Elevation Gain: 2,263m
Distance: 28km
Total Time: 11 hours 14 minutes
Date: February 21st, 2026
Alex and I had some grand plans to try a wintery ascent of Mount Macdonald. We were both interested in something a little more technical than the recent ground we’d covered and this seemed like a good option. The snowpack had been fickle until recently but it was looking solid around Chilliwack Lake and the weather appeared OK. Aiding our ascent would be an established trail into the alpine. The snow pack had been anemic at lower elevations and any ascents requiring bushwhacking were likely to be fraught with pointless suffering. Our plan was pretty simple. Get an early start, boot up the trail, and tackle the north ridge which had at most some 3rd class rock and steep snow.
Alex drove us out early in the morning and we hit the trail for sunrise. Save for some grade 1 ice on the trail, it was a fast and easy ascent. The topic du jour was the advent of AI and how it might impact both of our jobs. After rifling through all possible outcomes we had arrived at Radium Lake where the snow had finally started to fill in. We had a quick snack break and then ascended up above the lake and out into a large bowl below the Macdonald-Webb col.
The wind was driving down the slope in gusts and much of the snow appeared wind affected. Shortly after we hit a highly reactive roll of snow in the meadows and observed a small slab triggering. We were on flat terrain when this happened, so this sudden state of instability put us on guard right away. A little further up we had the opportunity to test one more small roll and it behaved the same.
Ahead was the col with a relatively low angle slope to gain it, so we decided to at least try for the col and see if we were observing something isolated or more problematic. We spaced out and I booted up the slope without any issue and then we reached the col shortly after. Here the wind was especially strong and we could see our route involved some challenging terrain with a cornice above and several steep convexes. We both mulled it over, but I think the second we had arrived at the col we were both writing off the objective in our heads. There was a very obvious and wind slab problem and with the wind continuing unabated, it simply wasn’t going to improve.
With that we elected to return to Radium Lake. Our tracks had already filled in from the 10 minutes we’d been gone and it was clear we were making the right call. Around this time, I had been scoping out an easy route up nearby Mount Corriveau which was absent of avalanche terrain. I threw out the idea to Alex and we made the decision to go for it once we reached Radium Lake.
We had lost some 400m of elevation and now we’d have to gain it all back. Oh well, nothing wrong with a good old fashioned slog. The route up to the ridge went easily and we found much calmer conditions on our ascent aspect. Once we crested onto the ridge it was a very pleasant and undulating traverse to the summit. The views were actually quite phenomenal with the Pillar of Pi prominently visible among an ensemble of granitic summits.
From our maps we could see the south side down to the Radium Lake trail was quite steep at the bottom. However, we thought we spotted a reasonable path down a rib and into the valley. It was either that or a long return back to Radium Lake, so we took our chances. We descended off the summit and found easy terrain until the snow dwindled down to ice covered forest. After several tedious down climbs we paused to put on crampons and then the pace picked up again. The last 200m down to the valley were met with a number of bluffs and frozen steep forest slopes. We relied on turf sticks, front pointing and 4th class down climbing in what proved to be a mentally taxing final descent. It was a great relief to reach the trail at last! Much to our enjoyment the iced up trail had melted out and we had a pleasant return back to the car.
After getting back in service we looked up the standard routes on Corriveau and it turns out there’s a number of much better options. Nonetheless it made for a fun adventure.