Elevation Gain: 1,747m
Distance: 20.07km
Total Time: 7 hours 26 minutes
Date: May 9th, 2026
(includes Macleod + Hatfield)
I had just finished an ascent up Mount Macleod and I was now taking the obvious connecting ridge between the two for an ascent up Hatfield itself. The ridge was surprisingly bluffy, but keeping skiers left always netted an easy bypass. Eventually I reached the base of the south face and scoped out a few options. I was aware of a standard route somewhere on the south east ridge, but I didn’t want to do a big detour. Ahead of me were several gullies and a system of benches that looked reasonable to climb up. I headed about center up the broad face and then cut climber’s left to a gully and scrambled up easy terrain to some snow. From there I scrambled up a 4th class channel that took me out to just below the summit. There was much easier terrain to my right so I opted to aim for that on the return. I reached the summit shortly after, but headed down quickly as I had already spent a long lunch break on Macleod.
For the return I decided to try and find the south east ridge route. Some flagging gave the route away lower down, but the snow covered up the otherwise easy scrambling. I found a bypass through one over hanging snow section and then the rest was 3rd class scrambling down to the face. I descended back down the south face trending skier’s left to stay on continuous snow in the forest. A few more bluffs had to be negotiated, but I was soon back at the cut block.
A scooped up my snow shoes on the way down and then had a pleasant descent by bike all the way to truck. A near perfect outing.