Trip Report - North Ridge of Canyon Peak (MT) - 6/26/22

There’s not enough out there about this route, it deserves a lot more attention!

I drove out of Missoula early with Zac and Kika on what turned out to be a perfect summer day. Despite a mixup on who was bringing what, we turned out to have enough gear to give it a go.

After a long approach up to Canyon Lake, we got our first big views of Canyon Peak. It looks far away from the dam, but we skirted the north side of the lake and got up to the col, where we transitioned to scrambling gear.

Some unnecessary but aesthetic scrambling.

Getting up there!

The climb itself is straightforward, though it helps if both your partners are super strong climbers. We scrambled up the first few hundred feet on class 3 and 4 terrain before roping up on a doubled up twin and leading two pitches that probably went at 5.4 or so. The route stays near the true north ridge, but wanders left occasionally.

Starting to be pretty airy.

It’s steeper on the other side…

We crested a false summit and unroped, traversing to the summit with huge dropoffs. On the summit, we found a ton of ladybugs up there - there must have been thousands, swarming in piles. I’d never seen anything like it.

Ladybugs literally everywhere on the summit. Kinda gross honestly.

After an involved rappel/steep snow experience on the south face, we popped through a weakness in the southeast ridge and looped back to Canyon Lake, where we took a dip in the refreshingly chilly water before slogging back out to the car.

A perfect (but very long) day!