Mount Ichor is a p600m peak that has been on my radar for awhile now.
Ben Butca did as winter trip in 2022 that involved a huge logging road walk and then a somewhat longer winter approach route up the Eastern slopes. Steve Song and Shayan poached those tracks 3 days later. Then the 100 year storm happened and the Kookipi FSR washed away, along with the Nahatlatch FSR. It took years for them to rebuild it. Then the Nahatlatch fire happened. FINALLY! in June of 2025 reports of people driving the Nahatlatch and Kookipi started to show up. 4 well known SWBC peakbaggers Vlad, SimonC, Alex R. and Duffy did Ichor on June 7th taking a more direct East ridge approach than the winter route put in by previous parties. Their way sounded fine. Me and Katie wanted to take advantage of 2 days off so instead of doing Ichor by this newer Eastern ridge we decided to drive around to the West side since Francis Bailey used this approach in July of 2024 for a rock climbing route in the area. Essentially we did a reverse loop of Francis’s trip minus the climbing route. We were able to drive a Honda CRV to a pulled bridge which leaves a 1km open road walk to the start of the ascent.
After leaving the road it’s a steep open forest ascent for 200m gain and then you’re in the open alpine staring up at the Back Of Beyond Buttress. Here we had a decision to make Do we make a direct line to the summit going up the West face of Mount Ichor or do we pass by the buttress and take talus slopes to connect with the South Ridge. We decided to take the direct shot and boulder hop up the steep West slopes.
The slopes are steep but the ground was a mix of heather and stable rock and dirt with enough flat indents into the steep angle that sidehilling was quite easy on the ankles.
From the basin we basically did a rising traverse that had us walk briefly on the West ridge, topping out just below the summit.
This peak almost has 1000m of prominence so the views in 360 degrees were pretty good. We haven’t been in this valley before and it was interesting to try and name all the big peaks in the area.
Instead of retracing our steps we decided to head down the climbers descent route from the buttress. This was a smart move because there was still lots of snow in the upper basin which allowed us to glissade down in no time and pass by a nice melting tarn.
Taking this way down also let us get a close look at the climbing route.
After a bunch of boulder hopping and then the steep forest descent we popped back out onto the FSR and had the 1km walk back to the car. Whether you do Ichor from the East or West right now it’s a short trip.
From this side you start higher and spend less time in the forest, but have more boulders to deal with. We chose this side because we would go do Nlaka Peak the next day which meant zero driving. It was just walk back to the car, go bathe in the creek, drink some beer and cook hot dogs on a fire.
