Coast Range Outdoors

Peggy and I were reading the Alpine Select and stumbled on the description for Cassiope and Saxifrage Peaks. The description looked great – good quality rock, ridgeline linkups, views in all directions, and sidewalks in the sky. I gave Tyler a call that evening, and early the next morning the three of us were driving up towards Pemberton.

Cassiope and Saxifrage Peaks are located NE of Pemberton. We drove through Mount Currie, turned onto the Spetch Creek FSR and parked at the Valentine Lake trailhead. From Squamish to trailhead was about 1.5 hours.

The approach to Valentine Lake flew by. The trail starts in a nice section of forest and follows Spetch Creek for a bit, before benching out into some sub-alpine meadows. We soon arrived at Valentine Lake. The views of Cassiope and Saxifrage explode into view from the lake. The mountains looked impressive, and we were psyched to give the linkup a go. We also had some great views looking back towards Mt Currie, Hibache Ridge, and peaks above Lillooet Lake and the Mkwal’ts Conservancy.

Above Valentine Lake, the trail ended, and we gained the saddle directly behind the lake between the two peaks.

We worked our way up the NW ridge of Cassiope. There were a few 3rd and 4th class moves, however these were easily navigated.

Back at the saddle from Cassiope Peak, we started making our way up the SE ridge of Saxifrage. We approached this section with some question marks. The ridge was an obvious feature, but the route descriptions were a bit varied. The Scrambles of SW BC book described this ridge as a 3rd class scramble, while the Alpine Select mentioned this route had sections of low 5th and was a bit more serious. We gave the ridge a go, and found it was somewhere in between these descriptions. There were a few 5th class sections, but they were entirely doable, and overall the rock on the ridge was solid.

The descent from Saxifrage is non-technical, but does involve hiking downhill forever on steep alpine meadow slopes. Valentine Lake is constantly in view, so the route finding is easy. Just aim for the lake.

What a great day in the mountains. We underestimated distances and elevation profiles so we were a bit bagged by the time we made it to the truck, but a Mile One dinner stop on the way home helped with the calorie deficit.

Overall, we covered 24km distance and did 2000m of elevation gain. It was a big day out, but Tyler had to go to work the next day so we didn’t camp. Valentine Lake looks like a prime camping spot if you wanted to break up the peaks over 2 days.