Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

March 31, 2026

1592m

Chehalis Area / Harrison West, BC

These are the unofficial names of the rarely-visited peaks at the headwaters of Skwellepil Creek in the Chehalis area. The first ascents of those were done by Doug Kasian in the 1970s in summer but like most of the peaks in SW BC, I thought winter or spring makes the most sense as a thick snowpack can help getting rid of as much bushwhacking as possible. Alan B. threw out the idea of tagging “Skwellepil Peak” which basically had no “beta”, so I went to dig things around. I did vaguely remember seeing a Facebook post back around the pandemic era and sure enough I dug the trip report out. It was a failed attempt by Jesse Kuhn posted on SWBC Peak Baggers page, but had enough “beta” to make do. Jesse’s attempt was via the north ridge and there’s at least one step that appeared troublesome enough that we decided to bring two 30 m ropes, steel crampons and two axes each. I also threw out the idea to Alan about a potential loop traverse across the two “Olive Peaks” and not to my surprise, that actually turned out to be the plan. The descent off the SE Ridge of “Skwellepil Peak” could be the most adventurous, but having two 30 m ropes we could make do one way or another. There’s of course zero “beta” about the traverse of these peaks but that’s also why we wanted to do them.

Alan managed to convince Katie to come along but Katie was only aware of the “Skwellepil Peak” part of the plan. The three of us decided to meet in Mission at 5:30 am and squeeze into Alan’s 1994 truck. On hindsight I could probably drive us all the way to the drivable end in my stock Subaru but the Skwellepil Creek FSR would be pushing the limit. The Chehalis Mainline was fine but the zillions of pot-holes past the 12 km marker made us driving no faster than 30 km/h averagely. The gate past the recreation site was open but the sign of “gate closed anytime” was still there. I however did not think they were doing any logging recently so the sign was probably just there to discourage people from venturing further. About 1 km up the spur road we discovered a minor washout that necessitated 4×4 and decent amount of clearance. There’s thankfully no downed tree, but a few hundred meters beyond the spot where the road became bushy we started to encounter snow. There’s a set of ATV tracks on the old snow but we all agreed that it’s smarter to turn around and park. We were less than 1 km from the major washout anyway.

The elevation was only 550 m so the snowline was much lower than expected. I was originally hoping to wear the trail runners all the way to the head of this valley but now it seemed like we would be snowshoeing from the truck. Indeed, after post-holing for a few minutes we decided to don snowshoes. The ‘shoes were briefly removed for the crossing of that large washout but that’s it. The road was bushier than what I remembered from the old days when I did Stonerabbit Peak, Mt. Ratney and Mt. Bardean and we also encountered at least 20 major ditches that were fun at the beginning but quickly became annoying afterwards. About 4 km into the plodding we were near the road’s end. It became too annoying to even stay on the road’s bed so we bailed left into the bushes. The travelling in the forest was actually not too bad so we kept more or less a direct bearing towards the “band of trees” that would offer a passage into the “middle basin”, while paralleling the creek on the north side. There was lots of creeks to load up the water bottles. For this part we were strictly following Jesse’s “beta” but our going was infinitely easier than his given that we were here in March instead of June. There was hardly any bushwhacking nor creek crossing for us.

The forested headwall under the “middle basin” was quite steep and necessitated making some tight switchbacks on snowshoes. Alan then took over the lead plodding across the basin aiming at the “rib” mentioned in Jesse’s trip report. This forested rib indeed offered an easy passage to the treeline zone but the 30 cm of fresh snow had made the going tedious and tiring. The three of us took turn blazing the trail up the ridge and after what seemed like eternity we were finally underneath the north ridge of “Skwellepil Peak”. The original idea was to follow Jesse’s route up and over the north summit by veering far climber’s right, but we changed our mind after seeing a potential short-cut route. We all had thought about this route but without looking at it in person there would be no way to know. This route would be exposed to some bus sized cornices and still required climbing a pitch of 50 degree snow using two axes, so there’s no “easy” way to the summit of this peak. Transitioning from snowshoes to the crampons while being underneath those cornices sure felt spooky to say the least. It was then a straightforward plod up the broad north ridge to the summit of “Skwellepil Peak”, the highest of the objectives and the only one that boasts over 300 m prominence. The better viewpoint was slightly SW of the highest point so we all went there for views down to the frozen Blinch Lake.

We had decided to proceed onward for the loop traverse so the adventure had finally begun. The harnesses were then strapped on. The steepest terrain would be between “Skwellepil Peak” and the unnamed peak to the south which I named “Olive Peak West” and the only way to know was to be there and explore. I started leading us down by wearing snowshoes but after gingerly down-climbing a steep roll I had opted to swap footwear to crampons. There were many steep rolls coming up and some were steeper and more exposed than the other. A 30 m rope was used to bring everybody down one particularly tricky step. I down-climbed that step afterwards which required at least one class 4 move on rock and some steep snow. Lower down the exposed snow climbing gave way to 45+ degree forested terrain with infinitely many hidden bluffs. The going was tediously slow but for some reasons we were always able to find a way. Looking back I had no clue how we descended the lower part of this SE Ridge without pulling the ropes out again, but in any case we got down to Skwellepil/Olive W saddle and after a bit of discussion we pressed on.

The NW Ridge of “Olive West” seemed like exactly what we had just done, but slightly easier and less complicated. Our judgement was correct. There was one steep band of 45+ degrees snow in the lower zone but that’s it. Unfortunately Katie had become uncomfortable so after waiting 10 minutes above the step seeing nobody topping out I descended to check things out. Katie wanted to have a belay so I told Alan to drag his rope up and I would offer Katie a belay from a bomber tree. I then short-roped Katie all the way to the summit but ironically the terrain had become much mellower the higher we went. The obvious rock band was bypassed on climber’s right side so the upper mountain was basically a walk-up. There was however, a lot of post-holing and fair amount of elevation on the foreshortened terrain.

Not doing any lingering I quickly turned my attention towards the traverse towards “Olive Peak”, which was named after Olive Lake in the vicinity. I had no idea why bivouac.com had given the name to the lower peak while leaving the higher west peak unnamed, but both of them have more than 100 m prominence so we must do both. Descending the east ridge of “Olive West” seemed complicated but turned out to be straightforward and the slog up the west ridge of “Olive Peak” was mind-numbing. On hindsight I should have swapped footwear back to snowshoes for this ridge traverse but I was too lazy to make another transition. I probably ended up doing more work by post-holing the entire way across. Alan and Katie caught up to me near the summit of “Olive Peak” but I insisted on not stopping until the next saddle where I could at least see the upper part of the exploratory descent route back into Skwellepil Creek drainage.

I finally made the transition from crampons to snowshoes as I was very tired of the post-holing. The snowshoes made the going much more enjoyable afterwards. The descent had a steep pitch at the start but mellowed out for the long stretch afterwards. I knew the only possible exit was on skier’s left somewhere in the bushes and I consulted with my own photos a few times. I’m not sure if we ended up finding the easiest exit but upon seeing a “doable spot” I made the call to take both 30m ropes out. The plan was to rappel off the bluff. I went first and thought I could have down-climbed it, after all. I didn’t even bother to switch back to crampons and just rappelled off on snowshoes, but I did have to rely on a prusik to sort the tangled ropes midway down. The bushes made the rope management infinitely difficult, if not impossible. Thankfully this was the only difficulty beside having to cross Skwellepil Creek back to the north side. The creek had formed a mini canyon but we managed to find what seemed like the only crossable spot without having do more shenanigans on vertical snow. We then closed in the loop and I more or less followed Alan and Katie’s lead back to the truck. The road plodding was mind numbing and it’s easier to plod while following someone else. Our round trip time was 13 hours and I eventually got home after midnight. Overall this was a proper mountaineering trip with lots of elements that could go wrong, and definitely not a loop for “everyone”.