Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

September 28, 2021

1261m

Tulameen, BC

Mt. Riddell is a forested summit located immediately to the NW of Tulameen and logging roads had been pushed all the way to the very summit making this a low-hanging fruit out there. There’s only 40 m prominence down to the saddle NW of the summit but yet this peak is officially named. The peak can be done as a very short bushwhack from the NW as logging roads run through its prominence saddle. The road on the SE side go all the way to the top but is deactivated such that to drive it up one needs a high clearance, 4×4 vehicle. Brandon and I opted to try the SE access after bagging Grasshopper Mtn. and Mt. Rabbitt earlier in the day. Thank to the rain we wanted to avoid bushwhacking.

None of us knew the status of the SE side spur roads and once there we saw that deactivation sign. The ditch at the start was not deep enough to stop my truck so I decided to test out how far we could drive. The road was not super rough, but steep with deeper water bars. In retrospect I could have driven to within 20 m from the summit but we opted to park at about 500 m away. Part of the reason was that we still wanted to hike a bit to claim this summit.

The ascent was a nice change for us after two peaks with bushwhacking earlier in the day. For this one we just had to walk the road to the very top. The last 20 m was very steep and the very true summit required a very short detour into the forest. The descent was no-brainer as well and once back to the truck I immediately turned on the engine and drove down into the town of Tulameen. This was my first time in this small community. We stopped in a local store for some drinks and resumed the peak-bagging mission. The next objective would be Boulder Mountain.