Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

April 24, 2026

2913m

Lillooet Icefield, BC

Lillooet Icefield is the first major icefield that boasts several 3000+ m peaks when moving NW from Vancouver along the Coast Range and bagging some of those peaks had been on my mind for many years. This area had been almost exclusively explored by ski mountaineering parties, but I’m not a competent skier and I also do not enjoy skiing. Doing these peaks in summer would be feasible but the travel would be far less efficient on the broken glaciers, as I discovered in the nearby Manatee Range trip in 2021. There had been a few trip reports in which skiers would spend 7-12 days doing a loop traverse by parking at just above the Keyhole Hot Springs trail-head, but few managed to bag more than a handful peaks along the way. There are at least 10 peaks that I wouldn’t want to miss, and if the skiers such as Thomas M. couldn’t manage that then there’s no way I could do such on snowshoes. Taking so many days off in a roll in the exam season would also put too much stress on my work schedule, so a smash-and-grab fashion by flying in would be the only option left. However, this would require two very long (and expensive) helicopter rides, and aligning partners with the availability of the pilot and the weather/condition window would surely be a multi-year project, but eventually it happened in 2026 with some last minute planning. For me personally I’m already in the stage of life that having the time do trips like this is more of a problem than money but that’s not the case for everybody.