Macdonald Peak, Mount Webb

July 17, 2026

Macdonald Peak, Mount Webb

Macdonald Peak - 2247M

377M Prominence

49.03751, -121.46254

July 17, 2026

Mount Webb - 2164M

254M Prominence

49.05119, -121.45650

July 17, 2026

8H 45M C2C, 8H 10M moving

2060M Ascent and descent

27.1KM

I had a few days to kill between the Tantalus Traverse with Tyler and The VRC traverse with Finn. I originally wanted to get out and do something technical with Molly, but the weather was looking a bit gloomy and forecasted for rain Friday night, so we had to settle for a hike instead. There are a million and one options for a day hike around the Chilliwack / Hope area for someone who had never been to this area, but Macdonald and Webb seemed like a decently big day for a double tag outing with some scrambling, so we agreed on it. We were in no real rush to get started in the morning, so we got going at just before 9:15. The hike in is quite long and fairly boring, but the trail is in very good shape, with many amazing bridges and well maintained paths. The upper parts of the trail before arriving at Radium lake do get slightly bushy, which was a bit uncomfortable with the previous night's rain. From the lake up to the col was a bit of a slog as the trail gets significantly steeper and then soon breaks into the alpine. Once in the alpine it is a hike up loose dirt/rocks up to the col between the two peaks. Visibility was quite poor but I could still make out the col. From the col we decided to tag Macdonald Peak first as it was the more interesting of the two objectives. We hiked a bit along the trail, but soon met a snow patch we had to traverse. Thankfully the snow was not too steep as we had no snow gear, but on the other side of the snow patch we were back to rocks all the way up to the summit. Near the summit we scrambled up some fun low third moves, then made it on top of the false summit. From the top of the false summit we realised that it was basically just a hike up to the true summit if you bypassed the false summit to the West. We took a second lunch break on the summit and waited patiently for clouds to clear up. No luck with the clouds, so we retraced our steps back down to the Macdonald - Webb col, then started our ascent up peak number 2. By the time we were at the col clouds lifted off of Mount Webb and we could see the ascent line and that it was dry. The ascent was not too exciting, and so we just hiked up the crumbly granite and dirt up to the summit. On the summit we were finally rewarded with passing views of peaks around, particularly south, into the States. We then began the descent back down to the col, trying to keep the slips on the loose and crumbly granite to a minimum. The hike out was just as long as I remembered it, but the gradual descent was actually quite appreciated.