Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

September 20, 2026

2126m

Chilliwack, BC

These are the easternmost of the “southeast peaks” of Slesse Mountain that are probably far enough from the main peak to earn their own names. The unofficial names were obtained from the surveyor’s notes and mentioned in the Beckey’s guidebook. “Station D Peak” is the taller of the two and likely boasts over 100 m prominence but until the LiDAR coverage comes to B.C. we won’t know for sure. These two peaks are also quite iconic viewing from Slesse Memorial Trail and the NE (Labour Day) Buttress on “Labour Day Horn” is a multipitch climb that had gained some popularity over the years. However, the proximity to the NE Buttress of Slesse Mountain, one of the 50 “Classic Climbs” means these sub-peaks will never gain that much attention no matter what, which is fortunate or unfortunate depends on who you are.

I definitely wanted to climb these peaks but I wasn’t keen on unnecessary difficulties added to the Labour Day Buttress since my sole interest is peakbagging. My plan was to ascend the descent route documented in both the Alpine Select and Francis’ trip report to the “backside” of these peaks and attack each of them via their respective easiest routes. The term “easy” is completely relative as these peaks require some climbing no matter what. “Labour Day Horn” would be 4th class but the beta for “Station D Peak” is very much non-existing on the internet except for from a few elite alpinists making some grander traverses across the range. Wayne Wallace gives the E. Ridge of “Station D Peak” a rating of 5.7 so I took that for granted. It’s very possible that there might exist an easier route on the SW side but without actually going there, seeing the objective and possibly even trying the lines I wouldn’t be able to know. I also didn’t mind the direct 5.7 traverse since logistically it would make the most sense and 5.7 is also within my reach.

Originally I was planning on something completely non-technical but Erica and Tyler convinced me to push a bit harder this weekend. This could very much be the end of the summer alpine season. At this point after living in Vancouver for 11 years I have pretty much run out of peaks that can be done reasonably as a day-trip from home but still require the use of a rope even by the easiest possible way. Among the few ideas being tossed we eventually decided on the Labour Day/Station D combo. We left Surrey at 9 pm and I drove us to the trail-head in my Subaru. The Nesakwatch FSR was pretty much as expected, rough with a few wash-outs and ditches that required AWD with medium clearance. The trail-head had been pushed back by another few hundred meters since my previous visits in this zone and I’m sure people would have to walk even farther in the future. The current trail-head was also not very spacious but pulling in at 11 pm we had no problem finding a spot to park.

I had no idea how long this outing would take us so ideally we wanted to start a couple hours before sunrise, but we were extremely exhausted at this point from the consecutive long working days. The final decision was made to start hiking at 6 am, which was “fine” as I’d be comfortable leading us down the “scramble route” in the dark, if needed. We ended up only using head-lamps for perhaps 15 minutes in the morning and that’s it. This was only my second time hiking this trail and first time hiking past the Crossover turn-off. The trail was well maintained especially by the Chilliwack’s standards. Knowing we just had a very non-alpine start I led us bolting up the trail and got to the Memorial site (end of trail) in 2 hours. We took the first long break of the day mostly to don sun protection. We took the second break not terribly long after since Erica and I needed to load up the water bottles in one of the streams after starting the extremely tedious traverse around the bases of “Labour Day Horn” and “Station D Peak”. I had doubts about the availability of water in the late season but decided to take the gamble. If there’s zero source of water then we would have to turn around and go home, but we found at least two reliable sources that would definitely last the entire season. We had to traverse all the way to the east side of “Labour Day Horn” and this 2-km stretch had a shit ton of heather slopes, moraine choss and boulder fields that weren’t particularly stable. We picked a line staying too high on the way up but found a slightly better way on the return. None of our routes was the exact way that Francis and Andrea took and all three routes sucked so this section was picking-your-poison kind of adventure.

Having Francis’ GPX track loaded meant I didn’t have to do much “homework” about the approach, if at all. We simply wrapped around one of the eastern ribs of “Labour Day Horn” and ascended what seemed like a hanging valley. The boulder fields gave way to some easy slabs and eventually there came a 3rd class headwall. Above the headwall we took a hard leftwards traverse on heather slopes to intersect another eastern rib which is considerably narrower, and climbed more 3rd class blocky terrain to the broader SE Ridge of “Labour Day Horn”. Here I made the decision to ignore the existing beta in search for our own way up “Labour Day Horn”. The direct SE Ridge seemed reasonable so we decided to scramble as much as we could. It turned out that we managed to scramble all the way to the summit but we did encounter some occasional climbing moves. Those moves were definitely technical but not sustained nor exposed, so I agreed with the “old school 4th class” rating after all.

We took a long break and donned harness on the summit knowing the descent into Labour Day/Station D col likely would involve a rappel, as per Francis’ trip report. We scrambled down some exposed heather ledges with fair amount of route-finding and that brought us down to the final pitch above the col. The pitch appeared extremely blank and there’s a rappel station clearly visible, but we took a deeper look around. Erica and I thought the skier’s right “might be” down-climbable and Erica volunteered to lead us down. There’s one extremely awkward step right at the start but the main pitch was only “4th class” albeit with deadly exposure on questionable rocks. Tyler followed without a problem so we successfully bypassed the rappel.

Then up the E. Ridge of “Station D Peak” the scrambling wasn’t too bad initially so we again, decided to see how far we could solo before having to pitch things out. We ditched some gear and racked up once the terrain became challenging. An awkward mid 5th class step forced us to look for lines on the climber’s right (north face) side of the ridge, and sure enough we were able to keep “scrambling”. Tyler led a short step that was about 5.5/5.6 and we all soloed it. We then went back to the north face side of the ridge and I led us long stretch of 4th class. The rock quality was bad and the heather slopes were not very “enjoyable”. We were about 30 m from the summit where we finally decided to pitch things out. Erica and Tyler went around farther to the climber’s right and almost decided to climb on that side but I convinced us to try the splitter crack on the south side. The crack might be technically harder but much easier to protect. Tyler led the crack and continued all the way to the summit and this pitch definitely earns the 5.7 rating. I don’t do much sport climbing at all so I was quite happy to be able to follow the crack without having to pull on the cams.

I had no idea how we were going to descend this peak as the original plan was to rappel back down the E. Ridge, as suggested in the McLean’s guidebook. We however, saw no obvious rappel station on the summit nor anywhere else lower down on the E. Ridge so the previous parties either all carried onward towards Slesse Mtn. or descended the SW side. I thought there must have an easier way down so went to inspect the SW side and sure enough, one of the rib might be “just a scramble”. We had no problem scrambling at least halfway down this rib but the terrain started to become increasingly bushy. It’s possible that this rib would go entirely as a “scramble” but 4th/5th class moves on bushes would be unavoidable. I was not willing to do a ton of that especially seeing Erica wearing nothing but shorts, so made the decision to do a long rappel using the double 60m ropes we had brought. I thought one rappel would get us all the way down and I was correct. We did have to leave a cord on a tree so this was probably not the “standard way” to get off “Station D Peak” neither, but whatever.

We earned ourselves a bonus 4th class pitch to scramble back up to the base of the E. Ridge to retrieve our ditched gear. This costed some time and energy but I still preferred the extra gain over having to haul those stuffs up and over the technical terrain. We then mostly followed the existing beta descending from Station D/Labour Day col. Not willing to drop as far as Francis/Andrea did I led a higher traversing line and sure enough, we had to deal with more side-hilling on heather and at least one more bonus pitch of 4th class climbing. The next hour was not very enjoyable as we worked our way down and around on those loose boulders, but at least I liked our return line better. We had less boulders but more elevation regain. Once joining the trail we took one more long break and then dashed back to the vehicle. I thought we would have to dig the headlamps out but Erica and Tyler started to run, that we eventually finished before having to turn on the illumination. Our round trip time was 13.5 hours and the drive back home was extremely exhausting. Tyler had to take over so I could catch up some sleep. Tyler suggested Big Way Hotpot which was very cool.