Kwoeik Needle

May 24-25, 2025

Kwoeik Needle is a pretty striking summit from any angle, and Francis and I both had our eyes on it for years, waiting for the right opportunity. The access into Kwoeik Creek has been an issue for a long time, and Francis had been shut down on two previous attempts into the Mehatl area. On this particular weekend, the weather was beautiful, and we figured the logging roads would be melted out, while the alpine may still have some snow to help with the long bushwhack.

Upon doing more research for the weekend, I discovered there’s a trail on the West side of Kwoeik Needle, and someone had recently left a public track on Gaia, meaning there would be even less bushwhacking than we thought! Our plan now was to take the trail around Kokwaskey and Chochiwa Lakes, then cut straight up the W side of Kwoeik Needle, bushwacking to a small lake below the summit. The stats for this first day were pretty small, so we decided on a leisurely start, and some trail maintenance along the way.

The drive up to the trailhead was surprisingly easy, and for once I was the one navigating the taco through alder and slightly muddy ruts in the old road. We parked at a large impasse, and then began our bike ride down the last 13km to the trailhead. It was mostly a slight incline uphill, so I was happy for the short breaks we took to saw through fallen alder. The more we cut down now, the faster we’d be able to ride on the way home! I did my best to push hard on the bike, but near the end Francis did ride ahead on his ebike and come back for my heavy overnight bag.

Once we started on the trail, it took me a few minutes to adjust to walking instead of riding hard, but the trail was really beautiful and almost flat up to Kokwaskey Lake. Once there, we found a beautiful campsite with a fire pit, and wished we could have parked right here for the night! Instead, we pushed on to the second lake, this time cutting through a lot more bush and small trees on the trail.

The second lake had an even better little beach, and we stopped for a snack alongside an old canoe on the shore. Although I do love canoeing, it was questionable whether this one would hold water, and I had no desire to find out! Maybe someone else will come in and repair the boat, it would be a truly beautiful spot to spend the day floating around or even fishing.

A gorgeous little spot to hang out along the service road! This would be Kwoeik Lake.

Starting the bike ride on old road

Cutting down intermittent alder when we could!

Walking the bike through some pretty muddy sections

The first creek crossing, thankfully made easy by big logs

Arriving at the first lake

More log balancing

The colour of the lake flows the same in the river between them. So beautiful!

The beach at the second lake

Francis & I cooling off during our snack break

Past the second lake, the spiky bushes and deadfall increased, and the trail became harder to follow. We eventually gave up on clearing and flagging the trail in favour of pushing to our campsite, so we abandoned our trail-cutting equipment before beginning the climb uphill. There was a large stream to cross with boots off, and some small bluffs to navigate around, but we otherwise found a pretty straightforward route upwards through the forest.

It a slog of course, mostly due to the heat, but at least not a bushy one, with lots of old growth trees and not much small brush. Very soon we reached the snow, where it got quite a bit steeper. We quickly got tired of punching through the soft afternoon snow, and put snowshoes on for the final stretch to the campsite.

The upper lake was not as nice a spot to camp as we’d hoped, and we looked around the small plateau for somewhere flat and not too snowy. We eventually settled on a small clearing with views of the valley below, and a small patch of dirt where we could cook and hang out. I got dinner going for us while Francis set up the tent, and we enjoyed some pretty sunset colours as the light faded through the mountains.

Passing the second lake on large pieces of deadfall

Starting into untouched forest

Hopping a few very large trees

Crossing the big stream

Starting uphill, among really pretty moss & large trees

A patch of devil’s club-to-be! Yuck..

Francis leaving little notes for me when he’s walking ahead hahaha <3

Really cool mushroom log!

The most amazing place I’ve ever refilled water

Nature’s little tap!

Hitting snow just before the upper lake

Getting dinner started as the sun went down

Our small campsite

On our summit day, we had another fairly relaxed start, waking up with the morning sun. We climbed up some steep snow, then followed the half snowy, half rocky ridgeline towards the summit. It was fairly straightforward, but a bit of a nuisance with snowshoes on-snowshoes off all the time. I tried hiking without the snowshoes on snow, and with snowshoes on rock, but neither worked very well.

Closer to the summit, we finally managed to put the snowshoes away, as we mostly scrambled on rock on the open slopes. The sky was blue, but the wind was howling, so we made our ascent and retreat from the summit fairly quickly, only snapping a few photos of our pretty surroundings. Considering our hype for this remote peak, I was a little sad that it wasn’t as crazy as it looked, though I suppose I’m relieved there was nothing complex about it.

For the descent, we spotted a small snow couloir that would skip the multi-transition ridgeline, and took it downwards straight towards camp. The snow was nice and soft with the warming sun, and Francis slid straight down the whole thing on his butt! I tried to do the same, but my thin pants meant that my legs soon felt like they were actually burning from cold, and the feeling was so terrible that I was forced to give up and walk down. We ran down the rest of the descent, happily walk-sliding down easy slopes to the lake.

We took down camp quickly and had a short lunch break before plodding our way back down to the lower lakes. It wasn’t as hot out, so the descent was quite straightforward back to open trail. Our trail cutting gear had a bunch of large teeth marks in them which was… concerning. We kept our bear spray handy just in case, but saw no other signs of anything else.

The bike ride back down the road took me completely by surprise with how downhill it was. I actually thought it was mostly flat on the way up, but I now understand why I was pedaling so hard! We cruised back to the car at full speed, making it back for mid afternoon.