Overlord Mountain - 2625M
415M Prominence
50.01568, -122.82084
August 28, 2025
Whirlwind Peak - 2427M
## Prominence
50.00966, -122.84154
August 28, 2025
Fissile Peak - 2439M
119M Prominence
50.01884, -122.84873
August 29, 2025
Flute Summit - 2015M
127M Prominence
50.03994, -122.92569
August 29, 2025
Whistler Mountain - 2189M
471M Prominence
50.05904, -122.95683
August 29, 2025
45.07KM
3677M Ascent, 2516M Descent
30H Car to Lift
This might not be the most usual introduction to the sea to sky area, but it is a relatively interesting one. Weeks ago I came across a message in the SWBC group chat from Taras who was looking for partners on his 2 week S2S mini rampage. I had some work to do back at home, but knew I wanted to make a trip down to SWBC and the PNW before the summer was over, so I commited with him to doing Overlord Mountain. Frankly I had never heard of it, and there was many other peaks that were on his list that I would of rather had the partner for. His schedule was farily regimented though with passes and permits and whatnot, so I just went along with the Overlord idea. On Wednesday the 27th I made the trip down to vancouver from Powell River, wasted a few hours in the city and then made the drive up towards Squamish. After a quick swim at Murin lake I made my way to Check campsite for the night. The next morning I got up with the sun and drove up to Whistler in an effort to get to the Singing Pass trailhead where I would meet Taras at 7AM. After a bit of time wasted looking for a parking spot, we met in the parking lot as we were both trying to figure out the parking meter. Once all was sorted, we walked to the gondola drop off and then started making our way up the Singing pass trail. The hiking was easy, and super well kept and flat. I was impressed. Without really feeling it we gained over 1000M before reaching the pass. At the pass we turned east and climbed a few hundred meters towards the kees and claire hut. The views were starting to open up in this section and we already had great views of the Black Tusk and Castle Towers. After the hut we quickly descended to Russet lake to eat lunch and set up camp for the night. After a bit of a break, we got going again towards Overlord with lightened packs. The route took us South East around Fissile peak, and then across a glacier outflow before gaining a ridge that went perpendicular to the previous few kilometers. This section did not have a very desicive or easy to follow trail, but the route finding was easy as it was open terrain and still quite flat. From the ridge after the non problematic water crossing the trail started to steepen up a bit. The small scree showed an easy to follow path, even if it was pretty obvious where to go. From here on out it was going up and down the bumps on the ridge all the way to the summit, keeping the Overlord glacier to the left. We crossed one very small patch of snow that did not warrant bringing any gear, and soon after we were up on Whirlwind peak. Whirlwind peak was under 100M of prominence on peakbagger, so I barely even gave a shit, but later in the day Taras confirmed with his GPS that the Key col was indeed lower, and the peakbagger info was probably wrong. I will take it I guess, afterall it looks pretty cool from either direction with its North side drop off into the glacier. We kept moving down to the Whirlwind Overlord col, then started making our way up to the ridge, on the way up to the ridge we bypassed the bumps of Refuse pinnacle. This is the only part where I could see someone considering this route a scramble. It is easily doable without hands though, although there are a few slightly more exposed spots. After the Pinnacle there was roughly 100 meters up to the summit of easy walking once again. Not the most exciting mountain to have as a first S2S summit, but the views made up for that. Especially unreal views looking South and East. Getting to the summit had taken us longer than planned unfortunately, so the plan to bag Fissile peak on the way back kind of fell apart. We trekked back the same route, this time making sure to stand on the Whirlwind summit and grab a picture. We made it back at camp just in time to eat dinner at a regular hour, and came up with the plan to get up relatively early to bag Fissile Peak in the morning before heading back down the following day.
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Starting on the Singing pass trail |
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Just after Singing Pass |
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Dropping down to Russet Lake from where the shelter is |
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Set up camp at the lake before heading off to Overlord |
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On the way to Overlord, views of Whirlwind peak and the glacier after skirting around Fissile peak |
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On the ridge heading in direction of Whirlwind |
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The small snow patch we had to cross |
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Looking toward Fissile Peak across Overlord glacier |
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Looking towards Overlord Mountain and the ridge we hiked |
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Nearly at Overlord summit |
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Summit Panorama from Overlord |
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Overlord summit |
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