Hiking Martin Peak near Squamish
Contents
Martin Peak Hike Information
Difficulty: Difficult
Distance: 16.85Km
Elevation Gain: 1,060m
Highest Elevation: 1,877m
Average Gradient: 12.58%
Effort/Reward Ratio: High / High
Time Needed:
– Slow: 7 – 8 Hours
– Moderate: 6 – 7 Hours
– Fast: 5 – 6 Hours
Dogs Permitted?: Yes
Season: Year-Round (Summer Preferred)
4×4 / High Clearance Required? Yes
Scrambling / Exposure: Some scrambling up partially exposed steps near the summit.
Martin Peak Trail
Trailhead Coordinates: 49°43’45.1″N 122°58’03.0″W
Disclaimer: Winter hiking (snowshoeing) involves significantly more risk than summer hiking. Hikers should be prepared with appropriate education, training and equipment for all possibilities, including but not limited to avalanches. A mistake such as going off trail, getting lost or injured can be far more dangerous in winter than summer. You are responsible for your own safety, and while I am happy to give my opinion on this website as to the avalanche risk of a specific hike, do not take this as fact and please do your own research. Everybody has different risk tolerances and mine might be different to yours.
Martin Peak Overview
Martin Peak is one of the many summits surrounding the popular Watersprite Lake off the Mamquam Main Forest Service Road in Squamish.
There are numerous peaks in this area, many of which are named after guitars, namely Martin Peak, Gibson Peak, Washburn Peak, Fender Peak, Epiphone Peak and Dreadnought Peak. All of these peaks, as well as the Watersprite Tower and Demon Peak, are achievable scrambles one way or another, and many of them are an excellent addition to the extremely popular and moderately challenging hike to Watersprite Lake.
It is possible to combine a few of these peaks into one hike if you are up for a long and challenging day, and our intention was to summit both Martin & Gibson Peak, but due to a few factors such as time constraints and cornices, we ended up just summiting Martin.
Martin Peak is a year-round objective, making for a fun scramble in the summer or a smoother, snow covered approach in the winter and spring. While it’s certainly possible to hike Martin Peak in the midst of winter, this route does cover some particularly steep avalanche terrain, so it’s only suggested for experienced and equipped parties under the right conditions at that time of year. We hiked this in spring with a stable snowpack, and still needed to use crampons and an ice axe during much of the final ascent.
There are a couple of different approaches to summiting Martin Peak, either from the north via Watersprite Lake, or from the south as we did, which is a more direct approach but omits any visit to the lake, if that’s your intention. Since we were traveling in snow with the lake frozen over there was really no benefit to taking the longer route via Watersprite Lake so we took the direct approach.
The views from the summit of Martin Peak are stunning and incredibly varied. You can see all sorts of different mountains, from the nearby Garibaldi range, the Black Tusk, Mamquam Mountain, all the aforementioned guitar themed peaks, Sky Pilot, the Tantalus range, Alpen Mountain and even as far away as the North Shore mountains like the Lions, Brunswick Mountain & Cathedral Mountain.
Accessing the trailhead requires an AWD with decent clearance. While much of Mamquam FSR is in pretty decent shape (A 2WD can get a good way down it), once you cross the bridge over the Mamquam River the road becomes steep and extremely rocky. Many people make the mistake of bringing inappropriate vehicles up this road in hope of reaching Watersprite Lake, only to realize it’s in much worse condition than they anticipated.
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Is Martin Peak worthwhile?
This whole region around Watersprite Lake is a gorgeous area with many beautiful summits of similar heights, of which Martin Peak is one of them. The views from Martin Peak were breathtaking on a sunny day and absolutely made up for the challenging approach. It was a shame not to summit Gibson Peak as well, but Martin Peak alone provides some spectacular views.
How difficult is the hike to Martin Peak?
The vast majority of the trail is a straightforward FSR plod, in fact the first 6.5km is on an uneventful FSR, gaining around 550m in the process. In the winter and spring this will be snow covered and travel will be smooth, but in the summer I would envision some alder bashing in certain parts, particularly towards the beginning of the trail. The remaining 1.5km to the summit is very steep, ascending another 500m or so, for an average gradient of 33%. While the overall average gradient isn’t the highest at 12.58%, this is heavily skewed by the elongated FSR approach. Since the final push is so steep, this is definitely a difficult hike.
Technically speaking Martin Peak has its challenges. The FSR plod is obviously simple enough, but the final ascent involves some extremely steep travel. In the spring we needed to use our ice axe and crampons to climb up some icy, short, steep rolls, while in the summer you can expect to be scrambling up some short class 3 sections. The exposure is never severe but there are sections where you could fall a decent distance, resulting in some serious injuries, so a helmet would be advised. You will obviously need to route find your way to the top as the hike is not marked in any way.
Martin Peak Route Information
The trailhead for Martin Peak is off a spur road departing from Mamquam Main FSR (see coordinates). It is essentially a few kilometers before the summer parking lot for Watersprite Lake. Please only attempt this in a reasonably high clearance AWD at a minimum. The road is steep and very rocky, with the biggest concern for most cars probably being flat tires. In the winter you may need to park earlier on the FSR at the Watersprite Lake winter parking lot and walk up, as this parking lot is at 860m elevation and will be snowed over. It might look like you can continue driving higher than 860m along the FSR, but past this point the road deteriorates and narrows rapidly, essentially becoming an ATV trail.
From where you parked you’ll simply follow this narrow ATV trail into the forest. There’s not a lot to note, the trail will just be rocky, will climb gradually and will likely have some deadfall that you’ll need to navigate. At around 1,070m the FSR will split into two, seemingly you should continue straight rather than go left. We discovered the FSR going straight is completely overgrown to the extent it’s barely passable, and it proved far easier to go left on the other FSR, before bushwhacking through the forest to reconnect back to the FSR you want to be on (see the route map where you will note we took different routes on both the outbound and inbound trail, follow the outbound route).
Once you’re past this short confusing step you should be back on the FSR you intended to be on, just make sure to check your map to verify so. Navigation will now be pretty straightforward as you just continue plodding along the FSR. Once you’re at almost 1,200m elevation you’ll reach a long, flat portion of the trail that continues for about 1.5km with minimal elevation. You will pass several other trails leading up and away to the left that don’t even show on the map, ignore these and continue on the flat FSR directly ahead.
Shortly after the flat section is over you should start to get some really nice views, with notably good views of Alpen Mountain, Anif Peak and Mount Mulligan. The FSR will begin to climb again gradually, with a few twists and turns along the way. At around the 5km mark you will finally get to see your objective, with a clear view of Martin Peak. Still, it’s best to just keep grinding it out, continuing along the same FSR until you essentially reach the very end, at around the 1,360m mark.
Here is the point that you should note our ascent and descent route goes in different ways. The goal of the ascent is not to go directly towards Martin Peak, but to instead aim for the col between Martin Peak and the unnamed bump between Martin Peak and Gibson Peak. Our route ended up being a little bit more direct than we had intended and we ended up missing the col on the ascent and going fairly directly to the summit, which resulted in some very steep sections.
Anyway, now you’ll want to keep referring to your map for the rest of the ascent just to make sure you’re on the right line. You will now head into the treeline where the terrain immediately becomes steep. There is some tricky micro terrain in here requiring you to pick the right line to avoid any exceedingly steep steps. For the most part this was straightforward enough and we were fine with just snowshoes.
The terrain continues to get steeper as you ascend, and around the 1,600m mark you really need to pay attention to where you are going. The area opens up a bit now, with thinning trees and more of an alpine feel. We still had bulletproof snow, and combined with the exceedingly steep slopes we pulled out our ice axe to aid pulling ourselves up the steep banks. In the summer you’ll be scrambling up these parts and will likely want to bring a helmet.
After a few very steep sections the terrain should mellow out slightly, giving you some time to catch your breath. We took a break here to let our nerves relax as some of the steps proved quite challenging. The views are already absolutely breathtaking so we were in no rush whatsoever to get to the summit. We had already decided at this point that our intended trip to Gibson Peak was a no go given we had taken longer than anticipated and the route between Martin and Gibson looked more challenging than we had anticipated.
The summit now should be very obvious and it’s just a case of picking the line of least resistance. This will probably mean approaching the summit from the south east as we did, which required a few tricky steps on the now slushy snow. Just beneath the summit you should get a great viewpoint over Watersprite Lake, the Watersprite Tower and the Garibaldi range off in the distance.
Now it’s just a case of walking up to the summit, which should be pretty straightforward now without anything seriously steep like earlier. Once at the summit you’ll now get 360 degree views, with the views to the north and west opening up entirely. Unfortunately our northern views were somewhat obscured because of cornices, so we couldn’t see anything of Watersprite Lake.
I quickly grabbed my camera and we both started trying to point out all the peaks. We were surprised to be able to see as far as we could, with the Lions and Cathedral Peak a welcome surprise. Some other notable peaks were Sky Pilot, the Black Tusk, Mamquam Mountain, Atwell Peak, Mount Habrich. Cloudburst Mountain, Castle Towers and the entire Tantalus range.
After resting up at the top, having some food and enjoying the views, we decided to descend. We had discussed going a different way down given the difficulties of the ascent, and we had seen what appeared to be an excellent glissade opportunity. You’ll note the different route we took down on the map, and I can confirm it was indeed a fantastic glissade the entire way. The snow was now soft from the morning sun, allowing us to control the glissade the whole time. This was one of the finest glissades of my career to date, descending the entire mountain (500 vertical meters) back to the FSR in little time. It did require a bit of a bushwhack at the bottom to rejoin the FSR, but that was totally worth it given the easy descent.
I was half thinking of suggesting taking this route up as well, as it is entirely free of trees and seemed to be a gentler approach (though still steep). The only reason I’d think to avoid it is it appeared to be a funnel for avalanche activity, in fact there was evidence of avalanches going down this track when we descended. In spring this might be fine but in winter I’d advise avoiding it.
Once you’re back on the FSR it’s just a case of plodding back to the car. Unfortunately the soft snow now made travel far slower but we still made it back in good time. I did somehow manage to snap a poll in half on the way back through some freak accident. Never mind.
When should I hike Martin Peak?
While I’ve labeled Martin Peak as a year-round hike I personally would avoid it in winter under most circumstances. The final ascent is very steep and avalanche terrain is unavoidable. I also know of a few groups that canceled their hike up to Martin and Gibson due to cornices, of which it was evident there were many when we were there.
In the spring with a stable and smooth snowpack I think this is a great option and highly recommend it for the well equipped. The summer will also be a lot of fun though you will likely have to deal with more bushwhacking on the FSR approach, but I’d imagine the final push is a bit simpler.
Top Tip
If you’re going with snow on the summit I’d definitely say you need to be bringing crampons and ice axes, as well as your snowshoes. There are a couple of very steep sections on the ascent where I don’t think we would have made it without our axe especially. We managed without the crampons as our Lightning Ascents have excellent traction, though we did use the crampons on the descent.
You may want to try and keep to the right of our ascent and aim for the col between Martin Peak and the unnamed bump between Martin and Gibson. We took a more direct approach as that’s how we read the terrain on the day, but it did result in one or two extremely steep sections that may have been avoidable.
A helmet would be advisable year-round for added security given a fall could be consequential.
