Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

February 6, 2026

2021m

Garibaldi Provincial Park, BC

The Table is one of the most unique geological features in the Sea to Sky Corridor that had caught attention from the earlier explorers to the zillions of tourists nowadays hiking in the area. The geological term for this kind of formation is “tuya”, meaning a steep-sided and flat-topped volcano formed when lava erupted through a thick layer of ice. Unlike the yet-unclimbed Vulcan’s Thumb, this one does boast over 200 m prominence qualifying an independent summit by the international peak-bagging standard, and for that reason The Table is among one of, if not the scariest/hardest “ranked/P100m” peak in SW BC. There’s no shortage in the climbing history dating back to Tom Fyles’ first ascent in 1916, but most of the recorded ascents were from the “ancient time” many decades ago. Detailed accounts of attempts in the modern era were only by rumour or “words of mouth” so nobody really knew much about it. After completing some of the worst choss piles in SW BC, Washington and the Canadian Rockies I knew I would eventually come face to face with The Table, but I was hesitating to give it an attempt. I wasn’t too keen on the long approach (40 km round trip) only to come back empty-handed, but then all of the sudden Lukas Fournier climbed, and reported it as a rope-solo. I had not heard about this name until the recent year, but with feats such as “Mt. Robson solo in 27 hours C2C” under his belt I also wasn’t surprised that it was him who managed to put The Table back on the table in this modern internet era. I actually messaged him directly, and by no mean Lukas made it sound “easy” but at least he proved the beta still went nowadays, despite the rumour that the route had “collapsed” decades ago. This also ruled out any of my remaining thoughts in doing a non-standard way such as a series of snow ramps on the north face. The only route that had been climbed on The Table is the East Ridge and will still be in the foreseeable future.

Lukas did the climb mostly, if not entirely on rock so a “winter ascent” was not necessary, but having Garibaldi Lake frozen definitely shortens the approach and the low temperatures could also reduce the rockfall, so the decision was to follow as soon as the next window formed which happened about 2 weeks later. The window wasn’t as ideal as it had been warm and rainy for at least a week with reports of the lake “no longer in shape”. I saw some of the pictures posted and thought it was just water pooling on the surface ice. I ended up being correct. I have a theory that if this lake needs more time to freeze then it will also respond with a delay when melting. There’s no way for a week of rain to ruin it in February. I did most of the planning with Noah Macdonald but Francis Bailey and Nick Ayers also joined the team at the last minute. A group of 4 was almost certainly “too much” for one of the loosest peaks on planet Earth but at least the vertical part of the route can be done in a single pitch. Lukas did the climb over 2 days but with the recipe out, we thought we could certainly cook the meal in a single day home-to-home. Noah and Nick would be on skis and thought they could beat Francis and I by an hour on the approach. The decision was made for Francis and I starting at 4 am and them at 5 am, but Francis and I eventually started 20 min later than planned. I thought they would have to be Eric Carter to beat us by an hour, so there’s no point in starting that early. I was correct in the end, but Noah and Nick were still 30 min faster than us and they also carried most of the rock climbing gears.

The Garibaldi Lake trail was astonishingly dry for mid-winter, with no snow whatsoever until around 1000 m elevation. I managed to wear trail-runners all the way to the “6 km junction” and then bootpacked the rest of the way to the lake. There was no short-cutting across the two lesser lakes or the area above the main lake and the route completely followed the summer trail. Our plan was to take our time on the approach since we would be ahead of them anyway, so we did the 9-km march to Garibaldi Lake quite leisurely, slower than my last time doing this approach (to Guard Mountain). But then the views opened up and we found out the lake was still mostly a sheet of ice so our stoke level got boosted. Instead of donning traction I thought it would be more enjoyable to boot-skating across the lake. I only had such experience back in Edmonton when I was bored at home as a university student. The movements were somewhat similar to skinning on flats without skins and the main propelling device was the two trekking poles. I had brought one sturdy winter pole and one lightweight Z-pole and I wished I had brought two winter poles. The biting of the Z-pole on the ice wasn’t nearly as good, but we nevertheless were able to maintain over 6 km/h pace across the lake. About 2/3 of the way across we were paralleling the shoreline around Mt. Price and the ice gradually transitioned to a few cm of snow. Near Table Bay we made a few post-holes down to slush so finally did the transition to snowshoes. Meanwhile we could see Nick and Noah skinning behind but they weren’t really closing in the gap. They got the 30 min advance mostly by their areobic fitness on the trail approach. For the approach to the base of the route I had proposed a different but more direct attack than Lukas’ route. That was to shoot straight up the forested ridge out of Table Bay. The plan worked out mostly well. There was one steep slope (~35 degrees) to ascend onto the ridge and the ridge had one unexpected bump to traverse over. There were also several cornices to avoid but the route was overall straightforward with minimal hazard. Francis and I made the base of the east ridge in exactly 5 hours from the parking lot, and Noah and Nick showed up 10 minutes later.

The ridge appeared insanely vertical that it definitely looked harder than expected, but we shall see soon. Our strategy was for Noah to lead the full pitch in 60m half ropes, then Francis would be brought up while trailing the 3rd 60m rope, which was to be fixed. I would then climb up the fixed rope using self-belay, and then I would belay Nick up from above, who would be taking down the gears. Meanwhile Noah and Francis would go ahead to fix the traversing pitch towards the true summit. The plan worked out well but in a group of 4 there sure would have plenty of time when at least one person wasn’t doing anything, so I brought a stove and a tiny fuel canister to melt some water. This would give each of us a liter of buffer. I only ended up melting 1 L of water as it’s quite cold and windy. Most of us were doing good on water anyway. Watching Noah spending an hour on the pitch while showering a ton of rockfall didn’t boast confidence, especially knowing how expert Noah is in both rock climbing and chossneering. Nick, who had climbed with Noah many times said that this would be at least 5.8 based on Noah’s movements, and he sure was correct.

The climb could be divided into 4 sections with the crux moves coming at section 2, about 20-25m off the ground. The first section on the south side of the face was only “low 5th class” but at least 2/3 of the “holds” were questionable. The crux was the few meters off the notch immediately above the first fixed piton. I ended up spending a good 20 minutes figuring out the sequence of these moves. Noah and Francis’ beta were definitely 5.8 but I managed to come straight up the spine after cleaning a shit ton of choss off the overhanging north face. My route was probably slightly easier technically but had more questionable blocks, that leading was not quite an option. The 3rd stage had the easiest climbing (4th/low 5th) but it was a knife edge with some fresh snow. My rock shoes got wet. The 4th stage (5.6) appeared impossible but the rocks were slightly on the more solid side of the spectrum, that I was able to cruise up without much trouble. Nick eventually came up using my beta. We then clipped into the second set of fixed lines set by Francis and Noah and traversed across the 4th class knife edge choss to the true summit. I didn’t bother to bring an ice axe up there so I did a few hand-traverse moves on the snow arete, while kicking step into the slope in rock shoes. I did bring my mountaineering boots to the top so that made the wondering around the plateau a bit more enjoyable. This plateau was larger than I thought. I didn’t record how long it took each of us to climb the pitch, but from the moment Francis and I got to the base of the climb to when Nick and I reached the true summit the time difference was 4.5 hours. I had stopped tracking the GPS to conserve battery, and resumed the tracking after reaching the summit.

While Nick and I wondered around the plateau we noticed the weather was changing to the west. I wasn’t taking it too seriously as the forecast had been bomber but I didn’t bother to check the very last minute forecast. The winds were also picking up and the high clouds had rolled in. We had lost the warmth of the sun, so Francis and Noah opted to go ahead to set up the rappel. I decided to take the rear end cleaning the buried choss deadman anchor while photographing the rest of the team rappelling. Francis had to dangle in the air for at least 20 minutes trying to clean the tangled mess, and that was a bit stressful to watch. Without an ice axe I ended up not being able to retrieve the cords. I gave it a solid attempt for a few minutes but eventually gave up. That was surely a bomber anchor built by Francis. Traversing back across the chossy knife edge was not without event. When it came to my turn the rope got completely stuck, that Nick was unable to take the slacks. That was fine, as the route was mostly 4th class in this stage. I just scrambled halfway back and freed the rope for Nick to pull. The worst was the few meters above the rappel anchor. That area had arguably the worst rock quality anywhere I had ever been to. The anchor was made of 4 pitons and was further backed up by a choss bollard, and we all felt confident about it. The rappel itself was almost identical as the one on Mt. Fee. A full 60 m run with the bottom third being overhanging. The winds created a bit of extra challenge for each of us as we had to manage the rope midway down, but in the end we all got down with no mishap.

At this point we knew we would be needing the headlamps on the return but this wasn’t going to be the craziest long day ever. We said farewell to Nick and Noah a few times expecting them to be much faster on skis, but that wasn’t the case. There were sections that benefited the skis but other parts were better done on snowshoes, that the two teams were basically on par with each other. We crossed each other at least 4 or 5 times. The descent in the forest was very mushy and the skating back across the lake wasn’t nearly as fun as the ice was getting wet. Francis and I ended up wearing the snowshoes for halfway across but then we were also too spent to do the pole-propelling thing. Noah and Nick caught up to and passed us in this stage, but then we caught up to them at the shelter. About 3/4 of the way back across the lake the rain hit us, but thankfully it was never pouring cats and dogs. The weather system ended up coming in almost 24 hours earlier than forecasted, which was quite a surprise. After a longer break at the shelter we set off for the final 9 km depproach, and to my surprise Francis and I actually finished 5 minutes quicker. This concluded the 14.5 hours C2C single push for The Table. I then drove us back to the church and I eventually got home at 10 pm. I’m not sure how many times this peak had been climbed in a single day. The conclusion for this peak is probably gonna be similar to the Goodsirs or Mt. Alberta when I did them in the Rockies. Whether it’s worthwhile to take the risk is up to each individual’s assessment. The Table definitely lived up to the century-long reputation. The difficulty is at least on par with Mt. Fee South Tower, and these two peaks together are at least one level harder than anything else such as Mt. Cayley or Atwell Peak. The rock quality of these SWBC volcanic garbage piles makes the Goodsirs solid like granite, so good luck.