Guanaco Peak
October 15, 2015
2127m
Coquihalla Pass, BC
After successfully ascending Vicuna Peak, Vlad and I immediately focused on the nearby Guanaco Peak. This peak although marginally higher than Vicuna Peak, isn’t nearly as appealing to climbers as its neighbour. Getting to the summit is a mere plod from Vicuna/Guanaco col, but nonetheless it’s a great vantage point of the Coquihalla area and for peak-baggers like myself it makes perfect sense to combine the two together.
Vicuna Peak and Guanaco Peak scramble route. GPX DL
From Vicuna/Guanaco col it’s an “easy scramble” to the summit with some brief route-finding. There’s a path and a few cairns marking the route but there’s also plenty of opportunity to make the ascent harder. It didn’t take us long to arrive at the broad summit where we took a long break.
Guanaco Peak from the col
Hiking up some typical terrain
Looking back towards Vicuna Peak
Almost there
Partial summit panorama from Guanaco Peak. Click to view large size.
Partial summit panorama from Guanaco Peak. Click to view large size.
Vicuna Peak
A closer look at Vicuna’s summit block
Steinbok, Ibex and Chamois Peaks
Nak Peak and Yak Peak in the foreground. Coquihalla Mountain behind
Mt. Baker in the distance
The forested peak in the foreground is Zum Peak
July Mountain in the distance
Looking south-east towards Princeton and the Interior Plateau
Rolling hills
Me on the summit of Guanaco Peak
On the descent we opted to make a short-cut rather than retracing all the way back down to Vicuna/Guanaco col. This proved to be a good choice and we got to explore an area with some giant staircases. Back onto the trail the rest of the descent was relatively uneventful except for some muddy post-holing on that swampy section.
Looking back towards Guanaco Peak
Vlad hiking down
Looking over the shoulder of Guanaco
Vlad descending some giant staircases
And then, the natural staircases
Back onto the trail
One of the few creek crossings on the road
The logging road walk at the end
Back to the Jeep our round trip time was about 6.5 hours which was as expected. Simon finished his trip about 1 hour earlier than us and he did get to explore Zum Peak as well as a bump further along the ridge. On the drive out the Jeep was making some weird noises near the front wheel but we couldn’t quite figure out the problem. Back onto the highway it was still making some noises but didn’t get worse. Overall it was a great introductory to the Coquihalla area and there’re many more nice-looking granite spires to come back for.
