Markhor Needle Traverse - Sept. 23rd 2022

September 23, 2022

Markhor Needle Traverse - Sept. 23rd 2022

I took the Thursday / Friday off work so that I could do some hiking / scrambling but I didn't have anyone to go with so I posted on the SWBC Peakbaggers FB group. I initially was thinking of going up Sky Pilot / Co-Pilot since I had to pick a rope up in Squamish anyways but once I posted Gabby messaged me, one of the partners I had climbed Baker with. She lives in Kamloops and wanted to do something closer so I mentioned the Markhor Needle Traverse that I had heard a lot about and she said great idea.

Another girl from the group who had messaged me, Julia, tagged along and we drove out together. Gabby drove out with one of her friends, Jamie and that made 4 of us. Initially we planned on starting at 9am but we ran a bit late and didn't start until 9:30. A late start but it isn't a super long trip so it was no big deal. The first part was a huge PITA because there are construction crews building a pipeline there and they had completely cut off the part of the trail we needed to get to.

We tried to skirt around their site but they kept getting mad at us and telling us to go to Needle peak, which we knew was the way we were going to come down, but not up. After a few unsuccessful attempts we decided to head up Needle trail until we were above the construction and then bushwhack to the Markhor trail. This turned out to be the right decision as there is a huge ditch for the pipeline itself (obviously) and the only real path to cross that is where they have allowed for hikers to do so. Additionally since the "trail" to Markhor is nothing but a bushwhack anyways the additional distance to join up is pretty negligible.

After all that faffing around we were finally following the GPX route and making some good time. After an hour or so we started to see the trees thinning out and came to some exposed rocks. At this point Jamie was leading and veered off the GPX around a cliff to the right, when we should've gone left. At the time I said why not but it turned out to not be the greatest idea. We ended up on some mildly steep slab and had to do some class 3 scrambling and thrash through some bush to rejoin the trail. It was definitely a bit of a waste of time. After that I bee-lined back to the GPX and followed it closely to the summit of Markhor.

I had brought my rope but we had opted to leave it at the car since we had read it wasn't absolutely necessary and everyone said they were comfortable. At this point we were at the first real part of the traverse which involved descending Markhor down some slabby / bushy sections. From our reading we knew this was one of the "cruxes" and that some people rappelled here but since we didn't have a rope we didn't have that option. Jamie lead and following the GPX closely and our brains we made it down relatively easily. There was one section near the top where we had to sort of crab walk in a crack down a slab that was a bit iffy but it wasn't too bad. I never saw any tat so I wonder where people rap from...

After that we went up the first bump and descending to the notch between the first and second bump was the next "crux" and in our experience the real crux of the route. There is a very narrow, exposed and steep step you have to get down. I went first and got down by grabbing a low flake with both hands and just lowering myself but for the others that was a bit tougher since they didn't have as much climbing experience, I think they were hesitant to trust their arms.

I waited and watched them go down one by one and coached Gabby and Julia through the moves to get down safely and it was slow but we made it. We all agreed that if we had a rope there we definitely would have used it to rappel. There was an anchor at the top and you would only need a short rope to rappel it.

After that we ascended to the top of the second bump without incident and stopped for some lunch. We just had the ~150m scramble ascent to the top of Needle in front of us and from afar it looked intimidating, as usual. The bottom half looked very easy but we couldn't see a route up the top half and it was very steep on either side. As usual though once we went up the route exposed itself and it was actually quite simple and never too scary. Soon enough we were on the top. It was very windy and we didn't wait around for too long before descending.

The way down was fun, getting off needle actually involved some fairly involved steps and I even downclimbed one or two spots but once we were on the flat shoulder of the mountain it was a pleasant and easy hike back to the car. We had debated bagging Flatiron Peak on the way down but no one but me was up to it and I didn't want to make everyone wait so I opted to come back some other time (maybe in the winter to practice spitboarding) to climb it. We made it back to the car at 3:30 and headed home.

Overall it was an enjoyable scramble, I would say its almost exclusively Class 2/3 except for that one downclimb move which is in my opinion Class 4. I think most competent / experienced scramblers will do this without a rope but if you had a short 30m rope for the Class 4 crux and maybe one move at the top of the Markhor descent it wouldn't hurt and would certainly help any less confident party members. I hope to return and do this scramble one day with Sam and Coen and will definitely bring a rope.