition designer. 

Specialty: Full frontal double ejections while skiing.

 

 

 

 

 

Paul Mason: Chief Chaser of Lost Gear Floating Downriver.  Day Job: Air traffic controller.

Specialty – Nothing, he’s on a splitboard.

 

 

 

 

Arran Whiteford: Grenadier of Gnocchi Production. Day job: Glaciology Masters student.

Specialty – Getting numb hands when it’s not even cold.

 

 

Mike Rowe: SAR expert (Sewing And Repair). Day job: Antarctic field Support.

Specialty – Working for google and in Antarctica, generally everything.

 

 

 

David Rowe:  Agent Air Drop. Day job: Harpoon Cold Brew Coffee Co-Owner.

Specialty – Falling down crevasses, Offering cold brew coffee on freezing mornings.

 

Extended team

 

Edgar Bullon: Legend pilot doing air drops, check out his amazing aerial photography

 

 

 

 

 

 

Signe Vendike: Driver,

 

 

 

 

 

Camilo Rada: Co-pilot, air drop throwerman,

Angus Hines, Noel Fitzpatrick : Weather forecasters/contact

Gear design and construction: Amanda, Christine Whiteford

Janine, Graham, Jack and Sally: Accommodations, food, support

Alex Wilson: Maps

Ian MacLachlan: Contact

 

Communications

 

Amanda Christophers, Emma Bedford

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Massive thanks to all + more!!