warden peak - 6480' - SW route class 5.0
august 2022
Steven contacted me about doing some peaks on Vancouver Island that he wanted a proficient partner for and since I had not climbed anything on the osland before, I was game to make a quick weekend trip out there. We climbed Warden and Triple Peaks over a two day peiod. The Friday before I drove up to White Rock BC to meet Steven, and we took the ferry over to Duke Point near Nanaimo as the sun was setting. Upon arrival, we drove for 3.5 hours north all the way up to the F Branch Road; a long gravel road that follows the White River. See Google directions here. Regular cars can get to this point, 43 kilometers off the paved BC Highway 19. With a 4WD, we were able to continue driving up a series of logging roads though all the way up to an elevation of 950 meters (see red line on satellite map below). At 1am we arrived at the end of the highest road in the middle of a clear cut and went to sleep.
By 6am we were off, with the beginning of the hike ascending the steep remains of the clear cut forest on slippery logs, sharp pointy branches and sticks, and wet duff. It did not take long to reach the upper end of the clear cut though, and we entered the forest higher up, however, the underbrush was thicker than we thought it would be, and we were pretty quickly drenched with the dew. It was perhaps only 30 minutes of bad schwacking though and we soon emerged on a level open bench with wildflowers at 1300 meters elevation. Views of the dramatic east face of Mount Victoria were stunning here. We walked east and followed a faint path around the north side of the lower buttress of Victoria's east ridge. The path was very faint, and with morning dew on the grassy covered slopes also slick. Just 400 or so feet below us was a sizable lake that looked peaceful in the early morning sunlight.
Once we reached the open west facing slopes dropping down between Victoria and Warden, we began ascending, but also traversing north towards Warden on class 2 terrain and lower angle glacier slabs. Snow was almost entirely avoided except for a small patch right before the Warden/Victoria saddle. Since the sun had been hitting it for about an hour by this point though we did not need put don any traction. After crossing the saddle, we began ascending the south side of Warden peak proper, first surmounting a short class 3 step to the large sloping ledge below the big cliff, then traversing this leftward all the way to the obvious chimney on the west end of the south face. We solod up the chimney which did not exceed 4th class (albiet loose) and reached the small flat bench at 6000 feet elevation in the west ridge just northwest of the summit. Here, we took a short break and Steven swapped into rock shoes.
The final part of the route traversed a narrow horizontal ledge on the north side to the obvious weakness in the upper north face, which was climbed to the summit on mostly class 4, but the occational low 5th class move. We took in the views for a long time on the summit, since we had reached it way earlier than expected. On the descend, we also downclimbed the whole route without needing to break out the rope. By early afternoon we were back at the truck and began the long drive to the trailhead for Triple Peak which we would climb the next day.
By 6am we were off, with the beginning of the hike ascending the steep remains of the clear cut forest on slippery logs, sharp pointy branches and sticks, and wet duff. It did not take long to reach the upper end of the clear cut though, and we entered the forest higher up, however, the underbrush was thicker than we thought it would be, and we were pretty quickly drenched with the dew. It was perhaps only 30 minutes of bad schwacking though and we soon emerged on a level open bench with wildflowers at 1300 meters elevation. Views of the dramatic east face of Mount Victoria were stunning here. We walked east and followed a faint path around the north side of the lower buttress of Victoria's east ridge. The path was very faint, and with morning dew on the grassy covered slopes also slick. Just 400 or so feet below us was a sizable lake that looked peaceful in the early morning sunlight.
Once we reached the open west facing slopes dropping down between Victoria and Warden, we began ascending, but also traversing north towards Warden on class 2 terrain and lower angle glacier slabs. Snow was almost entirely avoided except for a small patch right before the Warden/Victoria saddle. Since the sun had been hitting it for about an hour by this point though we did not need put don any traction. After crossing the saddle, we began ascending the south side of Warden peak proper, first surmounting a short class 3 step to the large sloping ledge below the big cliff, then traversing this leftward all the way to the obvious chimney on the west end of the south face. We solod up the chimney which did not exceed 4th class (albiet loose) and reached the small flat bench at 6000 feet elevation in the west ridge just northwest of the summit. Here, we took a short break and Steven swapped into rock shoes.
The final part of the route traversed a narrow horizontal ledge on the north side to the obvious weakness in the upper north face, which was climbed to the summit on mostly class 4, but the occational low 5th class move. We took in the views for a long time on the summit, since we had reached it way earlier than expected. On the descend, we also downclimbed the whole route without needing to break out the rope. By early afternoon we were back at the truck and began the long drive to the trailhead for Triple Peak which we would climb the next day.
Warden Peak map showing the 4WD logging road (red) and ascent route (blue)
