3 days in the remote and unbelievable Canadian Rockies - Tsar Mountain

Three years ago I found myself over 130 kilometers out a newly built BC logging road and determined this would be an amazing way to access Tsar Mountain, a very remote and mysterious 11er in the Canadian Rockies. I spent a number of days clearing up a trail to access the Kinnbasket river valley and then the following year I returned to make my attempt at the summit. But for a number of reasons I fell short and decided to turn around and it's been high on my list ever since to return and try again. May 20th 2025 I suddenly noticed a weather window appearing around Tsar Mountain and somehow within a couple minutes notice I managed to recruit a very strong team of experienced mountaineers to join me to drive really far out there once again and try to climb this elusive mountain. And away we go setting off on a big one here trying to get redemption on Tsar Mountain, one of the most isolated 11ers in the Canadian Rockies. Had to drive a good three hours up the B road, about 130 kilometers. Now we gotta hike another 35 kilometers deep into the backcountry and try to climb this mountain. All right guys we're getting the approach done. The skis are a bit of an issue but we're pushing through. There's 4c up there. Oh the bushwhacking is uh could be worse. Definitely thicker than what I'm used to for the 11000ers but uh it's manageable. Yeah maybe Halvin made the right choice to go for the water crossing first. He's way up there now. Yeah let's sneak up here a bit further then we'll jump in. Jeez all that just to change my boots anyways. Should have just hopped in the river with me. I've been uh yeah that was the worst part of the whole trip so far. Ah the worst of today is over just getting up that old brushy trail. We just have to cruise all the way up the Kinnbasket river valley here. Easy going. Maybe another I don't know like four hours to get up this and we just go around this bend. There's a big lake maybe camp on the left hand side of it below the headwall. Last time I tried to get up the headwall day one and I just like wore myself out. I had to take a rest day after that so I don't know it's probably the idea. Leave all our heavy gear at the base of it then go for the summit tomorrow but a lot of gain involved over 2000 meters and that so it's gonna be a hard day ahead of us. All right starting to get pretty deep into it now. Maybe less than two hours to reach where we're gonna camp tonight. Just cruising right up here no trouble crossing the river when we need to. This is the lowest volume I've ever seen through this valley. Day one complete we're going to bed really early so we can get up really early and tomorrow is going to be very difficult. I'm sure going to be completely shattered after it. I'm going to need some serious margarita therapy after we wrap up this trip but yeah hopefully the sky clears off good conditions and can reach the top of Tsar mountain tomorrow. Good night everyone. Climb out of bed 2am have some breakfast in a Starbucks via double shot and leave all the heavy gear there go on lightweight for the day and we have the hardest part of the navigation ahead of us in the dark climbing up the the headwall one kilometer vertical there then continue across but conditions look great clear sky good freeze it's looking promising. I've officially set foot on the mountain snow conditions have rapidly deteriorated just punch it through a crust yeah it's gonna be a struggle to get up this part it's cold too minus 10 or so almost up to the first ridge line Mount Somerville behind us beauty day loving it where else would you rather be Rocco's getting the gondola ride pretty much all the way up this one and it's hard going post pulling all the way up this north slope we're almost up to the ridge line though and hopefully hopefully it'll get a bit easier from yesterday we just trekked in set up base camp and today we left at three in the morning try and get a good freeze and so far the snow has been pretty consistent so we've had pretty easy traveling except here on the glacier it's a little bit post holy but I mean just look at these views here we're already above 3,000 meters I think we're close to 3,200 meters elevation it's quite high boy we are way out here we're about to hit the summit of Tsar mountain we've been at it for almost 11 hours coming up the summit ridge now was quite the push up from the Cambasset river valley gonna be a long day with about 2,500 meters gain almost there like a hundred meters off the summit block now man it's been a long day it'll be a nice ski run though haul them all this way we just have one last steep part before the summit Tim's leading the way breaking trail it's been some tough conditions like mid thigh deep powder the past few hours so it's hard work after over 11 hours of ascending since leaving camp we finally made it to the summit snow coverage was perfect any technicalities were buried underneath the snow and we kick-stepped our way right to the top huge thanks to Tim, Holden, Devin for joining me and making this possible it is unbelievable what you'll find out your average BC logging road got back to camp last night and had some food crash that wound up being a 17 and a half hour day and even this morning I'm still feeling really shattered but we have to wrap this up hike back on out of here another 25 kilometers to go but we should make it and I think I'll just end this video here thanks for coming along thanks to Holden, Devin, Tim for coming out I think this might be one of the best mountaineering trips I've ever been on but hope everyone's doing good and I'll see you in the next one