Slides devastate climbing ‘jewel’

PEMBERTON Two separate slides have carved large wedges out of Joffre Peak, east of Pemberton, raising safety concerns and devastating climbers and skiers who frequent the area, a geoscientist says.

Drew Brayshaw, who’s also a hydrologist, has climbed extensively in the area, and calls Joffre Peak “one of the crown jewels of mountaineering in southwest B.C.”

Part of the north face of the peak sloughed off early Monday with enough force to send debris more than four kilometres down Cerise Creek, east of Joffre Lakes Provincial Park, about 200 kilometres north of Vancouver.

Earthquake seismologist John Cassidy said in a social media post that the first slide was powerful enough to register on seismometers, but Thursday’s slide was even more powerful and was picked up by earthquake monitoring equipment more that 300 kilometres away on Vancouver Island.

The second slide carried away a huge part of the north face of Joffre Peak, said Brayshaw, who specializes in landslides and debris runouts, and has been following online reports of the slides.

“As soon as I saw the scar of that second landslide, which was right next to the first, it is obvious that the failure plane is continuing through the mountain, it is almost vertical,” he said in an interview.

“That strongly suggests that the next buttress over on the face of the mountain ... I would say is more likely than not, going to fall off. The question is just when.”

Brayshaw He said at least three of what he would consider the top20 ice gully or alpine rock climbs in southwestern B.C. had been lost to the slide.