DIRECTIONS: 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: 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. Continue on to follow the valley and start crossing a talus slope. If the rocks are dry, aim for the big slabs on the right hand side of the creek (don’t cross it yet) and scramble up to a snow field below the impressive glacier. It is easy to cross the creek by walking on this snow patch. Then, cross over and up the moraine. Go down on the other side of the moraine and follow a gully that is on the right hand side of a steeper gully which has a waterfall in it. This small gully is relatively easy with only one tricky section of class 2 scrambling. Reach to top of the gully which gets you to a small plateau with a tarn, below Ashlu. Go on the right to reach the ridge East of Ahslu. Follow this ridge, with some great scramble on slabs, until you reach a snow field. Continue up and across the snow field, toward the col on the East side of the sub-summit of Ashlu.
An ice axe and crampons can be necessary depending on the conditions. Step on the rocks and turn left to follow the ridge going up the sub-summit with moderate scrambling on relatively loose rocks. Go down from the sub-summit toward the col in front of Ashlu and ascend the final ridge up to the true summit. There are a few harder scrambling sections on the ridge. create
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Ashlu Mountain
Jul 25, 2016
Having not seen many recent trail reviews we decided to attempt this hike. The road is impassible (washed out bridge that no 4 wheeled vehicle has a hope of crossing) about 4 or 5 km after you cross ashlu creek and begin climbing away from the power project.
Even up to this point the road is very knarly, I have an pathfinder with good tires and we almost got stuck a handful of times. If your vehicle has good approach angles that will help. There's a river crossing which is tricky that I managed but the long bed pick up that we saw didn't because he wouldn't be able to climb out of the colvert cause of the sharp change in angle. We estimate that the bridge out is about 12-15 km from the trail head. There are planks set up for crossing the river on foot but you would need to make this an over nighter for sure.