Beacon Mountain
December 29, 2015
1909m
Lizzie Creek / Lillooet Lake Road, BC
After summitting the nearby Haven Peak early in the morning on the 5th day of our Christmas – New Year ski trip, Alan, Alex, Ben and myself continued northwards along the ridgeline towards Beacon Mountain. There’s nothing magic about this summit as it’s just a forested bump, but I don’t think it’s often ascended on the other hand.
Haven Peak to Beacon Mountain ski route from Lizzie Creek Cabin. GPX DL
The ridge started out easily as we traversed up and over another subsidiary summit but then it narrowed down to within a couple meters. The grade also got a little bit steeper, but again, it’s still a forested ridge so nothing tricky. Soon we got down to Haven/Beacon col.
Leaving the summit of Haven Peak and down along the ridge
Beacon Mountain is the forested summit in foreground
Down to Haven/Beacon col now
The ascent of Beacon Mountain from the col was a mere plod with some very minor bushwhacking at places. It did feel a bit foreshortened though. The views from the summit was surprisingly good thank to the excellent weather but we didn’t linger any longer than necessary before plodding back.
Alex breaking trail up the peak
Almost there. It’s very easy…
Ben approaching the summit
Summit Panorama from Beacon Mountain. Click to view large size.
Prior Peaks
The Joffre Group – Slalok, Spetch, Hartzell, Matier, Howard
The Place Glacier Group
Lizzie Peak
Gunsight Peak, Mt. James Turner and Wedge Mountain way in the distance
Salamander Mountain
Cloudraker Mountain
Mt. Weart pokes from behind
There might be other options to get down this peak, but we opted to go back along the ridge to Haven Peak as the terrain was more open back there. From Haven Peak I followed the other guys down the steep east face and there’s one section with bit of exposure to a small cliff and very steep. I did a few kick-turns and some long side-slipping to safely descend that part, and once dropping into a broad bowl the rest of the skiing became easy and fun.
Back to Haven/Beacon col, ready to re-ascend back up Haven Peak
Almost back to the summit of Haven Peak
A view of the properly named Long Peak
The N. Face of Shields Peak
Time to ski down
Me skiing down the E. Face. Photo by Alex
A review shot of what we just ski’d
Once we got back to Haven Lake we put skins back on, ascended steeply up to Tarn/Shields pass and then the next 1.5 hours or so was a boring plod back along the undulating ridge, across Long Lake and then down to the cabin. We briefly thought about doing another run on the north face of Long Peak but considering the big plan for the next day we had to take some break.
Steep ascent back to Tarn/Shields pass
Looking ahead to the broad and undulating ridge traverse
At Tarn/Shields pass, looking back towards Beacon Mountain
Ben plodding back along our skin tracks
Another look at the pass
Following our skin tracks back
Gorgeous country!!
Down to Sapphire Lake
Slogging back across Long Lake
Back to the cabin it’s only 1:30 pm so we had lots of time to kill, but as usual for cabin trips there’s plenty of stuff that had to be done. We came to sleep early and set the alarm to 4 am. And then the next day we’d do Famine Mountain, Hanging Mist Peak all the way to Cloudraker Mountain traverse.
Steven's Peak-bagging Journey 