Golden Ears Traverse
June 25, 2026
C2C: 9 hours 30 min
- Golden Ears Peak (1716 m)
- Edge Peak (1680 m)
- Blanshard Needle (1550 m)
- Alouette Mountain (1361 m)
- Evans Peak (1132 m)
This traverse has been on my bucket list for a while now, and with the way conditions had lined up, I knew I had to go for it. I arrived at Golden Ears Provincial Park five minutes before the gate opened at 7 a.m. I parked at the West Canyon parking lot and was on foot down the trail by 7:20 a.m.
BC Parks marks the West Canyon trail as closed due to a large washout at the Evans Creek crossing. This is easily passable, but proceed at your own risk.
I reached Alder Flats by 8:15 a.m. This is your last chance to get water until Panorama Ridge. The rest of the plod up was easy going. The Golden Ears summit trail is well marked and groomed.
I reached Panorama Ridge at 9:30 a.m. The snow line starts here, but there are still plenty of snowfree tent pads. A very reliable water source is less than 50 m from the shelter. If doing the traverse, this is the last water source you will see until the creek 1 km up the Evans Peak trail from the parking lot. I brought an empty 2.5 L bladder and filled it here so I would have plenty of water to make it across the ridge. The snow leading up to the Golden Ears summit is firm but never steep. I brought microspikes and an axe but never used them. I arrived at the summit of Golden Ears at 10:15 a.m., just under three hours. I backtracked the scramble section and broke off toward Edge Peak, which has a faint but easy to follow footbed. There is a steep headwall to navigate on the way to Edge Peak, marked by a fixed line that runs from the top of the headwall down a gully. This headwall can be easily bypassed via a scramble that goes around the west side of the ridge. A short bushwhack will deposit you on top of the headwall.
The crux of the traverse from Golden Ears to Edge comes shortly after: a one-foot by four-foot ledge must be traversed. This section is not technically difficult; however, there is a modest amount of exposure. Losing your balance here is not advisable. After the ledge, I stayed on the east side of the ridge and traversed the slabs until reaching the top of the White Dyke. There is a large patch of snow with a moat blocking the fourth-class scramble section of the chimney to Edge Peak. I bypassed the chimney entirely by climbing some lower 5th class terrain climbers left. The rest of the chimney is snow free and goes at class 3. I reached the false summit at 11:42 a.m. and traversed the ridge over to the true summit ten minutes later. From here, you can see the entire line from Golden Ears all the way out to Evans Peak. The ridge out to Blanshard looks incredibly aesthetic but also very complex to navigate. It features many large bumps and deep notches, almost all of which can be navigated by exploring the west side of the ridge. Exposed veggie belays are the main theme of this ridge; it is not uncommon to find yourself with all four points of contact being some sort of vegetation.
I found a rappel anchor that gets mentioned in all the reports about this traverse. It deposits you down a long gully that temporarily drops you off the ridge. The rope stayed in the bag, and downclimbing this gully under dry conditions was easy enough. Once on the snow below, a short traverse along the snow gets you back on the ridge. From here, the enjoyment of the ridge really deteriorated. The bushwhacking became the crux, with vertical tunneling through trees being unavoidable due to severe exposure on the east side of the ridge. The exposed bushwhacking persisted until just below the summit of Blanshard. The north side of Blanshard is a very cool area to explore. Lots of interesting chimneys and fun scrambling lead to the summit. I reached the summit of Blanshard at 2:20 p.m. I had budgeted four hours to complete that section but managed it in 2.5 hours.
The descent off Blanshard is straightforward. There is a large gully that runs down the south face, with rap tat at the top of this gully. Do not rappel down the gully; instead, continue traversing east across the notch, and you’ll find much easier terrain that will lead you down. I opted to make a 15m rappel down the crux pitch of Blanshard. From here, it’s easy trails until you start ascending Alouette. The trail becomes difficult to follow here and involves some bushwhacking, but by now your threshold for bushwhacking will be so high you will not care. I reached the summit plaque of Alouette Mountain at 3:18 p.m. and made a quick descent down the trail to Evans Peak for 4 p.m. A speedy descent with a quick stop for water got me down to the parking lot by 4:50 p.m.