September 1-3, 2024. For having such striking and tall glaciated summits, Altheney pass seems to see little attention from alpine climbers. I could only find information on two routes up Mount Ethelweard: John Clarke’s FA route along the south ridge, and Steven Song’s SW gulley route. The west ridge caught my eye as a striking and logical route when approaching from Altheney Pass. With no beta it was bound to be an adventurous trip with plenty of route finding.
We drove in from Pemberton along Lillooet River FSR, the FSR here is in good shape and would be fine in a car, but having some ground clearance and bigger tires to air down will make the drive much more enjoyable. Salal Creek FSR was in a bit worse condition with some erosion, AWD and moderate ground clearance would be recommended. The FSR is thoroughly decommissioned 3km from the end. We parked up and started hiking in the midday heat.
The hiking trail was in much better shape than expected. It’s a bit tricky to find the start from the burn, if in doubt just head down to Salal Creek and follow the creek up. From here there is regular flagging and cairns as you bounce between forest and riverbanks. No bushwhacking is currently required! The hike felt a bit rough in the midday heat with heavy packs, but once we made it up into the pass, the breeze and cooler air lifted our spirits quickly. We were shocked how many other parties were also camping in the pass for the long weekend. There was about 20 tents scattered throughout the valley. Fortunately, there are plenty of gorgeous and soft gravel campsites. We found one distanced from the others and settled in for the night looking up at Ethelweard.
After a comfortably warm night and some 3 in 1 instant coffee we headed off towards Ethelweard at 6am. We had decided to cross the tongue of the glacier to avoid the steepest of the scree slopes. The glacier was all bare ice so we opted not to rope up for it. There were very few crevasses in the lower tongue but many water runnels, some of them quite deep. We donned our crampons and hiked across the glacier, hopping over the many little rivulets and runnels.
We headed up the scree slopes on the far side of the glacier aiming for a talus gulley with orange rock on climbers right. This gulley seemed to offer the easiest path to gain the ridge proper. The gulley was unfortunately a bit of a ‘house of cards’, one rock would shift under your feet and you would hear a dozen other rocks move and settle around you. We carefully either walked parallel to each other, or one at a time with the other in safe spots to manage help manage the rockfall hazard. When we first gained the ridge, the rock was still quite loose. But it quickly improved and soon we were scrambling enjoyable 3rd and 4th class moves on blocky white granite.
At about 2600m the rock changed quality. It was much darker and noticeably looser. Here we scrambled a black gulley of rock for about 100m of vertical. At the top of the gulley (2700m) the rock dropped off into a steep 5th class notch. Here the rock quality worsened once again. We had brought ropes and a rack but decent protection hard to find between the loose blocks. We spent some time searching for alternate routes, and discussing our options. We decided it wasn’t worth the risk to continue and started down climbing. Judging from other photos it looks like there are 3 steep notches to navigate if one were to continue up the ridge. It was disappointing to turn around with only about 150m of vert from the summit, but it’s all part of the game. We retraced our path back down the ridge and scrambled delicately down the talus gulley.
It was nice to get back on the solid glacier and off the loose scree and talus. I filled up my water with some deliciously crisp glacier melt. On the way back to camp we detoured to a gorgeous little lake with a sandy beach and striking views of the glacier. At this point all the other parties had left the valley and we had the entire place to ourselves for a nice skinny dip in the lake. We then walked over to the derelict mining cabin. It’s a snippet of history, but also a shame to see so much junk left in an otherwise pristine valley.
Back in camp we stuffed ourselves with a hearty dinner of couscous, dehydrated veggies, and bacon bits before settling in for another night and hiking back out the next day.
Although it was a bit disappointing to miss the summit and the likely FA of the West Ridge of Ethelweard, I feel good about our decisions. I have no plans to return to that specific route, but I do hope to return to Ethelweard via a different route. It’s a stunning area that I would also love to explore on skis.
Sandro Summits 
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