Gravell Couloir

March 14, 2026

Stumbling across Gravell Couloir on a map and a couple blogs (Tareef Dedhar & Steven Song) I was immediately intrigued and surprised I hadn’t heard about it before. The line seemed to have all the makings to be a local classic: good access, aesthetic, long fall line, and a sheltered northerly aspect. Some beautiful weather lined up and I was stoked to go check out the line with Austin and see if it had the makings to be a previously overlooked classic.

The line faces directly north and the steep and tall walls prevent it from getting much solar influence, the line is broad enough that I would hesitate to call it a couloir if it wasn’t for the 10m wide choke at the top. It is located just east of Mount Currie off of Gravell Peak. The line is not particularly steep, mostly a sustained 35 degree descent, but steepens to roughly 40 degrees at the choke. From the col at the top you get a spectacular 700m run overlooking Pemberton Valley. Access is from the Green river FSR and then Rutherford Creek Spur. You can either take the more easterly spur and ascend the line as we did, or opt for more bushwhacking and less avalanche exposure by ascending the NW ridge of Gravell.

After some very deluxe breakfast sandwiches (from the chevron just north of whistler), we rolled up to the FSR in Austin’s F150. Green River FSR was in great shape and any vehicle should have no problems with it. Rutherford Creek was a little rougher with a few moderate drainage ditches, a bit of clearance is good here. The truck was doing great through the snow but a fallen tree at 600m blocked us from going much farther (we should have brought a saw with us). No problem though we had hit the snowline and could still ski right from the truck.

The approach was very good, an easy ski along the FSR, a couple sections had a bit of alder, but nothing too bad. The FSR takes you almost right to the base of the line. The line was moderate enough to skin up almost the entire way. It probably took close to 50 kick-turns till we transitioned to booting at the choke. I have never done so many kick-turns back to back, but it made for much more efficient travel than booting.

Topping out the line at the col we were welcomed by sunshine and spectacular views. From here it is a short skin to the summit of Gravell Peak. We transitioned and skied right off the peak of Gravell and down to the couloir. We lined up a spot to have line of sight down the whole couloir and then skied it in one continuous 700m vertical shot from top to bottom. It was a spectacular ski, dry boot-top pow the whole way made for effortless fresh turns. The best run of my season so far!

We were back at the car in a bit over 6 hours after a breezy ski back down the FSR. As we were leaving, a heli skimmed by the couloir. I wonder if its a popular line for heli skiing, it would be satisfying if we beat the heli skiers to the goods under our modest human power. Overall I would definitely recommend the line, and I think it deserves a place as a local classic. It is quite unique to find 700m of perfect sheltered 35 degree pow, let alone with great access. I’ll hopefully be returning in the future for some of the other lines out there that caught my eye.