Dreadnought Peak, Martin Peak

Dreadnought Peak - 1980M

180M Prominence

49.73688, -122.88328

May 31, 2026

Martin Peak - 1877M

237M Prominence

49.72324, -122.89931

May 31, 2026

1700M Ascent and descent

8H 3M C2C, 7H 20M Moving

24.7 KM

I had a day to kill because of poor planning, and I didn't want it to go to waste. I had seen reports of a so called Watersprite Traverse, bagging all the peaks around Watersprite lake, so I thought I might go attempt it, or at least bag some of the peaks in the area. I slept in Squamish then got a reasonably early start and made my way to the end of the Mamquam FSR and parked at the Watersprite Lake trailhead. I got started at 7:35AM and the trail was essentially dead as I had beat the lake day hiker hoardes. The trail felt unecessairly long especially at the start, but it was very good and easy to follow, despite being quite boring and basically just an old road for most of it. After about an hour and a half there was a more enjoyable trail through some woods and then a short bit of steep trail up to Watersprite lake. Car to lake took just over 2 hours. I then detoured around the South side of the Lake and made my way East between the daunting Watersprite Tower and Dreadnought peak, toward the col. It was supportive snow from the lake up to the col, so travel was fast. From the col I had to check my phone for a route as it was not so obvious anymore. Unfortunately I neglected to think about the fact that the GPX I had was from the summer time, and so being mid spring there was still a significant amount of snow. I had to come up with my own way up onto the South ridge of Dreadnought peak. I found a bit of moderate steep snow just up from the col that I could use to gain the ridge. I had put my crampons on as soon as I hit the snow at the lake, as the night before It seemed like it had frozen and I could not kick steps. The first half of the ridge was hiking through patches of snow and shrubby sections with a bit of scrambling sprinkled in. The ridge then flattened out a bit near the summit but I decided to traverse a bit low under some sections of melted out rocks on slightly steeper snow. I wanted to try and preserve my crampons but also not cross a ton of small moats by the melted out rocks. Just a little further was the summit, with some unexpected and massive exposure to the North East between me and what I think was the false summit. Either way, getting to the other side of the summit would have been quite sketchy with the massive corniced bump on the ridge that would have needed to be crossed and the exposed scrambling. I pretty soon made my way off the summit and began to make a plan for what the rest of the day would look like. I followed my footsteps back down the ridge and stopped to have a look at what the Watersprite traverse route looked like. I decided that the traverse didn't really make sense as it looked like quite a bit of moderately steep corniced ridge traversing, so I just made my way back down towards the lake and decided that it would make more sense once it was dry. I wasn't done quite yet though as I really wanted to bag a second peak. I thought it would be Gibson peak, but from the base of the steep West face of Watersprite tower, Martin peak, its close and taller neighbor, turned out to actually be closer. I could see the entire approach to Martin peak in front of me, and it would only add around 300 meters of ascent and descent. The climb was very simple, and the snow was significantly softer at this point, either due to it being later in the day or a more shaded aspect. I opted to make a bit of an interesting and steep step near the summit which was completely unnecessary as it turned out on the descent. There were great views once again, although the views from Dreadnought were definitely better due to its very close proximity to Mamquam's icefield. I spent a few minutes on the summit enjoying the second half of my lunch, then I ran back down the snow and I was back at the lake in only minutes. I stopped by the lake to put away all my snow gear and then kept descending back down the trail soon after. At this point it was early afternoon and there were hoardes of people on the trail.

Morning views of garibaldi on the Watersprite trail

First look at Martin Peak from the Watersprite trail

Looking across Watersprite lake at Watersprite tower

Looking up at Dreadnought Col

typical of the ridge up to Dreadnought

Nearing the summit at the end of the Dreadnought ridge

Dreadnought summit

This craggy looking bump across from the summit

Views to the South, Watersprite tower is looking less interesting now

Stunning views over Mamquam mountain and it's sub summits

Zoomed in on the Sky Pilot group

Descending Dreadnought South ridge

Looking back at Dreadnought from Martin Peak's North East bowl

Martin peak summit

Comically small summit register 

Summit panorama

More Unreal views of Mamquam Mountain, this time with Dreadnought peak in front of it

One last view at Watersprite lake

Dreadnought peak and Martin Peak route (red)

Zoomed in view of the route