DIRECTIONS: Save as for Ashlu Mountain:
From Highway 99, turn left (coming from Vancouver) onto Squamish Valley Road (opposite the Alice Lake Park turn off). Follow this road for 22km to the end of the pavement. 2km later, turn left and cross the bridge over the Squamish River. Continue straight. There is a hydro power project on the Ashlu Creek and you have to leave your name and return time to the security guard. Follow the main road, pass two bridges. Turn right at the fork and cross a bridge to the north side of Ashlu creek. Go left at the next fork and up the road. Go left at the next fork (7.5km from the Squamish bridge). Ignore a spur road to the right (km 11.6) and turn right at km 11.8. The road is really overgrown and will scratch the car. Go right at the next 3 forks (18.7 km, 19.4km, 23.8km). After that, the road becomes really rough with huge waterbars and 3 sinkholes. Stay left at the last 2 intersections (27.8km, 29.6km) and drive to the bridge over Shortcut Creek (31km). This bridge is completely broken and unsafe. Park there.create
SUMMARY: Mountaineering trip:
Since the bridge over Shortcut creek is impassable, the trailhead is now on the south side of the creek (you don’t have to cross it), just next to a big rock 30m from the bridge. It is very steep to start with but well flagged. We also did some trail work further up but didn’t have enough time to do that all the way down. There are a few muddy sections, a lot of blueberry bushes. The trail eventually levels off a little bit and follow the creek to a wide and open alpine meadow. Turn left and head for the bottom of the glacier, following the first creek on a series of talus and slabs. Climb up on the climbers left of the glacier going southeast, next to the rocks. When the glacier turns east, step on the rocks and climb some nasty slabs with loose rocks. It ends up on the steep snow field. When the snow field levels off, you are on the glacier again. Rope up and go northwest towards Porterhouse peak which is now visible. Turn around the base of Porterhouse to its east side. Start scrambling on the loose rocks, gaining slightly elevation, but mostly heading west and find a southeast facing gully that offers great scrambling on rocks to the summit. There is a notch at the top of the gully and the true summit is on climbers' right.
Porterhouse Peak (southeast Face, From Shortcut Creek)
Aug 3, 2009
Back to the Ashlu road for the 2nd time in a week. Still passable even after last week storm, but not getting any better. There are still big waterbars and 3 sinkholes on the road. High clearance is mandatory. And the road is overgrown, so your car does get scratches most of the way (and the unpaved part is 31km long!)
We car camped at the end of the road again to make an early start. Still it was a hot day. Views were limited because of clouds of smoke from the forest fires happening around Whistler. we could even smell burnt in the morning.
The most difficult part of the route was a rocky section with steep slabs and loose rocks. Otherwise it offered a good variety of terrain, from an overgrown trail to route finding between big open crevasses on bear ice, steep snow slope, glacier travel, scrambling on rocks.