Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

October 16, 2026

1800m

Squamish, BC

“Watersprite Tower” is the iconic rock tower behind the famous Watersprite Lake but itself lacks enough prominence to qualify as an independent summit. The name is also unofficial. However, even by the easiest route there’s class 5 climbing required, so there’s something alluring about this objective after all. These days I have pretty much lost most, if not all interest in tagging sub-P100m “peaks” but if for a technical climb I could make an exception. The “beta” wasn’t very clear when I first heard about this objective 10 years ago but a few detailed trip reports, particularly on peakbagger.com and Facebook groups had popped out in the last few years. There’s one exposed 4th class down-climb followed by a short but hard-to-protect 5th class pitch to attain the true summit. Parties had climbed the summit pitch from either the front side or the backside and the difficulty sounds comparable.

Erica was looking to get out on Friday but I had to work in the afternoon and evening. Erica was only keen on “climbing” so our options were extremely limited. Eventually I decided on “Watersprite Tower” but to make this do as a before-work trip I would have to sacrifice the sleeping hours. We were able to leave the city in the previous evening but still, I wasn’t too keen on getting up at 5 am to plod in the dark. Instead, I opted to sleep in and cancel a few hours of work in the afternoon. I would still aim to get to White Rock by dinner time so I could work in the evening. For the gear we opted to carry a 20m rope and a few pieces of pro but honestly I wasn’t anticipating using any of them except for perhaps rock shoes. We left North Vancouver at around 10 pm and got to the trail-head an hour an half later. The FSR had been recently graded so the driving was simpler than what I remembered from Darling Peak trip back in June.

The next morning we got up leisurely at around 7 am and started about an hour later. This time I opted to bushwhack straight up from the parking lot which shaved more than 2.5 km distance one way. The bushwhacking wasn’t even that bad. I had no idea why people couldn’t think creatively as the trail approach is very contrieved. There is another bushwhacking short-cut about 300m up the trail judging by the Gaia’s public tracks but I assumed those were originated from my Crawford Peak trip in 2018. The only reason I walked that extra 300 m (each way) was because I had to park a few kilometers back and simply “forgot” that I was planning to take a short-cut. I don’t know why those preferring to take the short-cut couldn’t simply bushwhack up from the parking lot and that’s another example of the lack of creativity from the public that I’ve found. In any case my 2026’s short-cut joined the trail right at the switchback so this is the absolutely most efficient way. The rest of the plodding to Watersprite Lake was long and boring but at least we had some views along the way. There were also a few notable up-and-downs and some hopping on boulders.

We then wrapped around the lake on the south side dealing with more boulder-hopping (on much bigger rocks) and then discovered a cairned path that lead to what seemed like a large campsite with an outhouse. Doing no lingering we resumed the ascent to the base of the NW Buttress of Watersprite Tower. We found several dangling ropes presumedly from climbers projecting. The route they were working on was completely overhanging. We then followed the existing “beta” traversing a ledge system due south and then correctly located the “hidden gully” on the SW Face. This gully was class 2 but decently loose at places, but in a group-of-two I didn’t find the rockfall hazard to be that high. Once topping the ridge I made an error assuming the summit was to the right but thankfully realized the mistake not long after committing to climb the wrong peak. That “wrong peak” seemed worthless so we turned around and started up the short but exposed E. Ridge of the actual “Watersprite Tower”.

We took another long break donning harness etc. but the decision was to solo as much as we could. We also ditched a bunch of unnecessary gear and extra food/water to speed things up. The scramble started with mostly class 2-3 but the grade picked up quickly. The route-finding wasn’t straightforward as it didn’t make sense to stick to the ridge crest. Most of the terrain was bypassed on the climber’s left (south) side and some steps required a little bit of detouring with elevation loss. A while later we came to the 4th class down-climb. The blocks were questionable but it wasn’t that big of a deal to solo down into the notch wearing just the trail-runners. And then I led us working around the climber’s left side to another short 4th class chimney(ish). After ascending this chimney we were staring at the summit block. Upon looking at the direct finish I decided that we should simply solo the obvious flake system but after trying a move or two I decided to don rock shoes. With rock shoes the moves weren’t that particularly difficult but the few opening moves felt like mid-5th class. Higher up on the pitch the grade eased back to 4th or low 5th but the rock quality deteriorated and the exposure amped up, so some ultimate care was needed. There’s also a few exposed au-cheval moves to get onto the true apex and there wasn’t much room for two people to stand together.

We decided against in down-climbing the “backside” even though that might actually be easier. Erica was here mostly for the climbing so we had to maximize her happiness. Erica actually accidently descended a greasy ledge system on the north face side of the “front side” and I pointed out her “mistake”. Well, the ledge was deadly exposed but was easier than the flakes. I announced that I would be down-climbing the flake for fun so Erica climbed back up to the summit and then joined me. There were definitely a few committing moves but at least the exposure on this side was minimal, and the experience was enjoyable. We took a few more long breaks on the hike-out and still finished the round trip in 6 hours 40 minutes. There’s no time for me to tag “Martin Peak” or “Gibson Peak” on this trip. The timing unfortunately meant I would have to deal with the Vancouver traffics but that’s okay. It took me 1.5 hours to drive from North Vancouver to White Rock but I did get back by dinner time and then worked a few hours afterwards.