Mount Matier WA

January 26, 2026

Mount Matier WA

Mount Matier - 2783M

1241M Prominence

50.32632, -122.44346

January 26, 2026

1589M Ascent and descent

18.5KM

52H C2C, 12H 15M moving

It has been far too long since I summited anything, and I was seriously yearning to do a bigger and more interesting objective. The winter has been quite focused around work, but I am still able to take time off when I want to. I decided that It would be criminal to let this long lasting high pressure system in the Coast Mountains pass by without getting out at least once, so Tyler and Orrin got recruited to meet me at Cerise Creek on Sunday night for a climbing trip. The original objective was to do Matier the first day, then camp out on the Anniversary Glacier and try for Joffre the second day. This is definitely not how the trip played out, but we still managed to squeeze in Matier, so it was still a success in my books. After spending the night camping out at the Cerise Creek pull out, we got ready to go and were hiking by around 7:20 the following day. We started the trek in towards Keith's hut via the highway of a trail. This trail had seen lots of traffic in the last few weeks, and the perfect conditions allowed us to hike in with just crampons. By the time we all got to Keith's some time was wasted in a series of unfortunate events, and Tyler was having foot issues, so progress slowed down significantly. We did decide to all keep going and make our way up to the glacier, but just past Motel 66 and before the steepish snow slope traverse to the glacier, Tyler had to make the decision to bail due to his injuries. He returned to the hut and Orrin and I kept pushing to try and climb Matier and find camp for the night. We made it to the glacier and roped up, despite there being lots of traffic, I was slightly concerned about the thin conditions, and the off route hiking we were going to do. At around 1:30 we had made it to the Anniversary Glacier Col and were hit with some quite cold winds from multiple directions, in an effort to find somewhere more sheltered to stash gear and set up a camp, we found a rocky area on the edge of the glacier and dug out a snow pit. We then stashed the gear, re fueled a bit and continued on the ascent of Matier. We traversed back over to where there were a series of foot steps, and began the steep part of the climb. Although the snow was highly wind affected on the face, it remained perfect for climbing and there was no post holing to be done. The route we ended up taking was on the North Western slopes of the peak, which is one of the standard routes. The first 100 or 150 meters of the face were quite chill, at no more than 40 degrees. Nearing the top the slope steepened up a bit and some more care was due, as some rocky sections definitely make it a no fall zone. We then arrived up on the ridge, and after a few rocky steps we could traverse the exposed snowy ridge to the summit. It was 3:10 by the time we summited, so we didn't hang around for very long. The views were spectacular as the cloud ceiling was very high for the afternoon, but the lack of sun and low temps were making it a very cold ascent even while we were working hard on the ascent. We continued on to descend the same route we came up, downclimbing the steeper upper part of the slope, then carefully walking down the lower and less steep part. From this route we got a good look at the famous Aussie Couloir on Joffre, but decided that due to the relatively low snow pack so far this year it still looked a little thin. We traversed above the glacier back to where we had stashed our gear, and then made the joint decision that we would just return to the cabin the same day. We decided that the Aussie was probably best left for a time with a little more snow, and that it wasn't really worth suffering a very cold night on the glacier to go check it out. Orrin and I then packed up and roped up again to traverse the glacier back to Motel 66. By the time we arrived at Motel 66 it was dark out, but the temperatures at 2000 meters seemed significantly warmer than those only a few hundred meters higher. We took our time and descended back down to Keith's hut in the dark to meet up with Tyler. We spent the night in the warm hut and played card games in front of the cozy wood stove. The following morning we got a late start and Tyler downed a few Ibuprofens so we could make the hike back out to the Parking lot. We made it back to the parking lot just after 11AM, and I drove back to Clearwater in the afternoon.