Located about 30km past Pemberton, through the meadows and up the Hurley FSR lies the “school of railroad mountains“, which are home to the simply breathtaking Locomotive Mountain.

A short drive up the Hurley and only a couple of KMs past the turn for Tenquille Lake, is the trailhead for Semaphore Lakes (see map of Locomotive Mountain trail), which it would be easy to miss if it wasn’t for the masses of cars parked along the side of the road. Don’t let you put this off, however, there a many day hikers just heading to Semaphore Lakes and the area is so big, that it doesn’t feel crowded like Garibaldi Provincial Park.

The trail from the Hurley FSR to Semaphore Lakes is very easy and straight forward as there is a clearly defined trail. The other advantage is that the road takes out a large amount of the vertical climb so it’s only short uphill stretch. After about 35 mins you soon emerge from the trees with views of face mountain in the distance.

As you continue, you’ll soon arrive at the first of the meadows and from here, it’s only another 10 minutes to the lakes.

As you continue to climb and the trees thin out, the views back down the valley and across to other peaks make for quite the backdrop. It’s easy to see why the area is so popular for sleds and ski touring in the winter.

As the trail curves South West, you begin to gain some views of Locomotive Mountain off in the distance.

As soon as the views of Locomotive Mountain appear, you pretty much arrive at Semaphore Lakes. This a really large space with loads of camping back country camping spots and three large beautiful lakes to choose from.

The trail will reach a high point, before descending down to the lakes. The trail splits here, going left to “Secret Lake” and right down to the Semaphore Lake. We decided to make camp at “Secret Lake”, which a little higher, was also a little quieter and provided incredible views of the Locomotive Mountain.

We decided to hold off summiting Locomotive the same day as the clouds were rolling in and we also wanted to check out this amazing valley. You can only just see it in the two above pictures (and hear it roaring all from the campsite), but in the distance a massive waterfall the size of Shannon Falls cascades down from the Railroad Glacier between Locomotive and Face mountains. A short trail weaves past numerous camping spots, small lakes and creeks, before crossing over a large glacial moraine at least 500m wide and several kilometers long.

The falls are all the more sizeable when you get up close to them. Zoom in closely on the below picture and you’ll see two people sat half way up the rocks on the left of the falls – that should put things into perspective.

After a short time at the waterfall, we headed back to camp finding another (3rd) lake en route, this one completely turquoise. This one I called Mystery Lake as it didn’t have a name on the map.

We woke up at sunrise on the the morning of the summit climb to perfect conditions and the sun just starting to hit Locomotive Mountain.

After breakfast we made our way back to the moraine area, but this time turned and headed south to the end of the flats before beginning our climb.

From the end of the flats, a short scramble up this initial and short rocky slope brings you into a whole new bowl.

Make your way to the far end of this bowl, heading directly up the centre of the slope at the far end, keeping Locomotive Mountain on your right (North side). From here, you get a great perspective of the intimidating east ridge that gives the mountain it’s triangular shape (from the campsite). Apparently there are a few scrambling routes up the east ridge, but we headed around the back to make our way up the south ridge.

Once up the slope at the end of the bowl, you’ll arrive at a small glacial lake and snow field. From here you can head clockwise or anti-clockwise around the snowfield to get up onto the south ridge. Clockwise is easier but longer, whereas the anti-clockwise route (as shown in Gunn’s book, Scrambles) is much steeper and involves crossing the snow.

Once on top of the ridge, there are spectacular views back down into the Pemberton Meadows and out towards Chipmunk Peak (next on the list). It also provides a clear view of the scramble up to the summit, which looks less intimidating with every step. There are very few cairns dotted around, but they’re not really needed as it’s easy to pick your way across the ridge and up to the summit.

With no exposure and a gradual incline, the scramble to the summit is very straight forward (see above). Once on top, the views are simply breathtaking with 360 degree views of the Pemberton Valley, Hurley FSR and neighbouring peaks.

The turquoise lake in the above pictures sits in a plateau at the bottom of Railroad Glacier and feeds the waterfall that crashes into the valley below. You can just make out the creek from the waterfalls as it flows north into the valley.

From the summit of Locomotive Mountain, you can also make your way across to Tender mountain, the next peak over. This is also where you can access Railroad Glacier. We descended the same way we came up.

 

Given all the snow melt and numerous creeks, it’s one of the most colourful valley’s with flowers filling the area.

 

 

Finally, a couple of quick 3D outlines of the route to the campsite and the scramble.