Pelion Mountain

Pelion Mountain - 2312M

689M Prominence

49.86444, -123.35647

July 13, 2026

11H 20M Car to Camp, 10H Moving

2483M Ascent, 832M descent

17KM

The Tantalus traverse is an absolutely iconic traverse of the beastly Mount Tantalus that rises up from sea level on the Squamish river. The traverse begins at Sigurd Creek and traverses loads of glaciated terrain around peaks in the range, summits Tantalus, then descends massively back down to lake Lovely Water and then furthermore back down to the Squamish river. My partner for this trip had to be Tyler, as we had both been dreaming of it for years and often talked about it. Day one had us waking up at the Squamish Walmart, as all good Squamish adventures do. We dropped Tyler's truck off at the southern end of the trail (which apparently is illegal parking), then drove up to the Sigurd creek trailhead. We threw on our beastly packs and began the massive slog. The Sigurd creek trail was in great condition and actually was actually quite comfortable, the gradient was nice and even as we slowly made our way up the valley and aimed for the creek crossing. There was a fair amount of blowdown to navigate, but once we got to the creek crossing it was much more chill than we expected. We still took our boots off to cross though. After the creek we hiked up some more forest, then soon reached the low alpine. The slog really started when we began to hike up the endless talus field en route to the north shoulder of Pelion. We aimed for as direct a route as possible and ended up needing to climb up some unnecessary wet slabs before hiking up more talus yet again. Before reaching the snow we stopped for lunch. We then carried on up the snow and aimed for the North shoulder to the left of a large looking tower. At this point we knew we wanted to climb Pelion, but were not exactly sure on the beta for it. I had pictures of the Alpine Select book, which showed a route more directly up the north glacier, but we opted to try and find a shorter route. Once we got just beyond the shoulder, we ascended a little bit more snow, then crossed a sketchy moat to gain access to a steep gulley that would take us up to a notch on Pelion's North ridge. The initial moves were the trickiest, but the scrambling got easier higher up. We then dropped down the other side of the rock ridge onto the snow and hiked up the edge of the glacier aiming for the summit. The summit was not far, but we soon got to a section of dry rock, that then revealed a thin and steep snowy ridge with some more scrambling just beyond it. Tyler had mentioned seeing videos of people going au cheval over the snow ridge, but there was no way in hell I was doing that, so I looked down and there was a moat in the right hand side of the snow that would make a traverse just below this snow ridge more feasible. We went for it, then once across the snow we scrambled up the easier climber's left side of the final summit block. The summit was amazing and offered ridiculous views of Tantalus and many other peaks in the area, including Ossa just across the way. We carefully descended back down the same way, and very carefully downclimbed the steep rocky gulley back onto the snowfield. From here we carried on south to try and make it to a tarn at 1700M on the ridge between Pelion and Tantalus. The descent went quick, although there were a few irritating bumps in the terrain to ascend before arriving at the tarn.

Stoke at the Sigurd Creek trailhead. Photo Tyler Zakkour

First views of the alpine

Sigurd creek crossing

Infinite talus field up to the snow. Pelion and Ossa ahead

Tyler on the talus slog

Pelion is getting close, we went left of the large tower looking feature

On the Pelion shoulder we finally get a look at the gnarly Mount Tantalus ahead

Ascending the gulley to gain access to Pelion's glacier

Final summit push for Pelion, looks intimidating

Pelion summit

Tomorrow's challenger from the summit

Tyler downclimbing the steep gulley

Bivvy at the tarn for the night

First challenge for tomorrow will be climbing through the notch in this image

Pelion glowing from camp

Sunset over Cloudburst Mountain and beyond

Tantalus Traverse day 1

Pelion route close up (approximate)