The Copilot

June 13, 2026

The Copilot

The Copilot - 1881M

91M Prominence

49.63722, -123.09700

June 13, 2026

Trip day 2 stats:

8H Camp to Camp, 5H 15M moving

430M Ascent, 780M descent

4.8KM

On day two of our Sky Pilot area peakbagging mission we tackled the Copilot. Usually I am not too keen on bagging sub p100 peaks if they are not technical, but the Copilot is a bit of a cult classic, and even the easiest route borders technical climbing. The easiest route on the Copilot is the North East gulley which is the route we rappelled upon descent. The second day of our 3 day mission was bound to be a chill one with base camp already pushed up to 1400M the day before. We got a relaxing start and got on the snow at around 9AM to start the approach to the base of the climb. We followed the heavily trafficed footsteps up to roughly 1690M then made a deviation towards the West. There were already steps from a few days prior heading in that direction, so we loosely followed them and navigated the quite mellow snowy slopes to 1800M. At this point I found the base of the climb, but there was still a bit of approaching to do. We climbed up the final bit of steepish snow to the rock, then scrambled up a few fourth class moves to a comfortable belay station for pitch 1. The route desctiption I had read called for a corner at the start, but I would call it more of a gulley. Stella took the first lead and climbed up to the top of the gulley. She blasted up her first alpine lead on the mossy 5.5, and placed some relatively sparse but good gear. At the top of the 30M chimney she set up a belay station on less than ideal rock, and then I followed up. At the top of pitch one it was quite clear where to go, so I took lead again. Pitch 2, if you can really even call it that, traverses about 20 meters along a chossy ledge, there are a few decent placements, but definitely a traverse to be on your toes about due to the rock quality. After the traverse I noticed the short hand crack in a corner I read about for pitch 3, so I built a solid gear anchor at the bottom of the corner. Stella then followed me on the traverse and we swapped gear so I could take the final short pitch. The 2nd "pitch" and the third are both short, but not linkable due to the change in direction of the climb after the traverse. I climbed up to the hand crack and placed a bomber cam, then proceeded to do the two 5.5 hand jam moves that made the day all worth it. The rock was solid on this pitch, although I wish it were longer. At the top of the pitch the terrain was a walk off, so slung a massive boulder and popped a #2 cam in a crack, and belayed Stella up. To our surprise there were two others on the summit when we arrived, who had scrambled up the North East gulley route, and were preparing to rappel down. We took a long break on the summit and had lunch, as we had nowhere to be fast. The views were unreal and it was quite comical seeing the dozens and dozens of ants in the distance climbing and glissading down Sky Pilot. The descent went well, as there are a series of well bolted rappel stations in the gulley to use. The gulley itself is quite chossy though, so much care was due, just earlier in the morning while we were making our way to the base of the climb I saw a significant rockfall in it. The first rappel off the summit took us 30 or 35M down to a dirt ledge. We then walked over fairly comfortably to a second bolted rappel station and rappeled down past the moat and on to the snow at the base of the gulley. From here we packed our gear and glissaded back down to camp. We followed a slightly different but more direct path down, via a different creek path, that brought us back to camp at 1400M. It took us 5H and 15M from camp to camp, with a good hour and a bit on the summit. Later that day we chilled out, then packed up camp and hiked back down to 1040M. At 1040M the junction for the Habrich Trail breaks off of the Sky Pilot Valley road/trail. We set up camp for night two and set our sights on Mount Habrich for the next day.