Saxifrage Peak, Cassiope Peak

July 08, 2026

Saxifrage Peak, Cassiope Peak

Saxifrage Peak - 2501M

336M Prominence

50.37661, -122.60753

July 8, 2026

Cassiope Peak - 2290M

188M Prominence

50.36075, -122.59672

July 8, 2026

1630M Ascent and descent

7H 24M C2C 6H 50M moving

22.7KM

Saxifrage and Cassiope are 2 peaks that were not really on my "to do" list, but while I was looking for another multi peak day trip I could do in close proximity to Pemberton, they started to make sense. I was further convinced by the fact that they are on the Matt Gunn SWBC scrambles list, and this list has not really let me down yet. This was going to be the smallest day of my Pemberton peak bag trip, so I was in no real rush to get started in the morning, the drive in is still a fair ways despite the proximity to town these peaks have. I drove up the Pemberton portage road and soon turned off onto the Spetch Creek FSR. The FSR was slow going, as I was in no mood to break down. The road is completely doable with any 4x4, but I would be hesitant to take anything less than a low clearance 4x4, as there is a fairly rough section mid way up the road before it gets better again. The Valentine Lake trailhead is a bit discrete, but dives right off into the forest on the climbers right. The trail was very enjoyable even though cut blocks are visible through the sparse trees. The trail then becomes quite unenjoyable after a short climb when it levels out. At this point there is still over an hour to the lake, entirely walking through a meadowy bog. It is impossible to stay dry through this area, and it is not until you reach the lake and in turn the end of the trail that the bog ends. Once at the lake, the trail continued part way around it, then randomly disappeared. At this point I realized that the two GPX tracks I had for this loop were probably just from one climber following another, and there was no trails or even cairns. I decided to basically just hike the rest of the day based on my intuition as the terrain was not too complicated and I had a pretty good idea of where I was going. The ascent of Saxifrage was a bit tedious, but the bush down low offered no real challenge, and soon gave way to some loose gravelly and rocky terrain. I continued up to the ridge aiming for a col between the main summit and some sub summit to the west. Once on the ridge there was a lot of simple bouldery terrain mixed in with the odd snow patches, the summit was still mostly snow covered, and to get a view of the magnificent White lakes to the north west I had to go back down a few meters to a boulder. I didn't really hang around on the summit for very long as it was still well before lunch time and the winds were a bit cold on the summit. The descent on the South East ridge offered some of the more interesting terrain and scrambling of the day. This ridge would definitely be more fun as an ascent, so maybe doing the loop the opposite direction of me would be more fun. The upper part of the ridge was quite blocky, and it was all pretty low consequence scrambling. The lower part of the ridge slowly became simple hiking and boulder hopping. Near the col between the peaks I refilled on water from a stream, and planned out what route I would attempt up Cassiope. Cassiope had significantly more snow on the the route I would suspect is the most "standard". I opted to try and stick to the rocks as much as possible on this one, and found yet more interesting scrambling in various parts of the route. As usual I am sure there would have been an easier route than the one I ended up taking, but I pulled on a few finger jam moves, and hiked up some fairly steep slabs. On the summit I took a break while enjoying the good panoramic views of Saxifrage, Cayoosh, The Matier Massif, Lillooet lake and Mount Currie. For the descent I followed my ascent route down to 2100M, where I then descended a snow slope back down to an area with various tarns. I then continued to hike down through the bush for a while in between some beautiful streams and meadows before tying back into the trail that went part way around the lake. I then retraced my way through the slip and slide of a boggy meadow and back down the same trail I had ascended.