Elevation Gain: 1,350m
Distance: 17.25k
Total Time: 6 hours 15 minutes
Date: February 15th, 2026
Andrea and I have wanted to do Steep Peak a number of times over the years, but for one reason or another something else always drew our attention away. To the reach the summit there’s a steep slope and much of the mountain has exposure to avalanche terrain, so you need a stable snowpack to make it happen. Stable snowpacks usually draw me elsewhere, but our hand was forced this long weekend. We had bushwhacked up to 1400m towards battleship lakes in an effort to get up to Meditation Mountain. After, seeing a barren deadfall laden forest with just a foot of snow, we tucked our tails and bailed out of there. It proved to be a long outing and we arrived back in Pemberton late and tired. The following day was slated to be the best weather and neither one of us wanted to spend it indoors. That’s when Andrea suggested Steep Peak. It’s a relatively short day, the conditions were stable and there had been a fair bit of new, cold, snow recently. Perfect conditions for skiing. I was sold.
We slept at Nairn Falls and had leisurely start the next day complete with a coffee stop at Mount Currie Coffee Co. After refueling on pastries and coffee we drove up to the Duffey where cars lined every ski pullout. Steep Creek was no different and we barely found a parking spot. Our plan had been to avoid the crowds all long weekend, but after the horrible bushwhacking I didn’t mind having some open roads and easy tracks to follow.
From the parking spot, we walked to the start of Steep Creek and skinned up the easy road all the way to the open forest below Darkside Lake. As we left the last of the cut block we caught a glimpse of some skiers coming straight down the bowl on the north east face. There’s a curtain of bluffs at the base where one needs to divert hard skiers right to avoid. The skiers looked a bit lost and ended up skinning back up, but we lost sight before seeing their full route. In any event, it looked like an appealing run!
It was a short skin from the cut block to the lake and then we ascended up through the forest past Beekers Cabin and out to the alpine above. I counted at least 20 people and perhaps 5-6 separate parties on this section alone! Andrea and I contoured our way up the steep section to the ridge and past a few parties. From there we had the summit ridge to ourselves and skinned the undulating spine all the way to the summit.
In the distance we could see the weather closing in and the wind had picked up a notch. We made a quick decision to ski the face we had witnessed on the way in and take that hard skier’s right cut. This would save us the undulating return and it looked like a phenomenal run. We geared up and Andrea led the way down. The entrance to the upper bowl had a cornice free section and we dropped in there. From there all went to plan with some lovely flowy turns down the face and a hard cut at the bottom to gain a wide gully. That took us all the way to the lake and we had a fun ski out to the car.
