Ashlu & Porterhouse
In our constant quest to conquest as many SW BC scrambles as possible , I believe that Ashlu is the true essence of scrambling in the region. This is a remote peak in a very wild area, overlooking a beautiful valley and surrounded by gigantic coastal glaciers.
The hike is not that difficult but the drive in is not for the faint of heart…
Since the 4X4 is so long and energy consuming, a simple day hike would have not made the trip complete. After reading several trip reports and exploring on Google Earth, Dean and myself agreed to do a mega double combo of climbing Ashlu and Porterhouse on a warm month of August.
Although we knew that some glacier traveling would be necessary with an overnighter, the theme was the same: Fast & Light.
For 2 days with glacier and camping gear:
40 liter pack
Tarp
UL Sleeping bag
Thermarest
Water pouch
30 m rope
Harness, picket, prussiks
Ice Axe + crampons+ helmet
Mountain boots
Sun hat and clothes
Poles
UL Micro Rocket Stove
GPS +First aid kit
Muffins
First aid kit
For this amount of gear, you get:
To roll yourself in a tarp like a burrito
Eat muffins for 2 days straight
No flexibility to screw up
With Dean, we had an early start from Burnaby on a beautiful August week-end and headed to the Ashlu valley. We knew that the logging road section would be ugly but did not really know how bad it was.
First thing, we missed the left turn to take over the bridge over the Ashlu river and lost about 30 minutes, only once we arrived at a dead end (probably right under Jimmy Jimmy) with debris an old cabin and ton of forestry trash did we realize our error.
We turned around and made it to the actual bridge shortly after. The first section of the road is very well maintained due to the power station, but after you hit some difficult sections.
The alder on the sides is constant and a high clearance is definitely required. Dean with his Jeep Cherokee bottom out once or twice which is always scary. We had to avoid major rocks, deep holes, dusty sections. The true adventure had already started, welcome to BC!
Finally, after probably 90 min of logging road, we had finally made it to the trailhead. The first thing to do was to hide some bottles of juice in a near by creek which would provide cold drinks for our return to Vancouver.
The trail starts with the crossing of the broken down bridge over a roaring creek. Not too sketchy but you wouldn`t want to fall.
Although a few markers help through the bush section, you quickly realize that few people get to tick off this mountain. There is no foot trail, it s really just a few markers every 150 m that are not very easy to find.
I was hoping to get into the alpine very fast, but going through the bushes with some tricky bluff sections did make us keep our Fast and Light Theme…
However, once our views were free from the trees,
we felt the immense privilege of being BC mountaineers. The valley is simply outstanding with an overhanging glacier at it`s end, another glacier reaching to the bottom and magnificent Ashlu at the top orchestrating all of this.
With creeks running everywhere, we knew we would not miss out on water, but the crossing required us to wet our feet severely.
Once arrived at the end of the valley, the ascent of a rocky face, smoothed out by the ice was necessary, a fun little scramble.
We then crossed right under the glacier and above a magnificent waterfall. We were then in an alpine section where we were greeted by some black flies that we greeted back with our poles used as bats.
The alpine section there is not that great as it is a mix of gravel and sand and makes the trip particularly tiring. Once pass this section, we arrived in a giant snowfield bowl where you need to scramble to another snow slope until you hit the final ridge of Ashlu. At this point you can see the SW face of Ashlu, a face that has it`s route in Alpine Select and that made myself and Dean dream for future trips once our trad skills are good enough.
After the 90 min 4x4 drive, the bush, the creek crossings, the gravel and steep snowfields, we had barely any energy to finish the final rock ridge, especially that it has a false summit!
But it had taken us so much time to get here, the weather was looking great and we were still early in a summer day, we pushed ourselves to the top. The summit pyramid is a tricky scramble and requires good concentration as the rock is fairly loose. But we were slugs going up, and were slow motion until the top.
We finally made it to the small top and were very proud of the ascent of a peak I had read so much about.
Usual summit picture and a small nap at the top. 
We also looked at the surrounding mountains that are probably climbed once every other year. Our view on Porterhouse were excellent which allowed us to draw with our fingers the entire route from camp.
The south side of the pyramid was hidden though and we knew that this would be the most challenging section
Exhausted by the length of the climb and the heat, we forced ourselves to come down from our heaven but enjoyed some glissading down the snow fields.
We got back to our packs, which we had left at the valley floor just before night. Totally pooped, evening eating was a struggle.
We went to bed without a tent, Dean slipped into his bivy and I rolled my mattress into the tarp. We were lucky that night as a warm wind swept us to sleep but importantly swept the mosquitoes away. We knew that there were a lot of bears in this valley but tiredness rhymes with carelessness.
(Notice the bear on the snowfield)
After a good 10 hour sleep we woke up pumped up for Porterhouse. The start involved a long ascent on a snowfield all the way to the glacier.
Once on the ice field, we reached out a cliff where we had to scramble ourselves up to the top plateau where Porterhouse rules. 
As a precaution, we roped up and crossed the plateau all the way to the base of the pyramid. The glacier had few crevasses and felt safe to travel on. We probably had to only cross one solid snow bridge.
The route on the final summit block is interesting. You need to take a couloir that goes from the bottom to top but the lower section is very steep. Most climbers, including us take the face more on the SE side and then traverse mid way up to the couloir. The traverse has some solid rocks but presents a bit of exposure.
The gulley all the way up to the top is then fairly easy.
The last few meters require some easy class 4 moves.
The summit of Porterhouse is just a giant rock overhanging 300 meters of air and is only balanced by its weight. 
We took a few pictures and enjoyed our amazing week-end.
(Ashlu)
The way back to the tent was fast. We opted to climb down the glacier instead of down climbing the cliffs between the upper plateau and the lower bowl.
Once back, we quickly pack our few pieces of gear and headed back to the jeep. Back at the car, we found our cool drinks which were well appreciated since we were probably low on sugar.
The drive back was tough, it was probably 40 degrees in the jeep and we were going particularly slow as we could not afford to breakdown so isolated from civilization.
We finally made it make to the Squamish road and fully appreciated our amazing climbs in the Best Place on Earth.
In our constant quest to conquest as many SW BC scrambles as possible , I believe that Ashlu is the true essence of scrambling in the region. This is a remote peak in a very wild area, overlooking a beautiful valley and surrounded by gigantic coastal glaciers.
The hike is not that difficult but the drive in is not for the faint of heart…
Since the 4X4 is so long and energy consuming, a simple day hike would have not made the trip complete. After reading several trip reports and exploring on Google Earth, Dean and myself agreed to do a mega double combo of climbing Ashlu and Porterhouse on a warm month of August.
Although we knew that some glacier traveling would be necessary with an overnighter, the theme was the same: Fast & Light.
For 2 days with glacier and camping gear:
40 liter pack
Tarp
UL Sleeping bag
Thermarest
Water pouch
30 m rope
Harness, picket, prussiks
Ice Axe + crampons+ helmet
Mountain boots
Sun hat and clothes
Poles
UL Micro Rocket Stove
GPS +First aid kit
Muffins
First aid kit
For this amount of gear, you get:
To roll yourself in a tarp like a burrito
Eat muffins for 2 days straight
No flexibility to screw up
With Dean, we had an early start from Burnaby on a beautiful August week-end and headed to the Ashlu valley. We knew that the logging road section would be ugly but did not really know how bad it was.
First thing, we missed the left turn to take over the bridge over the Ashlu river and lost about 30 minutes, only once we arrived at a dead end (probably right under Jimmy Jimmy) with debris an old cabin and ton of forestry trash did we realize our error.
We turned around and made it to the actual bridge shortly after. The first section of the road is very well maintained due to the power station, but after you hit some difficult sections.
The alder on the sides is constant and a high clearance is definitely required. Dean with his Jeep Cherokee bottom out once or twice which is always scary. We had to avoid major rocks, deep holes, dusty sections. The true adventure had already started, welcome to BC!
Finally, after probably 90 min of logging road, we had finally made it to the trailhead. The first thing to do was to hide some bottles of juice in a near by creek which would provide cold drinks for our return to Vancouver.
The trail starts with the crossing of the broken down bridge over a roaring creek. Not too sketchy but you wouldn`t want to fall.
Although a few markers help through the bush section, you quickly realize that few people get to tick off this mountain. There is no foot trail, it s really just a few markers every 150 m that are not very easy to find.I was hoping to get into the alpine very fast, but going through the bushes with some tricky bluff sections did make us keep our Fast and Light Theme…
However, once our views were free from the trees,
we felt the immense privilege of being BC mountaineers. The valley is simply outstanding with an overhanging glacier at it`s end, another glacier reaching to the bottom and magnificent Ashlu at the top orchestrating all of this.With creeks running everywhere, we knew we would not miss out on water, but the crossing required us to wet our feet severely.
Once arrived at the end of the valley, the ascent of a rocky face, smoothed out by the ice was necessary, a fun little scramble.
We then crossed right under the glacier and above a magnificent waterfall. We were then in an alpine section where we were greeted by some black flies that we greeted back with our poles used as bats. The alpine section there is not that great as it is a mix of gravel and sand and makes the trip particularly tiring. Once pass this section, we arrived in a giant snowfield bowl where you need to scramble to another snow slope until you hit the final ridge of Ashlu. At this point you can see the SW face of Ashlu, a face that has it`s route in Alpine Select and that made myself and Dean dream for future trips once our trad skills are good enough.
After the 90 min 4x4 drive, the bush, the creek crossings, the gravel and steep snowfields, we had barely any energy to finish the final rock ridge, especially that it has a false summit!
But it had taken us so much time to get here, the weather was looking great and we were still early in a summer day, we pushed ourselves to the top. The summit pyramid is a tricky scramble and requires good concentration as the rock is fairly loose. But we were slugs going up, and were slow motion until the top.We finally made it to the small top and were very proud of the ascent of a peak I had read so much about.
Usual summit picture and a small nap at the top. We also looked at the surrounding mountains that are probably climbed once every other year. Our view on Porterhouse were excellent which allowed us to draw with our fingers the entire route from camp. The south side of the pyramid was hidden though and we knew that this would be the most challenging sectionExhausted by the length of the climb and the heat, we forced ourselves to come down from our heaven but enjoyed some glissading down the snow fields.
We got back to our packs, which we had left at the valley floor just before night. Totally pooped, evening eating was a struggle.
We went to bed without a tent, Dean slipped into his bivy and I rolled my mattress into the tarp. We were lucky that night as a warm wind swept us to sleep but importantly swept the mosquitoes away. We knew that there were a lot of bears in this valley but tiredness rhymes with carelessness.
(Notice the bear on the snowfield)After a good 10 hour sleep we woke up pumped up for Porterhouse. The start involved a long ascent on a snowfield all the way to the glacier.
Once on the ice field, we reached out a cliff where we had to scramble ourselves up to the top plateau where Porterhouse rules. As a precaution, we roped up and crossed the plateau all the way to the base of the pyramid. The glacier had few crevasses and felt safe to travel on. We probably had to only cross one solid snow bridge.
The route on the final summit block is interesting. You need to take a couloir that goes from the bottom to top but the lower section is very steep. Most climbers, including us take the face more on the SE side and then traverse mid way up to the couloir. The traverse has some solid rocks but presents a bit of exposure.
The gulley all the way up to the top is then fairly easy.
The last few meters require some easy class 4 moves. The summit of Porterhouse is just a giant rock overhanging 300 meters of air and is only balanced by its weight. We took a few pictures and enjoyed our amazing week-end. (Ashlu) The way back to the tent was fast. We opted to climb down the glacier instead of down climbing the cliffs between the upper plateau and the lower bowl.
Once back, we quickly pack our few pieces of gear and headed back to the jeep. Back at the car, we found our cool drinks which were well appreciated since we were probably low on sugar.
The drive back was tough, it was probably 40 degrees in the jeep and we were going particularly slow as we could not afford to breakdown so isolated from civilization.
We finally made it make to the Squamish road and fully appreciated our amazing climbs in the Best Place on Earth.
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