Face Mountain, Faceless Mountain, Locomotive Mountain

July 06, 2026

Face Mountain, Faceless Mountain, Locomotive Mountain

Face Mountain - 2485M

747M Prominence

50.59920, -123.07252

July 6, 2026

Faceless Mountain - 2463M

123M Prominence

50.59283, -123.08550

July 6, 2026

Locomotive Mountain - 2340M

120M Prominence

50.58266, -123.05862

July 6, 2026

Day 1, July 6, 2026

7H30M Car2Camp, 6H 45M moving

1500M Ascent, 1190M descent

14.1 KM

Day 2, July 7, 2026

1H Camp2Car

310M Descent

3.3 KM

The Train glacier traverse has been high up on my list since I heard of it. Being a big fan of traverses and knocking off multiple peaks in a day, it's a no brainer. Sunday night I drove up to Semaphore lakes trailhead and car camped as it was already quite late. Monday morning I got up around 7 and got myself ready for the day ahead. This traverse is not a particularly long or tough undertaking, so I took my time getting ready. I planned to camp out at the highest of the lakes, so I packed an overnight bag. This route is easily doable in a day, mainly due to the elevation of the trailhead, but it seemed like a fantastic area to camp in with only about an hour approach. At 8:10 I began the hike, and was instantly met with the absolute mud pit of a trail it is. There were countless sections of very eroded and extremely muddy areas. Thankfully the snow soon appeared, and then the only issue was navigation, as the trail was no longer visible. There were footprints going in any which direction, so I had to consult the GPX a few times. For early summer I was surprised to see the significant amounts of snow at only 1600-1650M. I carried on to the upper lake, then stashed all my overnight gear and kept at it. The first peak to ascend would be Face mountain. It is the tallest of the group, and definitely the most gnarly looking one from the camping area. I crossed crossed a creek then began hiking up loose stone, I crossed under a rock face and then took a left once I reached a snow patch. A few scrambly moves later I was hiking along side this snow patch, but I opted to stay on the rocks. The route then continued north west and I traversed across various snow patches and compact gravel slopes. I soon came across a pretty steep snow filled gulley up to the right, and decided that the route probably went up here. I had not really done much research about the route, and this was probably the part of the whole day that required the most route finding. I climbed up the patchy snow and arrived at the base of the snowy gulley. I confirmed with the GPX track that this was in fact the correct way, as it was probably at least 45 degrees in spots. I then climbed the gulley, staying well to the right of the rock feature in the middle of it. I had my one ice axe out already, and I made sure to kick good steps in the soft snow. At the top of the gulley, a few more third class moves took me up to more level ground, and it was a simple hike to the summit. The summit of Face Mountain was quite neat, and off to the north was some pretty neat exposure and some daunting gendarmes. The descent from Face down to the Faceless col offered most of the real scrambling the day had to offer. Nothing particularly difficult in nature, but lots of very rotten rock, which probably just felt more like scrambling than it really was due to how loose it was. once down to the col it was necessary to get on the edge of the glacier to access the final 100 meters up to the summit of Faceless. I managed to find some footsteps in the snow, but the glacier was flat here, and didn't feel sketchy at all walking the short distance. I then scrambled up some rock to gain a snow slope which would take me up to the broad summit. This snow slope was also fairly steep, but probably not quite as steep as the gulley earlier. The summit was very anticlimactic and very broad. There was a radio tower on the summit so I sat up on the platform and ate some lunch. After my break I continued down Faceless and glissaded down to the ridge. back down on the ridge I followed over a series of bumps and went up "The Caboose", and then "Tender Mountain" which is in Matt Gunn's scrambles list, but these peaks are really just bumps along the ridge and I am not shameless enough to count them as summits bagged. There was really not much more scrambling to be done for the rest of the day and I was a bit disappointed in how chill the route really all was, aside from the snow gulley on Face. As I carried on along the ridge, crossing various snow patches and sections of boulder hopping, I eventually made it to the end of the circuit's ridge. The end of the ridge is the 3rd and final peak, Locomotive Mountain. The Lowest of them all, but probably offering the best views of the traverse as a whole, and a great look at the face ascended on Face. I hung out for a while, as It was still very early afternoon, and I had planned to camp out at Semaphore lakes. I had planned to camp out not out of necessity, but because it seemed like a gorgeous spot and the following afternoon was forecasted to rain, so I was not going to do another peak. From Locomotive I hiked down the south ridge until around 2150M, where there seemed to be a good enough snow slope with no cornice looming above to glissade down. I managed to glissade much of the way back down to the lakes, where I then set up camp for the evening. The next morning I packed up leisurely and made my way back down to the truck on the boggy trails.