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Trip Summary
Monday August 2nd, 2004, was BC Day which meant my brother Dan (he works) had the day off. Under sunny skies we headed up the Southeast Ridge of Marriott [2735 m] for a very enjoyable scramble. The rock is mostly solid, consisting of large granitic boulders. The last few hours of the climb are consistent third-class scrambling, never too difficult nor too exposed, on a beautiful ridge that looks harder than it is. The views are awesome along the entire route, both on the approach and on the climb, including a few glacial lakes and great views of the neighbouring green valleys to the north and the many glaciers to the south. See Dan's photos. | |
 See our GPS tracks [MapSource + Garmin Legend]. |
 the Southeast Ridge of Marriott as seen from 2460 m. |
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Details
On Sunday evening we drove up Duffey Lake Road and camped just 200m from the highway on the logging road to Marriott Basin [1310 m]. We rose at 5:00 and left after quickly packing our gear in the trunk. The pleasant trail climbs through the forest to the Wendy Thompson Hut [1840 m] which we reached at 8:00. From the hut the route follows a large talus slope/gully to a beautiful alpine lake [2120 m]. There is an attractive long rock ridge to the southwest with two minor summits along it. Had we found ourselves with time to spare (camp near the hut) we would have explored this ridge which might provide an interesting alternate descent back to the hut. From here we headed up the back of a boulder-filled rock cirque to the base of the Southeast Ridge. Scrambling the ridge is fantastic, providing enough consistent third-class difficulty to be very enjoyable while remaining stress-free. We reached the summit [2735 m] at 12:15 where spent the next 45 minutes. The descent was only slightly faster; the snow could be avoided on ascent but we boot-skied a few of the larger patches on the way down. We were back at the hut at 4:30 and back at the car at 5:45. | |
 Dan relaxes by the summit cairn. Cayoosh lies to his left. |
 Dan heads back down from the summit along the ridge. |
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Reference Canada NTS 92 J/8 Duffey Lake 1:50,000. Canada NTS 92 J/7 Pemberton 1:50,000. Scrambles in Southwest British Columbia. Matt Gunn. Cairn Publishing. 2005. | |
 the upper lake |
 Marriott Basin with the Wendy Thompson Hut at its base |
