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'Ghost Peak' from near the col |
Had a great day out with the intrepid scrambler, Cornelius
Rott. Cornelius is a strong and keen
scrambler, we did our first trip back on October 18, 2019, with an interesting
day on the obscure “Sheep Meadow Mountain” and it’s nearby outlier, which we
called “Sheep’s Claw”. Our recent trip, June 26, 2020, was to the same area.
Back in October we were hopeful to ascend both Sheep Meadow Mountain and “Ghost
Peak”, but breaking trail in deep snow and with the ascent of Sheep’s Claw, we
ran out of energy and daylight to ascend Ghost Peak. Cornelius was previously keen
to attempt a long ridgewalk from the summit high point of “The Prow” to Ghost
Peak. We had hoped for a larger objective on this trip, but unstable weather
and lingering snow, we did this high level ridgewalk. Check out Cornelius’
excellent website.
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Area map. Our approach up Fallentimber Creek in red Traverse route in orange |
The morning of our trip, the weather forecast went from
sunny and hot, to windy, showers and cold. As we drove out, we went for our
plan B (plan C based on ideal conditions ;-). Cornelius skillfully drove us to
the bridge on Fallentimber Creek in the Hunter’s Valley area. From the parking
spot there is a clear view to Ghost Peak and Sheep Meadow Mountain. The first 2
km or so of the approach is through a wet boggy area, hard to keep the feet
dry, but beyond this, the trail (mostly an old seismic road), is clear and open
to the col between Ghost and Sheep Meadow.
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View to Ghost Peak from logging road near parking spot. |
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Sheep Meadow Mountain (l) and Ghost Peak (r) |
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Cornelius and his cool van at the parking spot |
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View to Ghost Peak on the approach trail. |
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Nearing Sheep Meadow/Ghost Peak col. |
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Ghost Peak ridge at col with very cool rock formations. |
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Sheep Mountain Mountain, two high points on the right. Sheep's Craw on the far left. |
Once at the col, we had a clear view to our ascent slope,
and the summit point above The Prow. We easily picked a line down the creek, then
a short distance north west into the larger north branch of Waiparous Creek and
base of the broad ascent slope. We started up the slope, mostly an easy plod on
a variety of small to medium sized scree, some loose, some not, until we reached
a short rock band. Easy hands on scrambling through 2 or 3 steps, then nice
compacted small scree to our first high point.
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View to Sheep's Claw and its cool little outlier on the right. Sheep's Fang? |
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Pano of most of our traverse as we near our first highpoint. |
From the first highpoint, we needed to head southeast to
reach the highest summit above The Prow. The Prow is an unofficial name for a
steep wall that separates the north and main branches of Waiparous Creek. I
would assume this name mainly applies to this beautiful feature lower in the
valley, not the highpoint? Cornelius built a cairn and left a register on this
highpoint. Back to our first highpoint and continued our journey clockwise,
west, then north, then eventually east. The weather was very unstable and rain
threatened much of the time and more and more clouds developed and rolled in.
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Cornelius on our first high point of the day. He built the little cairn. |
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A small cairn existed on the high point above The Prow. Cornelius left this register in a plastic container and he enlarged the cairn. |
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From the summit of The Prow looking back to the Ghost Peak/Sheep Meadow Mountain col. |
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Black Rock Mountain looking quite black with the worsening weather. |
After two significant elevation gains and drops, we were on the highpoint just east of “Waiparous Peak” (GR171975). This higher summit looked so close,
probably only an extra hour or so to add on this peak onto the circuit we did,
but Cornelius had ascended Waiparous when he climbed Mt. Davidson back in
September 2019. He was not keen for the extra effort, and weather was getting
worse, so onwards to Ghost Peak.
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Cornelius heading out on our traverse. Just above and slightly right of Cornelius is Mt. Davidson with Waiparous Peak on the far right. |
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Nearing highpoint just east of Waiparous Peak |
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Waiparous Peak from the highpoint. Maybe one hour return to the summit? |
Soon after this highpoint we dropped to the low point of the traverse, on the way we got a look at one of the more interesting features on the loop. Between the low point and Ghost Peak there is a cool castle top shaped bump on the ridge walk. Fun hands on scrambling to the reach the top of this feature, then a solid plod to the summit of Ghost Peak with a few ups and downs and on and off clouds.
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Castle top |
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Nearing castle top |
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Top of castle top, another cairn made. |
Finally on the summit of Ghost Peak. Weather deteriorated with our first real rain as we descended. A bit of interesting route finding and we made it to the col. Return from the col back to the parking spot was just an easy walk. Great day out to stretch the legs, I really needed this to help my COVID fitness recovery. Cornelius is quite tech savvy and based on his GPS we did a total of 27.6 km, a total gain of 1870 metres and were 12.5 hours for car to car. Good fun.
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Heading to Ghost Peak |
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Summit of Ghost Peak |
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Summit posers |
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Descending Ghost Peak |
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Back over the col, on the east, descending into the forest. Cool clouds low down on Ghost Peak. |
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Cornelius trying to see if his van is still there. |
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