August 17th 2026. Gorman Lake, BC.
Round Trip: 6hrs 45m, Elevation Gain: +1000m (includes extension)
Moderate Scramble via Golden Scrambles route;
Moderate/Difficult Scramble for the extension
This is a pretty straight forward route if sticking to the description from Golden Scrambles, which is what we used for the ascent. I teamed up with Scott & Ben for this outing, plus their scrambling doggos Ronald & Rosie. Scott, having done most of peaks around Gorman, was after a local adventure and was happy to repeat this one for Ben and I. Eos Peak is probably one of the most direct ascents around the Gorman Lake area and if it wasn’t for the abysmal rock quality I’d probably have rated it as an easy scramble. We took Scott’s truck up to the Gorman Lake trailhead and finished chicken wire wrapping the truck by 9am. The road up was in very rough shape compared to my previous trips in 2024 and 2025. I would recommend taking a high clearance vehicle with 4×4 if you value if your vehicle.
As per usual the dogs set a brisk pace to start the approach hike and we wasted little time trotting after them. We followed the main trail almost as far as the first tarn, roughly 40 mins from the trailhead, then left the trail heading south scrambling up onto the moraine. This next led us to a steep gully northwest of Eos and the gully itself our ascent route. With Eos peak towering above us to our left, we trended to the climber’s right while entering the gully staying beneath sheer rock faces.
It was chilly in the shade that day and we utilized the lingering snow patches to avoid some of the rubble. Scott pointed out that most of the rubble was sitting over glacial ice and we could hear the meltwaters running under the rocks. It reminded me of the approach to Mount Sifton which likewise has a rock covered remanent glacier. The route seemed straight forward but quite steep. And the rock was apparently very loose. And slide-prone. We stuck to the snow for as long as possible during the ascent, eventually running out of snow 150m or so below the saddle.
Around the 2500m meter mark the gully steepened and we eventually had to abandon the snow in favour of rock hopping. This upper section was the steepest section yet and the rock all too easy to dislodge. It wasn’t exactly technical scrambling but felt very hazardous. Given how loose the terrain was – and the size of the rocks that were sliding – we opted to fan out in effort to minimize the hazards. Ben and Rosie scrambled up to the climber’s left side of the gully, slogging up steep loose rock but made steady progress. Scott with Ronnie went up a side-gully on the climber’s right, scrambling up through tight ledges. I initially followed Scott but stayed within the main gully, using the ledges on the climber’s right as hand holds. In going this way I avoided most the rock slide/fall from the other two and also discovered a well preserved marmot skull within a small nook. I eventually had to use the slope for the final 30m or so to gain the saddle and regroup with the others. The legs were definitely burning from this one!
We regrouped at the saddle and were collectively relieved to be out of that gully. The summit was another 100m above us to the east, so we promptly continued over stacked rubble. Although still unstable, the rock was much more forgiving on the summit slopes and less-likely to slide out like in the gully. Some twenty minutes from the saddle and we were all sat on the summit, a bit past noon. It is a stunning summit panorama from Eos Peak and we had near-perfect skies for it. We could even see Mount Columbia far off on the horizon, amongst a many other notable peaks. Much like the other peaks around Gorman, Eos lacked a summit register despite having a sizeable summit cairn. After twenty minutes of photographs and soggy gummy bears, it was time to go.
Heading back down off the summit, we discussed the possibility of dropping down the backside (south) of Eos and then side hilling (west) across to the pass underneath Greyhound Peak. This was an appealing extension to our day that would loop us back to Gorman Lake and thus avoids the treacherous gully used for ascent. Seemed like a win-win. Then Scott mentioned that he had lost his phone in the gully and was going back for it. Ben and I opted for the extension, not wanting to shower rocks down on Scott.
For the extension, we hiked down the ridge which connects to an unnamed outlier peak immediately west of Eos. During the ascent up the gully I had wrongfully assumed the outlier was Eos’s summit as it appears more striking and prominent. From the top of Eos it becomes apparent that the outlier is nearly 140m shorter. Ben and I gradually started dropping down the slope. While initially easy going, the gradient soon sharpened and we grew cautious of unseen cliff bands underneath us. It was time to hone our route finding skills. Luckily this was right around the time that Scott and Ronnie rejoined us. They had been gone and back within twenty minutes, fortunately Scott found his phone and didn’t have to regain too much elevation on route to us.
Regrouped we route found our way down the slope, often downclimbing loose rubble (moderate to difficult scrambling), and trending west whenever feasible. The rock quality was nearly as bad as the gully and was very dusty, dusty enough that I wore my buff as a face shield for much of the descent. Towards the bottom of the slope we encountered the crux of our route: a brief but exposed ledge that was even more challenging for our four legged friends. A couple awkward downclimbing moves over untrustworthy rubble and the worst of it was over. From here it was much less a scramble as we hiked westward over rolling hills of talus towards Greyhound Peak. From the crux it took us around 40 minutes to reach the pass, at which point we encountered a trail marked with cairns.
From the pass the return hike was super easy to navigate as we followed a well defined path back to Gorman Lake. At the lake we forked left to take the north shore lake trail for the next leg of the hike. It was a stunning afternoon and it was a busy day at Gorman. In my three trips up here by far the busiest I’ve ever seen it and the same was true for Scott & Ben who have both lived in Golden longer than me. On the way back Scott and I discussed our plans for the following day, pending on his availability we were considering Mount Ball. Towards the end of the hike Rosie started limping and Ben found that she had torn a couple toe pads. Luckily we made short work of the hike back and returned to Scott’s truck just shy of 4pm. There were fourteen vehicles parked along the end of the road, confirming to us that the lake was exceptionally busy! Most of these vehicles were rentals that I personally would not want to take up that FSR.
Unfortunately for me, my Garmin watch glitched while recording the map of our route, showing a lot of zig-zagging in the gully which is inaccurate. I’ve chosen not to include a screenshot of it for this report out of concern that our extension line could have also been inaccurately recorded. The southwest slope requires careful route finding and there are several areas where one could be cliffed-out. I would only recommend the extension to experienced scramblers. As for the original route up Eos Peak, I would caution would-be-peak-baggers to do this one in small groups of two or solo, due to the extremely loose slide-prone rock hazards we encountered. Despite the shite rock quality, the views up on Eos were worth the grind up and would serve as a shorter alternative to nearby Kingpin Peak.
