“Crabbe Mountain” and “Darkside Peak”

January 17, 2026

2309m

Duffey Lake Road, BC

All of the peaks in Steep Creek drainage are unnamed or unofficially named and these two aren’t exceptions. “Darkside Peak” had been documented in John Baldwin’s Exploring the Coast Mountains on Skis whereas “Crabbe Mountain” is relatively unknown until the recent era. The name had been adopted from bivouac.com and there were only a few existing trip reports on the internet. Over the past 10 years I had already done “Steep Peak”, “Windfall Peak” and “Blowdown Peak” all in winter so it made sense to do the two remaining ones also in winter to finish off the business. However, there was no “beta” about the winter traverse but I figured it shouldn’t be too problematic given the bluebird weather and the “green brick” avalanche forecasts. The NE Ridge of “Darkside Peak” would offer the most amount of unknowns but it’s only reported as “class 3” in summer, so how bad could it be.

Vlad and Dave decided to join me on the exploratory mission. We could have done something more aggressive but I was lacking motivation and ideas. These two peaks require that “perfect conditions” anyway. Vlad and I decided to meet at “the church” at 6 am in the morning and we would grab Dave in Pemberton 2 hours later. There was still a ways to go from Pemberton to the trail-head by Duffey Lake but that’s fine. I was a bit concerned about the parking situation but I overestimated the popularity of this area. I guess the skiers had been staying home these days as the skiing quality was nowhere as great as the snowpack stability.