Hidden Peak - Mount Callaghan Loop
- Jessie McAuley
- Jul 20
- 4 min read
Updated: Nov 9
When the weather is nice I get out in the hills more consistently and my motivation to update my blog wains. However, the forecast for the next week is pretty miserable. The silver lining is that I will take this opportunity to catch up on some of my 2025 Summer adventures. In particular the more obscure adventures. I could write about more classic outings but who in the Sea To Sky needs to spend their time reading another trip report about Alpha East Ridge or Panorama Ridge. After all I love exploring new places in the Coast Mountains and hopefully in the process can inspire others to wander off the beaten-path.
Nick, Adam, and myself spent some time pondering ideas for a medium sized day in the mountains. The usual rules were at play. 1. What is close to home? 2. What is something we have not done? 3. What is something we can try with an unsettled weather forecast? After some back and fourth we settled on traversing from Hidden Peak to Mount Callaghan the looping around Via the Ring Lake trail. Starting and finishing at Callaghan Lake. Once we had driven through what felt like the nth water-bar on the otherwise well maintained service road we arrived. We hastily packed up while mosquitoes swarmed us and inexperienced campers hazed the parking lot with Deet..
We started the day by cruising along the Ring Lake trail for 1 km before we veered off trail onto the broad SE shoulder of hidden peak. The SE shoulder starts off rather bushy including several small sub-alpine bog crossings. After a few hundred meters of elevation gain we popped out into sparsely treed alpine tundra.
On March, 22, 1956 First Officers James Miller and Gerald Stubbs of the Canadian Royal Airforce were making a routine flight across the Coast Mountains from the Comox Military base. Twenty minutes after take off at 10:17 AM the plane was seen heading into bad weather on satellite radar near Whistler. They were never heard from or seen again... Until November, 1974 when the canopy of their plane was located near Journeyman Lodge in the Callaghan Valley. In July 1998, the planes fuselage was located within a kilometre of the canopy and in October 2010 remains of a flight helmet were located. Belonging to either of the First Officers. It is suspected that both pilots survived the wreck after what was thought to be a primitive camp was located in the valley. The giveaway was parachute chord tied to the trees. This still raises many questions but some people figure that the pair may have ejected from the plane and parachuted to safety. However, in the 1950's the Callaghan Valley was remote. No roads, no lodge, and a deep midwinter snowpack made the chances of survival rather slim. A true mountain mystery here in our backyard.
We passed a cairn on our way up to the summit of Hidden Peak containing a stake with a memorial for James Miller and Gerald Stubbs.
From the summit of Hidden Peak we followed a broad ridge and scattered snow slopes to the summit of Backbone peak. Backbone is situated in between Callaghan and Hidden Peak. This ridge line features several sections of interesting rock along with a few short steps of 3rd class climbing.
From Backbone we enjoyed a nice long glissade down to a low col on the Eastern edge of the Callaghan Glacier. From this point we stayed on the South side of the broad ridge where the soggy sun cupped summer snow could be avoided. Eventually we ended up back on the glacier and slogged twenty minutes or so towards the summit of Mount Callaghan. Once at the base of the summit ridge we carefully transitioned back onto the rock and headed for the summit. The summit ridge involves about thirty meters of 3rd class climbing on blocky and lichen coated rock. We enjoyed a fifteen minute snack break at the top. The clouds swirled in and out providing us with brief glimpses onto the immense Pemberton Icecap, Soo River Valley, and Journeyman summits.
The descent to Ring Lake from the summit of Callaghan would have been an efficient and rather awesome glissade if we had been there three weeks earlier. Instead it was a mildly unpleasant talus hopping party that led way to steep heather near the lake. This was the least enjoyable part of the day. I had to do some parkour as Adam accidentally dislodged a baseball ball sized rock headed straight for me. Thankfully I reacted quick and jumped out of harms way. We arrived down at Ring Lake, connected with the Ring Lake Trail and headed for the car.
The Ring Lake trail is beautiful. After crossing a couple brief talus fields you are greeted with around five kilometres of single track, open meadows and small streams. Sadly the trail has not been maintained in recent years and is starting to suffer braiding, deteriorating infrastructure, and muddy sections. I hope someone takes this project on in the future because I think it is quite a gorgeous area. From Journeyman Lodge we opted to jog the road until the last kilometre where we re-joined the trail. Where we began our bushwhack up to Hidden Peak earlier that day.
This loop really does not get done all that often but given the ease of access, beautiful views, enjoyable scrambling, and time above tree-line it really should. I really appreciated getting a birds eye view into the Pemberton Icecap and upper Elaho Valley. The gateway into the heart of the Coast Mountains. Get out there!
Distance: 21 km
Elevation Gain: 1620m
Duration: 4:55:30
GPX:
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