North Nesakwatch Spire, South Nesakwatch Spire, Mount Rexford

September 17, 2026

North Nesakwatch Spire, South Nesakwatch Spire, Mount Rexford

The Nesakwatch traverse was the final of the alpine traverses that I had as a goal for the summer. I completed the Tantalus, the Viennese-Recourse-Clarke and the Golden Ears traverse in July and August, and this one was still yet to be completed with only about a week left of summer. This trip was also up there on Tyler's list, so as soon as I saw a bluebird day in the weather we started making the plan. The forecast stayed fantastic, and Tyler picked me up in Horseshoe Bay late on Wednesday night and we made the drive up to the Rexford trailhead. The road is in pretty good condition aside from the road washout just a few hundred meters from the original trailhead, it is likely doable with a SUV. We set up a quick cowboy camp for 4 and a half hours before the early start. At 4:30 we started hiking up the road with headlamps, and were making good progress until we mistakenly kept going up a wide creek bed rather than sticking to the road. We went up this creek bed for about 20 minutes until we hit a massive slab and it dawned on me that there was no way this could have been a road and that we screwed up, so we frustratingly hiked back down and found the road right there, in perfect condition. The road carried on for a while longer then we began to work our way up the trail. The trail is quite steep and is definitely more of a climbers trail, with no switchbacks. at 1200 meters there was one final water source, so we took a break and filled up, as the day ahead would be long and with no sources or snow. The trail carried on and crossed another dry creek, with a steep bank on the other side aided with some ropes. The bank is less steep further up the creek. It was starting to get light and we started to get to the sub alpine and traverse along a large cliff on the climbers left. Eventually we got a first look at North Nesakwatch Spire, and it's north ridge on the left of the skyline. We traversed the boulder field and made our way to the base of the north ridge. Scrambling on the north ridge started off right away, with a few trickier but less exposed moves. The scrambling was fun, with some more chill sections half way up. then some more scrambling of increasing exposure as we neared the top. To get to the summit of the North spire, there was some more technical and awkward moves, so we roped up for one pitch. I led the first pitch of the day. I climbed up an awkward stemming move that then brought me up to a large flake which I stood on. To get off the flake and back to easier terrain I then traversed left again and then up some blocky terrain where I slung a big boulder and belayed Tyler up to the summit. The summit was just a short scramble up and to the right from the top of the pitch. We both got the mandatory shot on the awesome summit boulder, then began the descent off of the first summit of the day to the col between the two spires. The way down to the col was easy and just third class, as it is the standard route in the Matt Gunn book of scrambles. We then started up the North ridge of the South Nesakwatch spire. The scrambling was fun and not as exposed as we maintained the left side of the ridge. Eventually we got to a steeper wall with some pretty striking cracks, so we pulled out the rope again to tackle the 5th class section up to the summit. I took the lead again as we agreed that Tyler was going to lead the offwidth summit block. I followed up the cracks and then up to a wide chimney feature. I opted to stay left of the chimney and work my way up a move in a smaller flaring chimney. It was super awkward and I had to take my bag off, but it felt very safe even with my last piece being far below me. Up past this move I could see the summit block, and looked back right to see that it was just a chill scramble to the base of the summit block. I set up a belay in a few good cracks, and then Tyler followed me up. Once we both made it up to the base of the offwidth summit block we took our bags off and Tyler took the lead. He made it up cleanly and then I lowered him back down so that I could just top rope it. I then climbed it, and made it look pretty brutal as I hate offwidth climbing. I cleaned the anchor and got lowered off the tat. The crack itself is only about 5 meters tall, and we both laybacked the upper part of it. At the base of the summit block was a good assortment of big boulders, and it was just about noon by that point, so we stopped for some food. The descent off the South Spire is pretty straight forward, as you can see where other people have descended by the dirt and the cairns. As we descended Tyler spotted the two rap rings to make the rappel down into the South Spire - Rexford col. The short overhanging 15 meter rappel took us almost all the way down to the col. We scrambled the few moves down to the col and began to look for a way up Rexford. I was pretty unsure of the reliability of my beta, and Tyler had none, so we took a bit of a swing at it and got the next part wrong, but it still went. Normally I think people go into the gulley feature that appears to have a roof, which is seen almost right at the base of the col. We opted to descend a bit left at the col and climb a different, wider gulley that looked more chill from above. We started scrambling but I soon made us rope up as it looked like it was getting steeper. We downclimbed a bit and I set up a belay for Tyler to lead. He started up comfortably on mid fifth terrain, but soon got to the steep part. After many attempts at it, he opted to put a sling through the last piece and aid up the one move. The rock was also very chossy for this pitch, and I was consistently getting sent down golf ball and smaller sized bits of rock. He eventually made his way up, and the terrain mellowed out significantly. Once I was on belay I started climbing, and since I was not as worried about dropping any rocks on any belayer, I was able to pull the move. I would say it was at least 5.9, and the move lacked any foot holds, but we were also both still in trail runners. We swapped belays, and I continued up the fourth class terrain above, to a chimney with some solid cracks. Part way up the chimney I ran out of rope, so I belayed Tyler up and then he climbed one final short pitch of fourth class up to mellower terrain. I seconded up, and we then both found ourselves on the main route for Rexford, the West ridge. The west ridge still has a significant amount of 3rd and fourth class scrambling to make it up to the summit area. The first of the summits to the right is the false summit, so we ignored it, scrambled around the second false summit, then made our way to the base of the true summit. The true summit was still guarded by a short, very solid and blocky and very fun low 5th class climb to the summit. Tyler took the lead again, as he was eager to just scramble it. I was less keen on scrambling it, as it has deathly exposure and one move that was definitely 5th class. At the summit there were two rap rings on a massive boulder, so after our summit celebrations we made the short 15 meter rappel back down to the flat ledge where we had left our bags and belayed from. We had loads of daylight left, and all the technical aspects of the day were over in theory, so we took a second break. We then began to downclimb the fourth class section we had come up, to put us back on the West ridge itself. The West ridge route was very chill up until we came across the normal descent gulley with the rappel rings. We opted to continue down the ridge rather than rappel into the gulley, which in hindsight might have been even faster, and on the ridge we came across some more tricky boulders to navigate and downclimb until we finally made it to mellower terrain in the boulder field. We traversed the truck sized boulders in the boulder field for quite a while as made our way back to the trail we had come up in the morning. Once back on the trail and having gathered our trekking poles from where we had left them in the morning, we blasted down the trail in good time, and made it back to Vancouver just as it got dark. The day could have been 12 hours even if we hadn't have got lost in the darkness of the morning, but we were still very impressed with our time and how quickly we moved even with 7 pitches of climbing (some of it 4th class).