The Vitals
Date: July 29 – August 2, 2022
Location: North of Pemberton, BC
Distance: ~55 km
Partners: Brittany, Will, Alex, Dave
Photos: Brittany
The Trip
This was one of the most peak-bagging focused trip I’ve ever done. I’m not motivated by numbers when it comes to summits but this area, with its density of high-quality scrambling, encouraged multiple summits on most days.
Two years ago Brittany, Will, and I completed a more ambitious and less well-travelled route in this zone in turbulent weather. Along the way we came within about 100 vertical meters from the summit of Sockeye Horn but on that occasion we skipped the scramble in a cloud in order to continue our traverse of the ridge. Missing this peak after being so close was the impetus to return and link up some more alpine scrambles. In the heat and a general lack of shade in the alpine, ~10km days with our heavy overnight packs was about the right pace.
Day 1
We drove from Vancouver on the first morning and we were hiking just before 10 having parked about a kilometer past the junction of the Hope Creek and East Hope Creek FSRs. The Hurley and Hope Creek FSR are in great shape with no issues. It would be a longer drive in a 2wd but is possible.
The hike to the end of the logging road towards the pass that contains Opal Lake was a bit hot with little wind. The lake itself is hardly a pond so it’s interesting that it is named on the map when much larger lakes nearby (the one below Sockeye Horn, for example) remain anonymous. In any case, the lake was a great temperature for swimming but we didn’t take advantage of it quite yet.
After dropping our camping equipment, we followed the north ridge route up Tenquille. Again, the naming of features in the mountains is surprising. Tenquille is not a large or notable mountain against its neighbours but the lake below and cabin all share the name so there may be a backstory with which I’m unfamiliar. I had thought this would be the end of our first day, but Goat Peak was so close we spent an extra 90 minutes or so descending to the col, scrambling the peak, and returning back to Tenquille’s summit before dropping down to end our day around 7:00 pm.
Day 2
The second morning we began to follow the most common route up towards Chipmunk peak. We started early enough that the steep meadow slopes north of Opal Lake were in shade. At the top of the steep meadow is a small rock band where we had a sobering incident. The rock band has some loose rock and our party had been strung out by the steep meadow climb. As the second of our group ascended the rock band, a large rock (think like a small microwave) was dislodged and the last of the party was directly in the firing line. There were several seconds where we could all watch the rock tumble and pick up speed towards her. She chose to dodge to her left just as the rock bounced and took a kick the same way. It struck the side of her backpack, flung her violently and then continued down the slope and disappeared from view far below.
The possibility of this accident was not discussed beforehand probably because the meadow slopes themselves posed no danger and rock band at the top was very short – easily climbed in a few moments. This means the danger of rockfall was not heeded. The stretching of the group also meant the rock had time to pick up considerable momentum. In the end the damage was limited to a crushed helmet (inside the pack), a ripped pack closure, and a fairly significant bruise (not from the rock, but from the violent fall). This incident is a clear reminder that mountain activities have inherent dangers but the way in which we were reminded was much too close for comfort.
After regrouping and settling, we continued to the ridge where we again dropped our overnight gear so that three of us could scramble Chipmunk Peak. The route gets high praise (3/3 stars in Matt Gunn’s Scrambles guidebook) and is described as “easy”. I would disagree slightly with both of those statements. The first, a star rating, is subjective and while the peak is prominent, the scrambling is mostly loose talus with a bit more compact rock at the top. This also means I would disagree with it being “easy”. An easy scramble is one I would recommend to a first-timer. It’s true Chipmunk is not technically challenging nor exposed but the loose nature poses enough complication that I think some more experience is prudent. This view is enhanced by the incident previously discussed.
Back on the ridge below Chipmunk, we made a broad arc and looked at the several interesting geological changes including some hoodoo-like structures. We made our way in two groups towards Canine, each group passing the small intermediate mound on opposite sides.
Canine as a scramble was much different than Chipmunk. The rock was more solid (though holds still need to be tested) and there is one notch with considerable exposure on the north side. It was an all-round confidence booster peak with hexagonal basalt columns and a fun third class top-out past the exposed crux.
We made camp below Molar on the north side having elected to skip scrambling it. There may be a good route up Molar but over the course of the next few days we saw it from all sides and none look particularly appealing. The most likely route seemed to be from the Molar-Canine col. While this is the shortest access, it still looked pretty loose.
Day 3
On our third day we all wished our left legs were shorter than our rights as we contoured the entire valley west of Beaujolais, crossed over the end of the ridge that separates it from the valley west of Sockeye Horn, and the continued to contour to the large lake.
We found the same campsite we used two years prior but this time there were some other parties camped around the lake. Not quite the total solitude I like to find in the mountains but it was the Sunday of a long weekend in a moderately well-known area.
As had become routine, we dropped our camping stuff and headed up towards the peak of Sockeye Horn. This route kicks up a snow slope that looks quite steep from afar but we felt secure with microspikes even though the intense sun was turning the top few inches of snow to unconsolidated mush. Two people were descending as we made our way up and another party of two was just behind us for a total of at least 9 people summiting that day.
The scramble from the top of the snow slope was straightforward with some low-level technical moves and a bit of exposure. As one of the taller peaks in the vicinity, the views from the summit were excellent in every direction as we tried to pick out other peaks we have climbed as far away as Mt. Garibaldi.
Day 4
Our original plan was to ascend Beaujolais from the basin we were in (mostly steep hiking) and then descend the main scramble route with our overnight packs. We were unsure if this was a wise move as the scramble route is supposed to be somewhat difficult and it is always more challenging to descend something, especially when you haven’t seen it on the way up.
We opted to reverse our sidehilling of the previous day back into the first basin west of Beaujolais before climbing up high to some tarns near the ridge that connects Beaujolais and Merlot South. A stiff valley breeze, snow, and cooler temperatures did a good job on tamping down the rampant bug activity we had experienced earlier in the trip.
After setting up tents and lunch, we set off on the last scrambles of the trip. Ascending Beaujolais is the most fun I have had on any scramble in BC. The moves were engaging and continuous. We chose to scramble as close to the ridgeline as possible at all times including a bonus excursion over a gendarme. This summit we had all to ourselves as the long-weekend traffic had all filtered out in the morning. We basked on the big flat blocks before reversing the scramble with the reassurance that our rerouting decision at the beginning of the day had been a smart move.
I started to crash on the descent from Beaujolais and didn’t much feel like a significant detour to tag Merlot proper and Valpolicella, so we simply followed the ridge to Merlot South. This is possible to do entirely non-technically (except for the precariously perched summit boulder) but there were lots of fun little optional cracks to climb.
Our last camp of the trip was quite a bit cooler with a bit of ice forming on part of the tarn overnight and some frost on a pair of boots.
Day 5
The exit was always going to be the least interesting day but we traversed the basin one last time, picked up the flagged trail to the East Hope Creek FSR, and descended steeply with a couple of creek crossings. I figured the car was parked about a 45 minute walk from where we joined the road so I was dismayed that it ended up being a good 75 minutes. The sun was still intense but there was a much stronger breeze on this day which took some of the edge off.
On the drive out we saw a mother bear and her cub and later another lone black bear in the Pemberton valley. This trip is also the first time I saw a Clark’s Nutcracker and a relatively unusual sighting of a deer with some nice antlers in the subalpine. In a few weeks I will return to this general area to do the Owl-Tenquille traverse with another friend, after which I think it will be time to explore some new areas.
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