Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

July 11-12, 2026

2830m

Valhalla Provincial Park, BC

Gladsheim Peak is the highest in the Valhallas and subsequently boasts over 2000 m prominence making it one of the more significant peaks in the Kootenays. There was however, a complete lack of detailed “beta” on the internet especially about the west ridge “standard route”, which is supposed to be the easiest way. Fortunately Matt Lemke climbed it in August 2025 and provided some first hand information. The rating was indeed sandbagged that there is at least one pitch of mid 5th class climbing in addition to lots of exposed 4th to low 5th class “scrambling”. The route did sound manageable though, but I did want to make sure to have a rock climber with me when I eventually made the attempt.

The oppourtunity presented itself on this past weekend as the weather was pushing me towards the far east. Erica and Trevor were available over the weekend so it also made sense to climb something technical. It didn’t take us too long to settle on Gladsheim Peak and the plan was to try to manage it in the frame of a weekend so that nobody would have to call in sick on Monday. The three of us left Surrey at 6 pm on Friday and pushed all the way to past Grand Forks. My plan was to drive to at least midnight and I did manage to stay awake for that. Finding a car camping spot in the vicinity of Grand Forks was a bit tricky but we did find one at the start of a FSR about 15 minutes past the town. It was past midnight and I was already quite tired. The next morning we got up at around 6 am and resumed the rest of the drive to the trail-head after having a breakfast stop in Castlegar. The road to the trail-head was a bit rougher than what I remembered from Gimli Peak’s trip in 2021 but presented no difficulty to the Subaru. The trail-head itself was very busy though, that we had to park on the side of the FSR about 200 m back from the parking lot.

For the technical gear we opted to carry one 60m half rope, a single rack to size 3 and rock shoes. The rack was mostly overkill but the other gear were definitely needed. We also made the last minute decision to leave the boots in the vehicle, wearing trail runners and carrying aluminum crampons. I knew from the past few trips that my setup would definitely make do but Erica and Trevor didn’t actually have that much “beta” and confidence, but the plan worked out fine. There was some steep snow climbing coming down into Mulvey Basin as well as in the couloir to access the west ridge of Gladsheim Peak, but the snow was decently soft as expected. After shouldering the heavy packs we dashed up the approach trail and in about an hour we got to the base of Gimli Peak. There were already half a dozen tents but the campsite lacked running water. I also don’t think all of them were climbers as we only saw 2 or 3 parties on the south ridge of Gimli Peak. We then picked up the climber’s trail traversing the west side of Gimli Peak and did some annoying boulder hopping to get to Gimli/Nisleheim col. Some of those boulders were quite large.

I didn’t spend too much time studying the descent into Mulvey Basin at home and apparently it wasn’t as straightforward as I thought. We traversed all the way to near the base of the east ridge of Nisleheim Peak on the ridge crest but the descent from there would likely require one rappel. I did not recall reading anything about rappelling so we backtracked and found a neat ledge traversing underneath the ridge crest on the north side. The scrambling was class 3 at the maximum but the exposure was lethal. Fortunately most of the ledge was wide enough that I didn’t really have to think about the exposure. We then traversed onto the snow and picked up a set of boot tracks. The descent and the traverse was actually quite steep but with the existence of the boot tracks we didn’t really have to take the ice axe and crampons out. There was one stretch that did force us to down-climb facing into the slope. The rest of the descent to the shore of Mulvey Lake wasn’t too difficult but was a bit tedious with some moraine and lots of boulders, but the camping oppourtunity at the shore of Mulvey Lake was as good as one could ever expect. I knew we could have day-tripped this objective but the camping itself was a worthwhile experience.

The weather was cloudy but the forecast was calling for a clearing trend towards the evening, so we took our time setting up camp before starting the summit push at around 2 pm. We were all confident on the “class 4/5” terrain so it shouldn’t take us too long. The approach was a bit more tedious than expected with another 50 m elevation loss down towards the lower lake. We then had to deal with a lot of traversing on steep grassy slopes or boulder fields and often the terrain was wet. There were thankfully a few running streams so we had fresh water source. The peaks in SW BC actually trained us very well for dealing with this kind of terrain so despite the unpleasantness we got to the base of the couloir rather efficiently. I led us traversing across the bottom of the gully so we could ascend a bit more on talus to minimize the snow climbing distance. The meat of the gully would have to be climbed on snow, so we took the ice axe and crampons out. As expected my setup was already dialed in – Arc’teryx Alpine Vertex with Petzl Leopards so the crampons bonded actually quite well with the trail runners. The climbing still felt harder than using boots probably because more concentration was required. The grade was around 40 degrees at the steepest so we would have to down climb a chuck of the couloir facing into the slope on the return, but more on that later. The exit of the gully had a long stretch of compact choss and that section was shitty as expected. I was glad that we didn’t need to climb the entire way on that kind of choss.

Onto the west ridge the scrambling started off easily but the exposure quickly picked up. The route quickly became class 3/4 even with careful route-finding. There was no detailed “beta” about the ridge itself so we mostly figured it out in situ. On terrain like this the experience is actually more important than the “beta” anyway. We had to backtrack at least once because of an impossible down-climb. I did not recall reading about a rappel on the ascent so there had to have a better way, which existed on the south side by some detouring. Up to this point the route was still in the realm of “scrambling” but then there came the knife edge mentioned in Matt’s trip report, in which they soloed on the ascent but used the rope on the return. I actually inspected a possible bypass on the south side but the climbing would be 5th class no matter what, so we all mantled up the knife edge in the end. To down-climb that step would definitely be “interesting” to say the least, but more on that later. We continued soloing the low 5th class terrain including one airy traverse out to the left (north) on down-sloping holds. At least two of the moves were completely relying on friction and the exposure was definitely fatal. We eventually decided to don rock shoes and take the rope out upon seeing an overhanging obstacle. I down-climbed around to the south (right) but found no easy bypass, so the only solution would be another series of exposed moves out to the left. I was in the position to lead and Trevor was able to build an anchor using the 240cm sling we had brought. The initial moves were unprotectable and felt like 5.5 but the real crux was the next step which required an overhanging pull-up on small holds while standing on a wobbling block. That might be the “5.7 crux” mentioned in Matt’s report so I ended up leading the crux pitch without knowing it’d be the crux.

After backing up the anchor with a #2 and #3 I belayed Trevor and Erica up, and while coiling the rope Trevor went ahead to scout things out. The terrain was definitely not “scrambling” but Trevor got halfway up the chimney pitch and declared that it’s easier than the previous pitch and we should all be fine soloing. I had some doubts since I was carrying a heavier pack with the rope, but it ended up being fine. The chimney squeeze gave way to a leftwards trending off-width which eventually brought us to some very exposed 5.4 face climbing, and that’s the end of this section. We then had a long stretch of “walking” on rock shoes before tackling the summit block. Trevor was already far ahead and found a scrambling route but Erica and I didn’t actually pay attention. Instead, we had the previous party’s trip report in which they did one more 5th class pitch, so we ended up soloing another pitch. The climbing was actually quite fun utilizing a flake system, so we didn’t regret. The views were killer and the weather was definitely improving, so we lingered up on the summit for about an hour soaking in the experience. Erica again, managed to find some sporadic cell reception but Trevor and I could not.

Eventually it was the time to descend and we all took Trevor’s scrambling route (Class 4) down the summit block. We then down-climbed most of the ridge but did two short rappels down the chimney and then the crux pitches. The lower airy traversing step was also questionable to down-climb and so was the knife edge, but honestly those weren’t problematic for us. In short time we were back to the trail runners and then we were at the top of the snow couloir transitioning. I again, with the system dialed in went far ahead “skiing” 70% of the gully (and down-climbed the rest facing into the slope). I unfortunately put the gloves too far down inside the pack and that’s actually why I skied most of it, since my hands got too cold from the down-climbing. Trevor and Erica down-climbed most of the gully which took a while. The rest of the return to camp was not pleasant but uneventful and we got back still with at least an hour or two’s daytime to spare. The rest of the evening was spent cooking and soaking in the experience.

The next morning we got up leisurely at 7 am and spent at least another hour packing. I abandoned the original idea of tagging either Asgard Peak or Midgard Peak. We wouldn’t have the time for both of them anyway so I might as well come back another time for the two peaks together. Tagging one of them simply wouldn’t make too much sense, so we slogged back to Gimli/Nisleheim col. The crampons had to be used for the steep snow climbing and honestly it was quite tiring. We then crossed the ledge and the boulder fields and Trevor led the trail running all the way back to the vehicle. Our round trip time was 11 hours excluding camping and the moving time was only 7.5 hours, so Gladsheim Peak wasn’t as involved as I thought. It was only 10 am so the plan was to push all the way back home in addition to tagging a bonus P600m objective along the way.