Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

April 5, 2025

2783m

Pemberton, BC

Mt. Matier is the highest peak in Joffre Group and also one of the “classic” mountaineering objectives in SW BC. I had already climbed it more than 9 years ago with Alex R. and that trip report was written elsewhere. This does NOT mean that I had started to repeat objectives and in fact, the only reason that I climbed Mt. Matier again was because of Clair (Xinran). Clair had mentioned a few times that she wanted to climb Mt. Matier and Joffre Peak and it simply made sense for me to help her realizing that dream. Clair had only done a handful peaks beyond simple “hiking” so it’s also much safer if I could be that person leading the trip. I unfortunately had injured my ankle a month ago and I wasn’t 100% sure if I had recovered enough. I nevertheless thought I was at least 80% which was “good enough” in my book. Then it came the first weekend of April when I sensed that perfect window forming. I asked Clair on Thursday and we together pulled the trigger immediately for the Saturday. She wanted me to be 100% but the weather and condition was “right enough” that I thought it’s worth to take a little bit of risk on my foot. For the worst case we could always turn around and come back on another day, and we could still have a great day together nevertheless.

Instead of waking up at 1 am and pulling the “all-nighter” like I used to do with other people I thought it would make much more sense for us to car-camp. I also somehow managed to finish work much earlier on Friday that we even earned ourselves time to have dinner in the city together before driving north. We even stopped for an hour in Squamish’s McDonald’s to catch up Clair’s design project. We eventually got to the trail-head at 11:30 pm and the alarm was set at 3 am. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to quite “fall asleep” but that was fine. In terms of the gears I decided to bring two ice axes each, steel crampons and a 30 m rope in case Clair needed some extra sense of security on the climb. This turned out to be a great decision. I could not recall Mt. Matier being “difficult” nor “exposed” but it was almost 10 years since I did it and I also climbed it in a period of life when I simply didn’t give a fuck about anything. At the time of writing this trip report I thought this climb was not trivial and was quite a bit harder than what I remembered.

The Cerise Creek approach had also changed significantly since 2016 as a catastrophic landslide happened on Joffre Peak’s NE Face had erased at least 1/3 of the valley. For that reason I actually downloaded my own GPX track in addition to several other tracks posted on peakbagger.com. It seemed like people had gone multiple ways nowadays but the standard route was still the one that I used back in 2016, that was to follow the summer route. The “sketchy bridge” at the beginning was not sketchy at all as it was completely free of snow and was not slippery nor wet. About 100 m of steady elevation gain later we merged onto an old logging road with some undulating grades. We then merged into the erased section of the valley but the travel was still fairly easy following the skin tracks. Clair was able to stay on microspikes for the entire way to the toe of Anniversary Glacier. I, on the other hand, did not bring microspikes so opted to use the snowshoes for the added traction. The head of the valley was trickier than what I remembered probably because of the timing of the year’s different. There was fair amount of steep side-hilling on either side of the creek that my injured ankle did not like. I also thought Clair was doing great as the approach pace was faster than I thought. It was still in pitch dark when we got to the toe of the glacier. I had opted to take the “toe of the glacier” variation instead of traversing to Keith Hut and/or Motel 66, as this route involved the least amount of side-hilling.

Higher up I decided to take the same route that I used for Joffre Peak back in 2016, that was to take a sharp turn climber’s right aiming at the higher traverse above Motel 66. In retrospect we could have taken the far climber’s left variation straight up the entire course of the glacier to Matier/Joffre saddle, as we descended later in the day. That sharp climber’s right turn involved a section of steep snowshoeing that I could not recall from 9 years ago, and it’s likely due to glacial recession. There were two vehicles parked at the trail-head, and shortly after the sunrise we witnessed 5 skiers ascending behind us. They had likely overnighted in Keith Hut. I told Clair that we were doing great on time, and we would not let those skiers catch up. One thing I failed to understand was, despite the influence of myself and the “SW BC Peakbaggers” group we could not see a single other team on snowshoes, nor any existing set of snowshoe tracks. Following the skin tracks would surely help the trail-breaking, but I preferred to make our own track by aiming straight up the slope towards the saddle. This added the trail-breaking work for myself and I even called for a break roughly 100 m under the saddle. I had also witnessed some significant amount of wind transportation on the higher elevation, so it made more sense to take an energy break here than in the cold winds higher up.

We didn’t stop for too long as I had promised Clair that we would stay upfront, and the skiers were quickly closing in the gap. The winds were indeed very annoying, and I started to regret for only wearing my “spring” layering system. This decision had made my climb extremely miserable, but that’s fine as I did this climb for Clair. I also made the spontaneous decision to take a variation up the NE spur instead of the standard north face route, as I was able to spot a set of tracks on the ridge and I thought this route would be more fun. It’s slightly more involved but at least I got to see some different aspects of this objective. Clair was unsure about the climb upon seeing the difficulties so I decided to short-rope her up the final 200 m climb, after taking out the ice tools and swapping snowshoes for the crampons. I would NOT short-rope anyone else in this kind of fashion as this technique would only increase the chance of survival for the second, by decreasing the chance of survival for the leader (me). In any case I made Clair to be only a few meters behind myself, and I told her to keep the rope tight at all time. The winds might actually have done something good, as they were miserable enough for Clair to only focus on the immediate steps ahead. After the initial mixed-ish section we had to climb/traverse a long stretch of ridge before merging onto the standard route at around the 45+ degree face underneath the summit ridge. The final traverse to the true summit was more involved than in January due to the massive cornices. The cornices forced us to traverse on the side on some steeper slopes, and the exposure was severe. A fall by any of us here would be death for both, so I trusted Clair to not make a mistake.

The celebration on the summit was short-lived as we must stay focused on getting off the mountain safely. The skiers were attempting Joffre Peak and at least one party was on Mt. Hartzell, and more skiers were coming up from Matier Glacier side towards Mt. Matier. We crossed path with at least 5 skiers while down-climbing the face. I thought perhaps I would have to lower Clair down on stretch after stretch of 30 m length but she actually did excellently on the facing-in down-climb, even though this was basically her first steep snow climb on crampons. I unfortunately had gotten very cold after embracing the winds for several hours, as the overall pace on the technical terrain was only one third of what I could normally do, but the mistake of not bringing enough layers was on my side. I led us descending a variation route by avoiding that mixed section, but had to add a long stretch of 45-degree traverse to retrieve our ditched gears. For the descent down to Matier/Joffre saddle and the subsequent descent down Anniversary Glacier Clair decided to glissade for as much as possible. I opted to stay on my feet because of the foot injury. Lower down we made the spontaneous decision to descend the entire course of Anniversary Glacier simply because I wanted to see something different this time. Nearing the toe of the glacier Clair had lost one of her snowshoes somehow, but thankfully I was able to retrieve the lost one after plodding back up for only 200 m. I had no idea how people were able to keep plodding without noticing a snowshoe being lost, as this had happened to at least 4 or 5 of my partners. The rest of the descent was uneventful but tiring, and our round trip time was under 11.5 hours.

Finishing the trip at 3:30 pm meant we had earned ourselves plenty of time to have a proper dinner back in the city. We made one stop in Pemberton for some drinks and then I basically drove us back in a single shot. I did get tired around Whistler but the tiredness went away quickly. We eventually opted for a hotpot dinner in Richmond and I eventually got home at midnight.