Raft Mountain

October 27, 2025

Raft Mountain

Raft Mountain - 2449M

776M Prominence

51.72799, -119.86093

October 27, 2025

1100 M Ascent and descent

5H 48M C2C, 5H 40M moving

23.13 KM

Raft Mountain is the eye catching peak that you see to the North of Clearwater from just about everywhere. It's scenic shape has made me want to climb it since I first arrived. I could have much more easily been done it in September when I first got to Clearwater, but I decided that I wanted to try and ski it. This left an extremely narrow window to get that done since I don't have a snow machine and the access would get very long very soon. I shifted my work schedule around since Monday was the nicest day of the week after Sunday's snowfall. I was expecting to be able to drive near the summer trailhead and have a fairly short day and maybe do a few laps, but as I drove in in the morning, snow started to appear much lower than expected at around 1300M, forcing me to park at 1350M. I probably could have drove a bit further, but being alone the last thing I wanted to do was get the truck stuck. from 1350M I then had to ski up the very very gradual road 90 for 8.3 KM. Thankfully I set a pretty good pace and made it up to the trailhead at 1775M in just under 2 hours. From here I was able to follow the summer trail and skin up through the remaining forest until about 1950M when the alpine terrain started to open up. There was then a series of metal T posts that I loosely followed up to the West ridge. The ascent was pretty direct to begin with, but closer to the ridge I had to start kick turning some switchbacks as it got a bit steeper. Further up on the ridge above 2200M there started to be many rocks appearing as the snowpack was still quite thin. I managed to keep skinning all the way up to the summit doing my best to weave around the sea of exposed rocks on the wind affected ridge. Despite what the peak looks like from far away it was not sketchy at all, and the North face of the peak is the side that is actually more exposed. I didn't really stay on the summit for more than just a few minutes as there was not really any hope of any fantastic views clearing up. With all the exposed rocks I decided not to ski down the first part of the ridge in order to save my skis a bit. I threw them on at about 2270M when the rocks started to thin out and some decent sloped appeared. I then skied back down to the trail in the forest. The snow was actually pretty decent and the fresh powder was awesome despite being quite thin and hitting the odd rock here and there. The ski out on the trail was also pretty easy and enjoyable, but once at the road it became a bit of a shitshow as the road was too flat to keep any momentum. I basically unlocked my bindings and telemarked my way down the road without putting my skins back on. The road became too melted out in the last 3 KM so I had to boot pack the rest of the way back to the truck.