Indian Head Mountain - Scramble

Back on July 21 the venerable Rafal and I scrambled Indian Head Mountain in the Columbia Valley.  Raff and I had plans for some fun mountaineering in the Purcell range, but a combination of the mudslide that closed the trans canada highway on July 20, and big washouts on the logging roads in upper McDonald Creek (Purcells), changed our plans.

Indian Head Mountain is the official name of this mountain, but many locals refer to it as Chisel Peak.  Indian Head is the highest mountain in the Stanford Range with an elevation of 2690m.After a late start, Sonny would be proud, we left the parking area in upper Madias Creek about 2:45pm on Saturday.  The drive up the Madias Creek Forest Service Road is narrow, rough and provides some thrilling exposure.  We parked at the first washout described in "Hikes Around Invermere and the Columbia River Valley" by Aaron Cameron and Matt Gunn.

Up the old road and near the second washout found a great trail leading to col west of Indian Head.  The trail was littered with many huge trees blown down in the fierce windstorm in Friday night's thunderstorm (another reason to avoid climbing during thunderstorms).  Once at the low treed col we made quick time to the rocky crest of the south ridge.

The south ridge to the south summit provides moderate scrambling, with the odd short difficult step on the ridge crest proper.  We made quick time to the south summit.  The traverse north to the north summit is the best part of the trip.  Mostly moderate scrambling, but if you stay on the true ridge crest there are fun sections of difficult scrambling; recommended.  

North Summit of Indian Head Mtn.

4 hours with a casual pace and we were on the north summit of Indian Head Mountain.  Raff and I agree the central part of the summit ridge is the highest point, but the register is located in the large cairn on the north summit. On our descent we were buzzed several times by gliders (engineless planes); it was awesome.  A very cool end to a very cool summit ridge traverse.  All in Raff and I were 7 hours car to car.