Mt. Jellicoe - Ski Ascent of South Slopes

North Face of Jellicoe from upper Haig Glacier

May 6 skied and climbed Mount Jellicoe with Raff and Eric.  Mt. Jellicoe is the jewel of the Haig Icefield, however not many people climb it in the ski season.








Under good snow conditions it is a terrific ski mountaineering objective. If the snow stability is good, it is possible to ski right from the top of the south ridge all the way down to the Haig icefield.

Raff and Eric on summit

final summit ridge

It took us 18 hours to do this mountain due to a number of reasons. We took a wrong turn in French Creek on the way in and out and we also had to take a long detour on Jellicoe in order to avoid the most dangerous southfacing slopes.

Assuming everything goes well, it shouldn`t take you more than 14 hours. Highly recommended objective for those of you bored with the uptenth trip to the Wapta.

Heading back to French/Robertson Col

Ski traverse of 'Mt. Mackay' and the ‘Mackay Hills’

April 9, I choose to do a solo ski traverse of 'Mt. Mackay' and the ‘Mackay Hills’. These highpoints are the minor peaks east and south east of The Wedge between Rocky and Evan-Thomas Creeks. Unofficial name to recognize Walter Grant Mackay who had a coal mining claim on these hills.

From ETC parking skied to Wedge Connector trail, then after ETC crossing, headed due south towards ‘Mt. Mackay’. Bushwaching, then open. 5.5 hours to the 2455m summit of GR 323350 ('Mt. Mackay').

Second summit in 2 hours. GR 333341 ('Mackay Hills - centre') elevation of 2440m. From the central hill less than one hour to GR 341335 ('Mackay Hills - south').

Awesome ski descent, sun baked snow, then super soft, deep powder in the trees. Down the creek bed of the minor stream in between the two Mackay Hills with fast travel to ETC. Good downstream passage and only had to take off the skis twice to bypass the canyons. The ski out was without skins and quite fast on frozen snow. I was 13 hours car to car.

Pigeon Skunk – Winter Canyoneering

Jordan and I climbed Crystal Tear on March 3.  From the top of the route we spied a deep gully system on Pigeon Mountain.  From our vantage point it appeared this gully system had a lot of water ice.  We were so pumped we headed up the gully on March 18.  Jordan and I we joined by his good buddies Dan and Farzad. 

Well we got skunked, the ice was missing!  We only found steep snow and an interesting gully system.  No indication of ice anywhere. 

Fun hike up.  We did climb (M2) through several pinch points in the gully and did have to traverse out of the gully to bypass a couple of overhanging cliff bands.

We did descend the gully directly, required four steep and overhanging rappels; sort of like winter canyoneering ;-)

Crystal Tear 300m, WI3+, M4

Crystal Tear 300m, WI3+, M4. Fun day and first climb with Jordan. Saturday, March 3 we headed to Crystal Tear in upper Grotto Canyon. Had seen this route in the past, nice to get on it. 300m includes all height gain (creek bed to top of ice).




150 m of slogging to base of M4 pitch. I started lead on M4, got a bomber pin, but didn’t have much luck gaining the lower angle ledge above; took a minor lead fall, but pin held.

JR finished off the pitch. JR easily got up the crux ice pitch, a solid 3+ or 4 pitch (35m). Second pitch, easy WI2 or 3, my lead, fun, but too easy; a full 60 metres.

We solo’ed to the final top of ice, then rapped trees and bolted station to base.




Great little route.

Wapta Icefield - Bow to Yoho Traverse | Mont des Poilus

Feb. 11 to 12 completed a modified Bow - Yoho traverse with an ascent of Mont des Poilus with TJ and JW. We started at Bow Lake, crossed the wapta and camped at the base of des Poilus, 7 hrs car to camp.

Solid conditions so we opted to go unroped all day. 

We enjoyed mostly blue bird skies. 

Sunday, we awoke to heavy snow and strong winds. Missed out on views, but our run back to camp (about 500m vertical) had awesome snow conditions; we were 3 hours camp to summit return. 

Headed out via Waterfall Valley to Takakkaw Falls. We meant to avoid coming over the Twin Falls cliff band, but in the end we decided to rap. From Twin Falls we found the summer trail and then pickup a well packed skier trail at Laughing Falls (Little Yoho exit).


From the bivy site out we were about 8 hours; 5 hours camp to Takakkaw Falls via Waterfall Valley and Marpole Lake and about 2.5 hours Takakkaw Falls to car. Awesome trip!!!

GR 405451 (‘Tiara Peak’) - WI2 (120m), South-West slope

Sunday January 8, 2012, I did a long slog up Porcupine Creek, solo climbed a short section of waterfall ice (WI2, 120m) then scrambled the South-West slopes/ridge of “Tiara Peak” (GR 405451).

I parked along the highway was charging up Porcupine Creek by 8:30am, unfortunately the creek bed became quite snowy with boot deep snow, with a very annoying thin, unsupportive top crust that would not support body weight, but did require additional effort to break though; this arduous plod continued for about 3.5 hours.

About four hours after leaving the car, I was swinging my ice tools into the cool little ice fall (GR399445). Not a very difficult climb, but an aesthetically interesting route, with most of the climb formed in between two large tilted slabs. About 120 metres of easy ice climbing ended too soon and so I packed away the tools, had a large lunch and picked a line to access scree on the South West slopes.

The plod was not too bad, deep snow gave way to solid scree, but to my surprise, the slope ended with a difficult (and snowy) down climb to regain the final summit scree slopes.

Final plod to the top was very, very windy and I reached the summit about 6.5 hours from the car. Last summit entry was from September 2011. From the summit I spied what looked like a nice ridge traverse heading North West, back towards the highway. Quick plod down, checking for access to gain the West Face, hoping to try the traverse route. When I reached the location of the down climb, I found relatively easy access to the West Face, so I headed down.

Turned out be very, very sketchy, steep slab covered with pebbles and pockets of verglas and rock hard snow patches. A lot of time and careful scrambling got me to the ridgeline; and so much for a quick ridge walk. Several steep slab gendarme sections presented difficult scrambling, but I eventually reached GR 395458, GR 392456 and GR385460. The descent from the final high point was down a steep drainage, with soft deep snow, but at least the trail breaking was downhill.

Finally reached Porcupine Creek and follow my earlier track, but still took a lot of energy. The last few km’s felt like an eternity, but forced myself to keep a quick pace. All in, 12.5 hours car to car. I decided to name my little first ascent ice route, “Tears of a Crown”, bet it won’t see a lot of traffic.

Ghost - Valley of the Birds (WI3-4)

Finally got out again this month;  I had about 3 or 4 trips cancelled last minute to due partner’s injuries, illness or lack of motivation.  Nice to be climbing again.  Jason, Janice and Pierre and I head to the Ghost for some ice climbing.  With a larger group we decided for a casual day with lots of options for ice climbs and headed to the Valley of the Birds.  Janice and I climbed Albatros (100m WI3) while J and Pierre headed to check out The Eagle.  

Well the Eagle hadn’t landed (bottom not formed, or had melted out) and the boys head to climb the Seagull.  I lead two easy  WI3 pitches on Albatros, very thin and poor quality ice on the first pitch, then hero easy ice on second pitch.  Good fun.

Janice and I rapped off, then all four of us head to Yellow Bird (60m WI4).  Easy first pitch lead to solid WI4 second pitch. J and Pierre lead the second pitch and I was happy to top rope the pumpy pillar, Janice also TR’d this great pitch.  Lots of sun and warm temperatures then cold beer at the truck, great holiday fun!

Ex Slackcountry – Healy Pass

Great first day of the season on skis.  Headed to the extended slackcountry of Sunshine ;-), the Healy Pass area with Martin.

 

Warm temps and bluebird skies made for a nice causal tour into the Healy Pass area.  We followed the well set uptrack to a high point about 1.5 km north of the pass.  Low angled terrain with sparse tress, but fast snow made for a fun couple of laps.

Great day out. 

Planter's Valley - The Peanut Gallery WI4+

November 27 Jason and I headed to the Ghost for my first ice climb of the season.  We hiked into Planter's Valley, a spot where neither of us had been before.


There was a Chinook rolling in, typical situation with high winds in town and in the foothills, and dumping snow in the Main Range.  We lucked out and seemed to be on the edge of the two, no wind, and no snow; until we got a lot of mid afternoon snow.  The hike in felt like spring!  Very warm (+5 ish, 8 am) and no snow on the ground, with a light rain shower.  The first two climbs in the valley were not formed, so we head to the end of the valley, The Peanut Gallery.


The first pitch was about 60 metres of WI 3, my lead.  Generally good ice and my lead felt pretty good and generally pretty easy.

The upper bowl contains many ice and mixed lines, with the primary part of the drainage providing the largest sections of ice.  Further up the valley, the third and fourth pitches had larger and vertical pillars forming, but they had fallen off.

Jason and I spent a few hours on pitch two of Peanut Gallery, with JW leading the vertical, WI4+, pillars.  We climbed two lines, one very wet, one nice and dry.  Did a few top rope laps on the dry pillar.  Great day out with the young gun.

'Mount Schlee' - GR 385168

This summit in the Opal Range had the unofficial name of Mt. Schlee applied by Glen Boles after his team’s first ascent of the peak in 1976 (F.A. D. Forest, G. Scruggs, G. Boles and M. Simpson via South Ridge). 

This beautiful mountain reaches a height of 2850 metres (9,350 ft.) and is the second high point north of Elpoca Mountain, along the main ridgeline of the Opal Range. Gerrit Schlee was a friend of Boles and lost his life trying to save someone drowning in the Bow River in 1975. 



On Friday November 11, Andrew Nugara and I enjoyed this pleasant scramble with some snow and ice thrown in to make this simple ascent a bit more interesting. This peak likely provides great views of the Kananaskis Lakes region and the surrounding Opal’s, but we lost our views at treeline. The start of our day was warmer and calmer than we thought it would be as we left the Elbow Lake parking lot right at 8am.

Quick plod to Elbow Lake and along the main trail heading north beside the Elbow River. We cut over to the “Piper Creek” valley sooner then previous trips and make good time. We pushed onto treeline below our route and had a nice long lunch break. At 10:45 the weather and wind were still good, but increasingly thick and dark clouds would intermittently cover the summits of Elpoca and Rae.

We started our charge up the South East slopes and soon the weather changed for the worst. We lost our view and travelled in near white out conditions, snow began to dump and there was a howling gale. Nearing the summit there a bit of silly talk (Andrew ;-) about turning around, but we pushed on.

In summer conditions, this route would be a moderate scramble; but the rock hard snow and patches of water ice made the route much more difficult. We finally gave in put on crampons about 200 metres below the summit. The snow pack was only about 6 to 8 cm’s thick, but rock hard with the angle varying from 25 to 35 degrees, with sections of pretty good exposure. This icy surface layer would make any new snow quite dangerous if there was a significant amount. The upper SE face was mostly steep slab with thin scree cover, but usually enough for solid footing.

The final summit South Ridge had the odd steep and awkward step, but not too tough. Almost exactly 6 hours from the car, we stood on the very white summit of GR385168 ('Mt. Schlee'). Our stay was short, we quickly searched the cairn for a register, but there was none.

For our descent we wore crampons back to treeline, and this made the descent much safer and quicker. Quick break at our lunch spot and blasted back to the main Elbow trail and out to the car without headlamps. A nice 9.5 hours of very late fall fun.

Mount Victoria – North Summit, North East Ridge

On Saturday, October 8, Ian Hunt and I summited the North Summit of Mt. Victoria via the North Victoria/Collier Peak Col and North East Ridge.  Fantastic day!  I was getting very worried I would not get an 11,000’er in 2011, so this late season summit was a great gift.  Of the 25 11,000 foot summits I have reached, only North Victoria and Mt. Assiniboine were not completed on my first attempt. 

North Vic took me three attempts, third time the charm I guess (hopefully Assiniboine will only be 2 attempts ;-).  I was very happy to reach this cool summit with my old time climber partner Ian.  Although we haven’t done much the last few years, Ian was one of my mentors in my early years of alpine and water fall ice climbing; great to be out with the old guy again.

We left the Lake Louise parking lot at 6:30am, we were roped up and gaining the lower glacier at 9:30am and taking a rest at the schrund at 11:30am.   The upper glacier, most of the slopes below the col, and much of the North East Ridge had knee deep powder, so trail breaking was very tough.  There were isolated pockets of thin top layer wind slab, but the majority of the recent snow was very well bonded to the lower September and summer snow pack.

We gained the Collier/North Vic col by 1:30pm.  Much later than we hoped, but we had a long break, discussed conditions and energy levels and then decided to give’er. We topped out on North Vic about 3:15pm.  Occasional wind gusts pelted us with biting spindrift, but mostly conditions were quite nice.  Short stay, and then we heading down.  Nice to have buckets for the way down.  We were off the glacier at 6pm.

Quick romp back to the parking lot; about 13.5 hours car to car.  I think very good time concerning the huge amount of trail breaking. 

Lovely, lovely day.

Mt. Wintour - South Ridge, Alpine I, 5.4

On Saturday, September 10, the resolute Martin Siddles and I had a fantastic late summer day on little Mt. Wintour (2700m).  We ascended the faint East Ridge to the South Ridge then onto the summit; mostly moderate scrambling with one 30 metre pitch of 5.4 slab just below the summit. 

The Valleyview Road this road is now permanently closed, so we had to park just off the highway and hike up Opal Creek. Good trails on both sides of the creek, but best choice (we discovered on the way out) is to take the left (north side) trail, just where the creek meets the gravel road, up the bank, then up sharp ridge just above the north creek bank.

This trail leads to the gully north (left) of Opal Falls. This gully is loose and steep, but becomes wider and more stable near top. Once above Opal Falls, we found excellent game trails leading into Opal Creek, about 100 metres above creek once on the south slopes of Mt. Wintour.

Continue on good trails to round obvious steep rock buttress on south end of Wintour. Continue rounding north to intersect drainage from East Ridge of Mt. Wintour (about GR 365170) then up steep scree/dirt combo to East Ridge.



Where grass slopes end, head up East Ridge, slightly to right, up easy gully (looks steeper than it really is) and continue up gully to South Ridge. Once on the long summit ridge head north towards obvious summit.

Mostly moderate scrambling, but very, very loose and sections of high exposure. Route finding is easy, just stay on ridge top. From the gully access northward, before the halfway point to the summit, a few sections below the ridge, on the east side, would provide a respite from the high exposure, but we didn’t bother and just travelled on the sharp ridgeline. 

Moderate scrambling, with the odd short section of difficult steps, leads to the crux, about 120 horizontal metres from the summit. A steep rise in the ridge blocks easy travel. Here we stashed the poles and roped up.

We chose a line, left of the centre of the ridge, where a slab meets a steep wall, a good crack provided a belay station with two bomber nuts. Easy slab climbing (5.4) with good protection, with nuts, for 10 metres, then the line tended right onto easy ground (5.2), but no protection until a short corner. Climb short corner (5.4), with sketchy pro to easy ground above (30 metres from belay). Belay off rock piles, some more solid than others.



Easy scrambling to summit. Martin and I were about 4.5 hours to the top. We lounged and enjoyed the windless summit, hot sun and the mega blue bird sky. Back to the car in less than 3 hours from summit, all in, about 8 hours car to car. Great weather, great fun, recommended for a fun and short day of scree and exposure.

Direttissima 325m, 5.8+ (9 pitches)

August 29 climbed Direttissima with Jason Wilcox.  The climb has some new bolted anchors which will increase safety since some of the old piton stations are a bit suspect.  Rest of the route is in "old school" fashion. We only found one other bolt on route that was not an anchor, and it was beside a manky corner that had lots of loose rock.  Lots of old rusty pitons on route as well, most of which we clipped and they seemed solid.

The climbing was full value and then some for 5.8.  The grade of 5.8 should be taken in light of the date of first ascent (1957).  Bow Valley Rock said that "by Yam standards it is easy for its grade" I would disagree, but I haven’t climbed much on Yam. 

Jason and I were both slow and worked hard on our leads; goes without saying Jason lead most of the pitches and all the tough ones, 5.7 or higher.

Looking down the first pitch (5.8+, 50m), upper corner very sustained (old school 5.8) and has polished sections.  

Jason fought a lot of rope drag on pitch 5, much easier on top rope and the slick feet were less of an issue for me to stem up the awkward corner.  

Looking down top of pitch 5 from station.

Looking back at Jason at station 6 when I am leading pitch 7, packed away camera after this shot since the climbing got tougher.

Why doesn't JW have his hands on the rope?

JW grunted his way around the big chockstone, just off the belay staiton, for the start of pitch 9. Stemming was the best option, but the left wall is very slick, again easier for me on TR.  You have to take off your pack for the squeeze through behind the next chockstone, and don't forget to belay the second with a bit of slack in this section, as they will need to reach back down to get their pack.

For gear, we took 12 draws/runners, which I think we used all of them on a few pitches, and we used 0.5-3 cams and med to large nuts.  Any nuts BD size 6 and under we found no use for. You could double up on 0.5, 0.75 and #2 cams, as they seemed to get used a lot.

We had a super hot day to start so the bits of shade were awesome.  Great to follow the tough pitches and top out on the summit.