Colleen C. on Martin Peak:
“The trip got off to a rough start when it was admitted that there were no cookies, in spite of promises made.

However, after that things just kept getting better and better. We were able to drive all the way to the trailhead (16 km east of Squamish, mostly up the Mamquam FSR). The snowshoes went on within the first 30 minutes at about 950 m. The skies cleared to a glorious blue with poofy clouds flying above gleaming white mountains. The sun warmed the snow which quickly soaked our boots, but the temperature was so high our feet stayed warm (albeit wet – why have waterproof socks if I always forget them?).

We followed a deactivated logging road for a couple of hours with stunning views of Garibaldi and Mamquam then headed up towards a promising bump below Martin’s west peak. There was no evidence of other humans, but animal tracks crisscrossed our path – hares, bears, bobcats (?), chipmunks, and ravens. Our lunch spot provided beautiful views from Tantalus to Meslilloet to Pinecone. We decided to do a loop back with some fun and easy downhill bushwhacking (except for one random step into a hidden snow trap that required a rescue – note to self, make poor stuck person agree to demands before digging them out of the quicksandy snow slush!) that quickly became very easy as we discovered another old logging road that led us back to our initial route.

This is a fantastic area with so much to explore. Just for starters there’s Watersprite Lake, Dreadnought and of course Martin Peak’s two summits. Expect to see at least one more callout to the area this summer!”