Mount Tantalus

July 14, 2026

Mount Tantalus

Mount Tantalus - 2603M

1478M Prominence

49.81818, -123.32949

July 14, 2026

1120M Ascent, 770M descent

13H 20M camp to camp, 12H 30M moving

11.8KM

Day two of our Tantalus traverse mission was, well, the traverse of Tantalus itself! And what a day it was. I have been looking at this peak for years now, whether it be on maps, photos, videos, or it's massive presence as you drive the highway into Squamish. It has been at the top of my list for a while, and it would obviously be the main objective of the trip that marked my first foray into the area. Having already covered a significant amount of ground in day one, and gotten the heavy haul up from Sigurd creek up to the tarn out of the way, we didn't need to get a ludicrously early start. At 6:20 we got moving and threw the crampons on right away, we traversed onto the north end of the rumbling glacier and to the left of a rock wall that appeared as a tower from below. We then traversed below the rock face on increasingly steep snow and passed the base of the 5.8 variation of the ridge direct start, to a notch feature. This is the most common way to access the ridge, but it was still probably one of the dodgiest parts of the day. We took our crampons off above a crevasse at the top of the glacier, then scrambled up the incredibly loose and quite steep kitty litter like dirt/rock. No hold was secure. Then, to make things better (or maybe worse), a steep and exposed short snow climb above this mess came next. In late season I suspect this is all a scramble on the loose crap. Once we were safe and onto flatter ground, we geared back up with the crampons and axes and began up the snow, aiming for the dry rock on the north ridge. The amount of transitions between crampons, ice axes, rappel gear, ect. became a real time consumer and the theme of the day. After another short and steepish bit of snow we arrived on the dry rock at last, and the ridge revealed itself in front of us. The ridge was straight forward, and mainly consisted of a good mix of class 3, class 2, with exposure, and bits of class 4 throughout. After following the glorious and aesthetic ridge for a while we had to cross some more snow in order to get to a short descent. We scrambled down a loose, chossy but short gulley down onto a glacier again. From here we hiked up some snow yet again, and this brought us to a rappel station that went down a steep blocky wall back down onto the Rumbling glacier. This section would probably be down climbable if one really wanted, but with crevasses below the rock I didn't think it was worth any time savings. Finally, after climbing up the end of the Rumbling glacier over some well filled in bergshrunds, we were nearing the summit and the false summit was well in sight. We scrambled up a steep loose gravely scree slope to get to a short snow crossing that led to the base of the false summit block. Many chose to go up and over this false summit block, as apparently it is fun low 5th climbing, but we kind of forgot about it as we started to detour on it's east side. One final short but exposed snow traverse across a thin band of snow took us to the base of the final class 4 scramble up to the true summit of Tantalus. Tyler and I were so stoked to finally be standing on the summit, but we knew the descent to the south was still yet to come, and that was always going to be the crux of the day. Some kind trail runners took a picture of us and then we began the rappel route. Two rappels straight down from the summit itself took us to a ledge. From the ledge with a cairn on it we covered some distance and traversed south as we scrambled for a while before making it to the next, well hidden rappel station. We opted for the upper line, and the rappel station was behind a knife edge ridge, that I went au cheval to access. This rappel was fairly straight forward, but still a bit traversy. It took us skiers left, past a different sling anchor, onto a small ledge with a bolted anchor. Once Tyler had joined me, we set up for the fourth rappel, the trickiest one of them all. Again, I descended skiers left, but then had to scramble over the other side of an arete next to the Witch's Tooth to find the next bolted station. Not knowing exactly where the bolts were I went too low initially, which made it all quite difficult. Even at the best of times this is probably the most awkward rappel I have done, and if you fall once on the arete, a big pendulum swing is in store for you. After we had both made it to this station, one more rappel down a gulley is needed. At the base of the gulley you take the easiest line to then climb back out the other side of it. We rapped down between the steep faces of the gulley, then scrambled the 4th class back out. After scrambling out of the gulley we noticed that the traverse over to the next rappel was extremely exposed and would not be as easy as we expected. This prompted us to take out the gear at last and place a few pieces of protection for the traverse. Tyler led the way and made it to the 5th rappel station. We then rappelled down to a sandy ledge that made way for yet more tricky and exposed traversing. I led the next part of the traverse around a slabby corner and then climbed up to a bolted belay station. I wanted to carry on to the next rappel station but the rope was on a horrible trajectory, so I belayed Tyler up, then he led another short and exposed traverse pitch, with some tricky moves. The last rappel station (for now) took us back down onto the snow, where we had to hop across a moat. We packed away our gear hoping that the rappels were over. At this point we were at the base of Dione peak, but we didn't really have the time or the beta to make a quick ascent, and from what I hear there are far better routes than the low 5th class face. We then continued along down the ridge on snow. A few more scrambly moves were needed to carry on though, so yet again more transitions were in store. Soon after the downclimby scrambly moves we saw a gulley that looked down onto the Dione glacier. We were forced to pull the gear out again and perform two more rappels down onto the glacier. The first rappel was really quite avoidable, as a cautious downclimb on the loose rock would lead to the second bolted station, but the second rappel was definitely necessary. At last we were down on the Dione glacier, which was a chill hike out on pretty mellow, non crevassed slopes all the way back to the Jim Haberl hut at the Red Tit Col, where we decided to bivvy for night 2.