Elevation Gain: 876m
Distance: 7.62km
Total Time: 11 hours 37 minutes
Date: July 19th, 2025
The Red Tusk is steep, somewhat rotten, horn of rock located on the south western end of Tantalus Provincial Park. Across the valley lies the Black Tusk which, in contrast, is less technical to climb, but much looser. Both Tusks were first climbed within a few years of one another with the Red Tusk seeing its FA in 1914 by Basil Darling and Allan Morkill. The same Basil Darling who was the first to climb Tantalus Peak as well! Andrea and I saw The Red Tusk for the first time on our trip up to Tantalus in 2023 and it captivated my mind for some time after. Kevin McLane’s alpine book hadn’t come out yet and so there was a big mystery to me about how to even climb it. Of course, I’d later find out that some details exist in Dick Culbert’s guidebooks and Bruce Fairley’s, but I hadn’t yet bridged the gap from modern guide books and internet beta to the paper world of before.
Getting to The Red Tusk involves the same circus as for Tantalus. You can commission a boat, pay more for a helicopter, cross first nations private property to make a cable crossing or purchase/rent a boat/kayak and cross the river yourself. All have their merits and their drawbacks and I’ll let you decide where you stand. I for one have no problem taking a helicopter and doubly so when ones weekend plans get cancelled last minute.
The Tantalus area and The Red Tusk were not on my list whatsoever this year. In fact the weekend we climbed it, Ashley, Andrea, Alex and myself were planning an excursion to the island. We had all left work as early as possible in the hopes of catching even the latest ferry. To our dismay, it was already completely sold out before we even left downtown at 3pm. Not to give in so easily, we drove out anyways and sure enough there’s no chance we’re getting on. We mulled over a number of options, but finally, on a whim, I decided to call Black Tusk helicopters to see if they could squeeze us in last minute. Sure enough they could and as a bonus they’d be willing to fly four of us in. Normally, it’s 3 passengers max in the Bell 206’s but we were under the average weight limit, so it was a go. I managed to coerce the group into making a weekend of it. In all honesty with 4 people the helicopter is barely more expensive than 2 ferry trips + gas to the island.
Our new plan was to head home, pack up and get ready to leave early the next day for a two day trip. Alex and I would pair up for the first day and if everything aligned we’d all do a climb together with Ashley and Andrea on the Sunday. Diane’s SW Buttress had the biggest appeal and then an ascent up Alpha seemed to make a reasonable Sunday outing. In the back of my mind and surely Alex’s was an ascent up The Red Tusk, but largely settled on Dione.
The next day we flew out from Squamish after waiting around for a bit and the pilot took us for a tantalizing loop around The Red Tusk. It looked imposing from all sides, had minimal beta and looked to be a proper adventure. There’s some odd calling about these chossy summits and they seem to have Alex’s number too. Almost immediately after landing we switched the day’s plan to The Red Tusk. All of us set up a quick camp and then packed up to head out.
Together we traversed along the west side of Serratus and through the col between Serratus and Ionia. We descended a ways down the snow on the east side and then traversed underneath Ionia where we parted ways with Ashley and Andrea. Here we ascended up the glacier in clouds to the Ionia-Pandareus col and flipped back onto the west side. We traversed a short distance and then climbed up to the Pandareus-Red Tusk col where we packed up the snow gear and put on climbing shoes.
We climbed up from the col on some low 5th, but generally solid rock and then traversed onto the west side up to a ramp system. The ramp was straight forward, but quite loose so we picked our way through carefully and then regained the ridge at the top. The ridge was generally easy to follow with a few 3rd class moves all the way to the base of the Red Tusk. Ahead was some some 5th slabs and moves up to the base of a large chimney. It looked like it would take two pitches but if we could get to the base we might be able to climb in one. We made the decision to climb unroped up the first section and the moves weren’t all hard except pull up above the slab where the rock was looser.
Up to that point the rock quality was not as bad as I had expected. We climbed a bit further to the base of the chimney. It hardly looked protect-able so opted to continue unroped. I lead up first and chimney’ed up with a few harder moves in the 5.6/5.7 range before clearing the vertical section and into easy terrain. I tunnelled underneath a massive chockstone and popped out onto the summit. Alex was close behind and we walked up the final few meters to the summit together. It’s hard to imagine 101 years earlier the first ascent party, with minimal maps and gear found their way up to the top. Those are the real adventurers in my opinion. Hopefully they had better views too, because so far Alex and I had been in a cloud the entire ascent. A few breaks teased a potential view, but in the end there was little to see.
Now it was time to get off the summit. We had passed a few rappel anchors along the way but the ones around the summit looked dicey at best. In the end we found a huge rock to sling right next to the summit that would deposit us at the base of the chimney again. Alex rappelled first and then me. From where we stood there weren’t any obvious places to put a second rappel so we chose to just down climb instead.
Once at the base we returned along the ridge and carefully descended that ramp on the west side. Instead of continuing back to the col though, we took an easier line west of the ramp exit where the rock easily reached the snow. We donned crampons and returned back to Ionia where we spotted Ashley and Andrea half way up. There’s still a fair bit of time in the day so we figured we might as well try and join up with them. Rather than start at the base of the buttress they were climbing we found a ramp about 2 pitches up and scrambled over to that. We climbed unroped for two more pitches and then found the terrain to be getting a bit of our comfort zone. Adding to that the rock had been pretty shit quality so far. That was expected of The Red Tusk, but Ionia had been touted as a amazing climbing and so far it was anything but.
So, we pitched it out we me leading first up some cool looking slab intersected with quartz and then Alex lead one more pitch where we caught up to Ashley and Andrea. From here we climbed one more pitch up to the base of a steep section below the ridge and then Alex lead one last pitch to the ridge proper. Ashley and Andrea took a slightly different line that inadvertently created some insane rope drag. With some heaving and Alex working the rope angles a bit we managed to get it moving more and Andrea soon joined all of us at the ridge. Here there was one rappel into a notch and then perhaps two more pitches to the summit. Ashley and Andrea were over it at this point having climbed lacklustre rock and protection all day. It was getting late as well, so we decided to bail as a team in order to do 60m rappels with two ropes.
We followed the gully east from the notch and I rappelled first trying to find a good place to get down for the next station. In the process I dislodged several microwave size blocks with one requiring a quick step to the right to dodge. I was more than happy to be out of the firing zone where I found a horn to sling. Everyone followed down and then Alex lead the next rappel. That took us well out of the firing zone for the rest of the descent and then Andrea lead one more rappel to just above the massive bergschrund below Ionia. I took this last rappel and lowered into the gaping maw between rock and snow. Ideally, I should have put cramps on, but I made do with an awkward climb up the snow and then a more awkward traverse across the thin snow bridge to a safe spot. Everyone else wisely dawned crampons and we all made it down without issue.
Now we climbed back down on snow below Ionia and then back up to the Ionia-Serratus col to camp. We reached camp just before dark and made a nice warm meal while Alex and I planned out the objective for Sunday. Despite not getting Ionia we were very pleased to climb The Red Tusk. It proved to be easier than expected and with better rock. Ionia on the other hand, I can’t really recommend. If you’re a 5.7/5.8 leader you will likely find the lack of protection and rock quality heady. If you’re climbing at higher grades, you’ll find the ledge-y broken up pitches pretty mediocre and the hollow sounding rock never inspires.