Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

June 28, 2020

1478m

Squamish, BC

Mt. Roderick is a minor bump on the long and undulating south ridge of Mt. Sedgwick and in the old days when Woodfibre Mill ferry was still running, this peak is often traversed up and over en route to Mt. Sedgwick, or bypassed for those that weren’t peak-baggers. In the modern days one rarely hears stories about these peaks anymore because the access had significantly worsened over the years. For Alex, Vlad and myself this peak was done on the tail end of a heli-assisted traverse. We firstly flew to the summit of Mt. Lapworth and then climbed Mt. Murchison and Mt. Conybeare and then traversed over Mt. Sedgwick and now it was almost 7:30 pm and we were at the col just to the north of Mt. Roderick.

We had less than 20 minutes to the scheduled pick-up time on the summit of Mt. Roderick and the ascent still had more than 100 m elevation gain so we had to rush it. We actually called for this pick-up while descending Mt. Sedgwick and should have called it a little bit later, but too bad we underestimated the time required to descend Mt. Sedgwick’s south ridge. The plod to the summit of Mt. Roderick seemed to drag on for a long time especially now with a time constraint, but we did make there with 5 minutes of spare. There was spotty cell reception and Alex got a text message saying the helicopter would be in the air in less than a minute so we still had some time to take the obligatory victory shots.

The summit was flat and open enough for the helicopter to land but we did dissemble the cairn just in case. Once the helicopter showed up we quickly piled in and directed the pilot towards one of the few bumps on the east ridge of Mt. Conybeare where Marius was patiently waiting for us. We then picked him up and had a fast ride back to Squamish, and eventually home at 11 pm. As efficient as it seemed I doubt this group of 5 peaks had been bagged in the same trip, let alone on the same day, regardless the means of transport. Some people might feel it’s hard to accept because we brought a change to what’s so-called the “norm”, but I don’t give a damn shit about the so-called “norm”. A norm is there to be broken. About half a dozen years ago a friend said I cheated by constantly staring at the GPS screen and I said fuck that. There’re reasons why I rarely make navigation errors.. I would use whatever that’s available to make my trips successful and in my books, the definition of a “successful trip” is to reach the summit.