What does one typically do after work on a snowy day in Squamish? For most people, the answer is not snowboarding down the Siám' Smánit (Stawamus Chief).
On Feb. 3, after clocking off early from his job, local snowboarder Evan Beatty made the solo descent down the North Gully of the mountain
Beatty has had his eye on the run ever since Squamish locals Paul Greenwood, Eric Carter and Chris Christie completed one of the first known descents down the gully in January 2022.
And thanks to a cold snap that brought over a metre of snow to the Stawamus Chief, Beatty said the conditions were too good to resist.
“I've been watching the gully for years, because I can see it from my living room,” Beatty told The Squamish Chief.
“I was definitely inspired by the original guys that did it back in 2022, but they are skiers, and I thought that it would also be kind of cool if a snowboarder did it.
“So ever since they did that, I've been thinking about it, but I've just been waiting for the proper weather window to come in.”
Beatty said that despite only having one solid day's worth of snow, the conditions weren’t too dissimilar to when Greenwood and his pals took on the challenge.
“In 2022, I think we had consistent snow for about two weeks, compared to this one, where we just had it for one day. So they had better conditions, but honestly, not that dissimilar to what I had, because the gully itself … funnels all the snow that's above into the one slot, so it makes for a really deep kind of gully experience,” he said.
His plans were originally to go on the morning of Feb. 4, but a window of opportunity revealed itself a day early thanks to a midday knockoff from work.
“I was going to go this morning, but then I got off of work early yesterday at 12 p.m., and I thought 'Oh, I could just go now,' and then I was just racing the clock to get it done before it got too dark.
Thanks to the power of the internet, Beatty was able to study the original trio’s route, including where to first rappel in from.
“What the boys did was they kind of went into it, not really knowing much about it. They used a drone to scope it out before, and they brought various tools to get down safely because they had no idea,” Beatty said.
“But then they posted all that [online], so all that knowledge was super public. So then I just had to do research off of the articles that they posted. I was like, OK, cool, so I know everything that I need to know because they outlined it like a treasure map, then I can just go down and have fun—so it was a little bit easier for me.”
The journey up
Beatty, a certified Association of Canadian Mountain Guides rock guide, regularly climbs the Stawamus Chief as part of his job, so he was pretty confident about what terrain he could expect.
At 1:09 p.m., he began his journey up the mountain using his splitboard (a snowboard that can be split into two separate skis for climbing uphill) to ski to the staircase of the main hiking trail.
“That was the only time that I actually skied during the entire thing, because it was flat, so I put that on my back, and then I just started hiking the main trail,” Beatty said.
“And then that wraps around to the Slhanay Peak Trail, and then I hiked that up to the North Gully.
“At that point, I put some rappel cord around a tree and a ring, and I rappelled into the gully, which was probably only five or seven metres. I could have probably jumped into it, but I was just being cautious.”
The way down
While a lot of work went into getting to the run itself, Beatty says the longest he was able to continuously ride was about 50 metres.
“Most people would think that it's just one beautiful line of skiing or snowboarding, but this is a very complicated line where you only can snowboard for maybe 50 metres at a time, and then you have to get off of your snowboard and then transition into a rappel,” Beatty said.
Beatty began his descent into the gully around 3 p.m. snowboarding to a large chalk stone boulder wedged in the gully, which he describes as being “the size of a house.”
“The boys before they actually slung a small little rock and put a ring on it to be able to rappel down.
“It looked good to me, so I used that [method] again. So I just rappelled off of their previous equipment from three years ago, and that was an overhanging repel, probably, I'd say, maybe 20 meters [long].”
In total, Beatty had to rappel four times to complete his run down to the base of Angels Crest, a famous route that climbers use to reach the top of the second peak.
It was there at around 4:30 p.m. that his snowboarding journey came to an end, and he was back on foot hiking down to the base of the mountain.
The experience
In true snowboarding fashion, Beatty—who has taken part in the recreational activity since 2000—describes the whole experience as “nonchalant.”
“It was pretty tame. I kind of expected that it was going to be tame. I'm not sure if you're looking for me to say it was a euphoric experience or something, but no, it was pretty cool. I liked it,” he said.
The run itself, he said, was a double black diamond, and with not a whopping amount of snow in the gully, his board ended up a little worse for wear.
“The snow was deep, but it only came from one day, so there was no really good, solid base layer. So, if I was to stop anywhere, I would just sink all the way down, so I had to keep momentum but also take it slow,” Beatty said.
“It was also quite bony; there were a lot of little boulders sticking out here and there. Luckily, I brought my bad board because it definitely got scuffed up a bit.”
A cautionary tale
Beatty’s advice for others considering doing the run is to proceed with caution.
“It's definitely a serious objective, and the fact that I did it solo, I only did that because I was quite comfortable with the terrain and knew exactly where to go and what to do, especially with the information that was provided back in 2022,” he said.
“I think that your average snowboarder Who doesn't have mountain experience with rappelling and stuff, they might want to tread carefully with this one.
As for whether he would do it again, the avid snowboarder said without a doubt.
“I really want to do it again. I don't think it's going to happen this year, just with the weather, but if it ever comes again, and if better, then I want to do it,” he said.
“Now I know exactly where to go, and I can make it faster, and I've got a few friends who want to do it too.”
But is the run any better than those on Whistler Blackcomb? Unfortunately not.
“It's a pretty line, but if you want to get better turns, any line on Whistler would be better than the North Gully on the Chief,” Beatty said with a laugh.
To see more of Beatty’s snowboarding adventures, visit his Instagram page.
