June 3rd, 2025
We traversed from Joffre Lakes over the NW Ridge and down the SE Face scramble route out to Cerise Creek. Hitched a ride back to the car.
We hiked in to the upper lake and started buswhacking up to the ridge. You can easily gain the ridge from the Matier Glacier but we wanted to maximize the traverse. You could also bushwhack up from the highway at the toe of the ridge, not sure what that’s like.
Mostly scrambling/steep snow and a few pitches up to ~5.7 near the top. We stayed close to the ridge the whole way, but there may be options to make the climbing easier by scrambling some looser ledges on the right.
Descent down the SE Face was a bit of a slog. Second time I’ve come down that way and never really enjoyed it. Tricky routefinding.
Snow crapped out by 10am and luckily we were done the steeper sections. Plenty of cornice breaks and wet loose naturals throughout the day. Lots of postholing on the descent, it’s not quite summer out there.
Overall a really fun route and a cool way to traverse Joffre. Rock is a little loose and anything that looks like a cornice is a cornice. I think you need a 60m to rappel into a notch before the climbing. Maybe a 50m would do, not sure. ~17 hours from lakes to creek.