Mountain Life: Coast Mountains editor finally checks out a Sea to Sky classic
words :: Feet Banks
photography :: Michael Overbeck
Considering where I’ve grown up and what I do for a living, this is actually super embarrassing—how a person can drive past one an utterly beautiful-looking mountain for more than 35 years without ever getting his crap together enough to climb it?
Sky Pilot, that sharp prominent peak jutting from the ridges to the southeast of Siy’ám’ Smánit / Stawamus Chief.
Sky Pilot. My very first climbing harness, purchased in 1994 (with adjustable leg loops to accommodate snow pants!), was named after that peak … and yet I’d never stepped foot within kilometres of it.
“Explore your own yard,” JF Plouffe tells me. “It depends where you live, of course, but often you don’t need to go far to feel that you are having an adventure. And you live here in Squamish so you have no excuse.”
Indeed. Plouffe is a two-decade-plus mountain guide and Helly Hansen ambassador who’s been up Sky Pilot “twenty five or thirty times, I guess. Six times last year but some of those were in winter, climbing with skis and crampons.”
And so, on an overcast-but-dry-and-mild day last August, Helly Hansen asked JF to drag my sorry ass up the iconic peak and get it over with. (OK not really, but I was invited to join a Helly media day to test some gear, scurry up something called “the pink slab” and see the sights I’d never yet experienced.)
In the old days, JF and his buddy would have to double on a dirtbike up a decommissioned logging road (“ditches and deadfall”) to start their approach into Sky Pilot. These days we have the luxury of the Sea to Sky Gondola, a scenic-as-all-can-be ride that takes care of 885 metres (2,904 feet) of elevation. From there we embark on a 15km (return) trek with just under 1200 metres (3937 feet) of elevation gain.
In the old days, JF and his buddy would have to double on a dirtbike up a decommissioned logging road (“ditches and deadfall”) to start their approach into Sky Pilot.
“You still get a bit of that classic logging-road hiking,” JF says, “leading into a single-track through cedar and hemlock and fir forest in steep terrain. Then you crest out of that into a coliseum of snow and alpine terrain. Then you get on a glacier, some more technical climbing and exposure that finishes in a kick-ass summit. It’s really all the classic characteristics of a nice Coast Mountains adventure.”
And off we go, into the forest (being mindful of kicking up hornets nesting in the ground) with snack breaks/rests alongside the occasional stream. Sky Pilot is a moderately popular mission nowadays, and while Squamish locals will often do it in trail-running gear, people get rescued from this route multiple times a summer, and some have even died.
JF—ever the guide—prefers to over prepare. “A 25-30 litre pack is ideal for this,” he says. “You want a warm puffy layer even on a hot summer day. Mountain weather can change quickly. You also want a rain shell. Crampons for the snow gully, an ice axe, a headlamp, water and a snack. And a toque and an extra pair of gloves. If you needed to, you can sit on your backpack, put on all your clothes, wrap yourself in an emergency blanket and survive a night up there.”
The weather, though far from sunny and clear at the outset, does offer nice and comfortable hiking temperatures and our group makes good time (and encounters no hornets!) JF stops us at a massive hemlock with a number of hard, woody fungi growing on it. “I know this tree,” he says. “In winter we ski right around it. It’s so cool to see this terrain in all the seasons.”
Eventually, the forest thins and gives way to a large, open bowl of rock, grit, and snow. I’m testing a nearly fresh (I cranked off a two-hour hike to break them in the day before) set of lightweight (470g) Helly Hansen Cascade Hiking Boots (mid-cut for added ankle support) and a Verglas 2.5 Layer Fastpack Jacket. The boots easily accommodate some of those elastic, lightweight snowspikes and keep me dry as we kick up a steep snow gully leading from the Stadium glacier up onto the summit ridge. The Verglas is perfect for battling summit wind gusts but also compacts down to the size of my fist. My turkey sandwich is also exceptional.
“I know this tree. In winter we ski right around it. It’s so cool to see this terrain in all the seasons.”
We gain the main ridge of the zone and rope up for technical scrambling on a class 4 / low class 5 pitch known as the Pink Slab (which may even actually even be pink if you are not colour blind). The Pink Slab is a bit contentious, in the way that assigning a difficulty level to a natural feature and expecting it to appease any number of people with different skill levels always is. The general rule (around here at least) is if you need to use both hands to climb something it is considered class 4. If you need a rope, it’s class 5. But you can also use the ratings as verbs—you can “class 4” a pitch that may be graded class 5. Or you can rope up.
We rope up. As working professionals, JF and his colleague Drew De Panicis like to do things right (which is why we also all wear helmets—rockfall is a legitimate hazard on the final two pitches of Sky Pilot).
“This is my job,” JF says. “And part of that job is to constantly be learning. People that work on computers will keep learning new software and updates. For us, it’s learning how to teach skills better, learn new equipment or communicate better and feel where people are at. For a lot of the people I guide, we are doing things on their bucket-list. My job is to help you carry the bucket. All the way to the top, and all the way back. With the exposure here and the terrain traps, the fall factor and the consequences are greater—you can’t stop your fall. So we use ropes.”
Next up is a knife-edge ridge with exposure on both sides, followed by two steep chimney pitches to the summit. It’s exciting, it’s fun, it’s fully socked in. We can see clouds…and that is about it. As we eat celebratory gummy snakes and don our warm layers (Odin Lightweight Stretch Hooded Insulator 2.0 for the win), JF vocalizes his favourite part of the view we are missing.
“I never get tired of reaching a peak and being able to look down onto the ocean, it never gets old. There’s a reason they call this the Sea to Sky. And then to climb a peak like this, so prominently visible from the highway, from town…but then you get up here and the coolest thing happens—you see another peak that you never see from the valley. And maybe now you want to go there, to keep exploring. Every summit fuels the passion, even in your own backyard.”
Point taken. See you out there.
Jf and his partner Marie-Andrée Racine are hosting a seminar titled “Whistler Hiking 101: Tips for early season and beyond” on Tuesday June 24, 2025 at 7 p.m. in the Helly Hansen Whistler Store (in the Westin hotel). Free to attend. RSVP here.
You can also follow @jfplouffe on instagram and be sure to hit up Helly Hansen for all your hiking gear needs, including the award-winning Odin Rock Insulated Shell, which JF helped design and is, according to him, “A great summer jacket—articulated, four-way stretch, breathable, waterproof and with a double zip to accommodate a harness. It’s everything you need and the hood is just so good.”
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