Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

April 25, 2026

2604m

Lillooet Icefield, BC

Mt. Alecto is a rather small peak but it’s in the middle of the Lillooet Icefield and offers some of the best views of the icefalls coming down from Lillooet Mountain. It had been tagged as part of the ski traverses but the summit is a stiff scramble on rock or steep snow, and should not be underestimated. When Alex, Seb, Francis and I happened to be in the area we too decided to tag this summit but we thought it was a no brainer “add-on”. We didn’t even bother to bring crampons. In the end we did make the summit but that was quite a struggle. Earlier in the day we had climbed Mt. Tisiphone and marched all the way over to the base of Mt. Alecto on Ring Glacier, so it was also late in the day.

Francis was the only one on skis so he went for a head start doing a longer but more gradual route to the south, whereas Alex and I would simply follow Seb’s lead snowshoeing straight up the slope to hit Mt. Alecto’s uppermost south ridge. It was my turn to carry that lightweight daypack so Alex and Seb carried nothing. The ascent still involved 500 m elevation gain so the views were quite foreshortened. It took us quite a while to top out on the ridge. By that point Seb was already ahead scrambling the south ridge towards the summit, but the route seemed complicated. Alex and I caught up with Francis who’s been watching Seb struggling to gain purchase on slabs covered in thin and saturated snow, and decided to go for the east ridge like how the previous ski touring parties did.

I then led the way descending and traversing some steep terrain but I tried to not lose too much of the precious elevation. My original thinking was to go all the way down and around to do the full east ridge but then I changed my mind after seeing what seemed like a “gap” that could potentially offer a shorter access. I of course had no beta about how exactly the previous groups (really just Dean P. and Thomas M.) did as I only skimmed through their respective trip reports. I made the decision purely based on the field observations. This turned out to be the right call. The route was not straightforward with lots of isothermal snow, 3rd class slabs and a few stretches of 50+ degrees snow walls. The soft conditions made it doable without crampons as otherwise we would have to turn around. One needed years of experience in this kind of mountaineering to make it work.

After taking in enough of the views we carefully descended following the exact route that we had taken. While plunging down the isothermal snow we triggered a few loose slides and almost got my snowshoes covered. Thankfully the slides never became too big so the snowshoes survived. I then followed Francis’ skin tracks back to the south ridge and then plunged down the still-hard west facing slopes back to the ditched backpacks. We had a few minutes of discussion about the plan afterwards, and the decision was eventually made to camp right here. A few of us were already bagged and it made no sense to push anywhere further. I thought we would have to make a decision about Mt. Magaera versus Mt. Fulgora and the choice was quite obvious, so we settled for the night.