Plateau Mountain - Scramble

Another fun and off the beaten track trip with Cornelius. Being shoulder season, me not having snow shoes, Cornelius not having skis, we tried to pick an objective that was interesting, and approachable on foot. In the end, we drove south to the Livingstone Range and did a pleasant hike up Plateau Mountain. Driving up and down the access road scoping out potential objectives, we both really liked the look of the southern end of Plateau Mountain; a pair of swooping ridge descend from the large flat plateau providing a nice compact loop, both accessible from the same parking spot. 

On the plateau looking south, Mt. Livingstone (left) and "Coffin Mountain" (centre) in the distance

A bit of light bushwhacking and a little bit of post holing up the steepish slope, brought us up to a little cliff band, we tackled this minor obstacle head on and soon we were in the wind blasted alpine. 

Cornelius breaking through the trees.
Hello wind.

As we gain elevation, a view south to Mt. Livingstone (l) and "Coffin Mtn." (r)

View towards our eventual descent ridge, the South East Ridge.

View back to road and the bottom of the SE ridge.

Pano photo towards end of South East Ridge

Pano photo showing much of the South East Ridge

The winds were strong, and would continue to worsen throughout the day. We gain the ridgeline proper and enjoyed fine views as we ascended towards a cairn. After this cairn, we wandered over to a gas processing site, took a look from a safe distance, then wandered over to two other cairn piles, the last being the highest on the plateau (based on Cornelius’ GPS). 

Section of ridge where we gained the South Ridge proper.

South Ridge gains the high flat and expansive plateau.
Taken from our first cairn pile.

Hiking north towards a large well site.

View south across the expansive plateau.
On the horizon,  double summit of Windy Peak, Mt. Livingstone and right, "Coffin Mtn."

View north to Mt. Burke.

Open country for sure.

Second cairn pile.

Cornelius at our third cairn pile, view north, Mt. Burke on the horizon.

Winds continued to intensify as we descend the South East Ridge, rounding the top of a steep cirque back towards the road. At a minor col along this ridge, we got hammered by wind, I honestly think the wind was around 200 km/hour.  It was intense. Simple hike back to the shelter below the ridge line and into the trees.  A very enjoyable 4.5 ish hours and a fun shoulder season scramble, great day out.

Nearing the bottom of the South East Ridge.
View back to the South Ridge and the loop we completed.

"Sheep Meadow Mtn." (GR217985), "Sheep's Claw" (GR228973) - Scramble

Cool trip and I had the chance to meet up with a great scrambler who loves going off the beaten track. Cornelius and I exchanged emails about 2 years ago after I had found his website and gave him compliments on his impressive list of scrambles. At that time, I was recovering from some tendon injuries, and then he was off travelling the world, we didn’t connect until this Fall. “Sheep Meadow Mountain” was not on my radar at all, but Cornelius was keen to try it out since he had done several peaks in the area. Any trips I do to the Ghost or Waiparous area historically involved ice climbing, and I haven’t scrambled many peaks in the area. Black Rock Mountain was one of my first ever summits, my ninth, in May of 1993 Jock Rutherford and I scrambled to the summit and slept in the old fire lookout building. Until this recent trip, Black Rock was my only summit in the nearby vicinity.  Great reason to explore this area some more.

Cornelius had scrambled the nearby “Ghost Peak”, or as Vern Dewit referred to as “Kink Peak” (from Bivouac.com reference), back in spring of 2016. Cornelius knew the drive in and the approach well from this previously trip, and was kind enough to drive, so it was super simple trip for me. The gravel/dirt road to Fallentimber Creek was in great shape because of the active logging in the area and we had a simple drive to the parking area. The slog to the Ghost(Kink)/Sheep Meadow col was, at first, low snow level and easy, but soon we were post holing up a storm.  The deepish snow definitely slowed our pace and sucked up some energy.  

Left Sheep Meadow Mountain and on the right, "Ghost" (Kink) Peak

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Approach via Fallentimber Creek to Ghost/Sheep Meadow
Mtn. col, then we traversed south east, then to main summit of Sheep Meadow.
South to Sheep's Claw, and north on western slopes.

Hiking the cut line, a few patches of ice.

Deep snow and slogging towards Ghost Peak's rugged east face.

"Sheep Meadow Mtn." (GR217985) centre, "Sheep's Claw" (GR228973) far left 

Nearing the col, we decided not to gain the col, but instead angle traverse south east, above tree line, towards ‘Sheep’s Claw’. As we slogged along through some pretty deep snow, we changed plans, headed directly up the east slopes of Sheep Meadow, to gain a low spot on the ridge, where we hiked to the summit. First summit of the day, very windy, and extreme wind chill.  Cornelius had brought a glass jar and some paper to leave as a register, it was actually difficult to write because of the cold and the high velocity winds. After our new cairn and register were in place, we headed directly south on the summit ridge. 

Starting our raising traverse above tree line.  View north to the col
and Ghost(Kink) Peak.

Cornelius with ridge of Sheep Meadow Mountain above,
from the eastern slopes below. We gained the low point left of this block.

 "Sheep's Claw" (GR228973) far left, Black Rock Mountain right of centre.

Cornelius on the summit of Sheep Meadow Mtn.
Cornelius brought a glass jar and some paper for a summit register.

Soon we encountered a steep drop off and some cool tall pinnacles that were beyond scrambling. We back tracked a bit, then descended a fun steep snow filled gully, the exit near the bottom of the gully required a few tricky moves on dry rock to escape to easier terrain, then to scree slopes below. Once on the easy western slopes, we had a better look at the next objective.  The final summit block of ‘Sheep’s Claw’ had steep rock walls, looked like it would be a bit more challenging.  Mostly wind blown, there was a lack of deep snow, so travel was fast to the col, then up the northern slopes of Sheep’s Claw. 

Traverse south from summit of Sheep Meadow,
deep notches and cliffs forced us down to the western slopes.

Heading south from Sheep Meadow summit, along the ridge, found a wind ravaged
Canadian flag. 

Above the Sheep Meadow/Sheep's Claw col view north
to Sheep Meadow and Ghost Peak.

We saw the eastern wall was too difficult to scramble, so we traversed west a bit below a cool rock buttress, then up easy snow/scree to a very cool rock wall below the summit (turned out to be a false summit).  We both scrambled this steep wall, which was very loose and probably 5.2 climbing. Once on our exposed rock fin, we realized the summit was just a bit more south. Some careful downclimbing on very loose rock, then a fun snow traverse to the final summit slopes.

Cornelius climbing the loose, but fun steep rock step to the lower summit of
"Sheep's Claw".

View from lower false summit to the higher summit of "Sheep's Claw"

From summit of "Sheep's Claw" north to Sheep Meadow Mtn. and Ghost Peak.

Cornelius enjoy the 'calm' conditions on Sheep's Claw.

View to Devil's Head. 
Climbed Devil's Head with Jason Wilcox in December 2007 via the waterfall ice routes, "Beowulf" and "Devil's Punchbowl" and the standard West Ridge route to the summit.

Cornelius leaving the summit of Sheep's Claw.

The wind subsided a bit while on our second summit and we got to enjoy the views. I added a few stones to the existing small cairn. The existing summit cairn didn’t have a register.  Soon we headed back to the col and started a traverse along the western slopes of Sheep Meadows Mountain, with a goal of reaching the col shared with Ghost(Kink), hopefully without too much elevation loss. The scree field was mix of no snow and boot top deep snow. As we neared the col, a couple of deep valleys/gullies did cut into the slope and we traversed high to avoid the drop in elevation. We gained the col, considered briefly the scramble to the summit of Ghost Peak.  Cornelius had climbed Ghost before, but in white out conditions, and I was keen to ascend it, but given the amount of snow and lateness of the day, we chose to head back to the car.  In the end, the best choice, as we did much of the return hike in the dark and the trip was about 12 hours car to car. Super fun shoulder season scramble, great day out.

View south across the western flank of Sheep Meadow and the summit of Sheep's Claw.

Nearing the col with Ghost Peak, summit of Ghost above.

Last view of our two summits as we head into the trees of Fallentimber Creek..

"Snow Peak" - Scramble

Plan A for September 23 was to go rock climbing, trad climbing; alpine if the weather allowed us back to an unfinished route or a valley crag. Well my buddy went sport climbing on Sunday the 22nd and took a lead fall and injured his hand and wrist. Glad he wasn’t seriously hurt but he couldn’t climb today. Sigh. We went for a hike, poor guy couldn’t even hold a pole, so feet only. 

View to 'Snow Peak' from the flats below the Robertson Glacier.

View up to the Robertson Glacier.
Looks blustery.

"Burstall Slabs" climbing crag. 
I will climb there one day... been thinking of trying that for decades...

View to Mt. Birdwood

View back to Mt. Smuts as we gain elevation enroute to Burstall Pass.

We settled on “Snow Peak” beside Burstall Pass. Good hike in blustery weather, lots of high winds and a wee bit of snow. Lots of snow on Mt. Sir Douglas. Some nice larches. A casual 6 hours car to car. A relaxing day. Hopefully more outdoor rock before ice climbing.

LK enjoying the winds, Mt. Sir Douglas hiding in clouds in the background.

More views back to Sir Dougie.

Summit cairn and brightly coloured summit register container.

Our summit entry.

Mt. Sir Douglas clearing a bit. 

Mt. Birdwood

View back towards road.

Mt. Smuts.

Godzilla - 5.9, 120m (4 pitches)

Spent a chilly Monday afternoon (August 26) on a fun short multi pitch sport route, "Godzilla". Quote from Gripped website, where Brandon Pullan is the editor.

"Godzilla is a new 5.9 four-pitch all-bolted route on Kanga Crag above Upper Grassi Lakes parking area in Canmore. There are now three fun multi-pitch routes on the small wall above the pond.

The first ascent was in June 2018 by Dave Smart and Brandon Pullan with later route cleaning help from Re Cairney, James Walter, John Price and Cory Rogans.

Like all Rockies’ routes, there will be loose and flaky rocks for a few seasons and don’t throw any big boulders off because they might reach the road below. If you’re not comfortable climbing on loose rock then stick to older, better travelled multi-pitch routes."

Brandon has set quite a few new multi pitch in the past 5 to 10 years. On this wall, Kanga Crag, Brandon set "Sharknado" (5.9, 100m, 4 pitches) and "Hot Fuzz" (5.8, 80m, 2 pitches). Laurie and I have climbed all three of these routes, compared to Sharknado, the 5.9 pitches on Godzilla are more difficult. Overall a fun route with super easy access and very close to Canmore. We had a bit of trouble finding the base of route, but eventually got on track.  I lead the first pitch, very fun and straightforward 5.7.

View up pitch one, Good fun.

View down pitch one from station.

Laurie had fun on the crux, the 5.9 crux is solid for the grade, probably many would say more than 5.9, but the crux is short and well protected.

View up start of pitch two.

Laurie has rounded the corner, the crux is actually out of sight.

I did the third pitch, fun 5.8. Laurie did the last 5.9 pitch, which had one or two 5.9 moves, with the rest being more like 5.7. we did the four rappels to get off the route. Great day out. 

View up start of pitch three.

View to last pitch.

Crux moves of pitch 4.

Rapping off pitch 4 on the way down.