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Trip Report

As part of our Mount Olive trip to the Wapta on February 11 2006, we thought we'd give St. Nicholas Peak a shot at the same time while we were all the way up there anyway...

As we made our way past St. Nick on the way up to the Olive / Nicholas col Jason and I grew more and more apprehensive about doing the Nicholas extension in the 25 minutes (to the summit) that Raff had been promising us - it looked like a very serious climb! As we stared at the peak from Olive about 2 hours later we were growing even more doubtful about making St. Nick this day.

After ascending both peaks of Mount Olive, we arrived back at the col with tired legs but charged up to try Nicholas. After some deliberation we decided that we wouldn't even take the rope and left our packs at the col. We decided that we would go along the ridge until the going got dangerous or we felt unsafe.

Once on the ridge the climbing was exhilarating and fun. With crampons and ice axe we never did feel unsafe and were soon scrambling up the crux - a very steep and exposed snow / ice gully that had some rock handholds on climbers left which helped provide some feeling of security.

We topped out to another glorious summit view and after some quick pictures it was time to head down so we could be out to the bow lake parking lot by nightfall. It had taken us about 20-25 minutes from the col to the summit.

The crux was very interesting on the way down but thankfully short. In no time we were back at the col and ready for a fantastic ski down the Wapta.

	St. Nicholas Peak as seen from the Bow Hut.
	St. Nicholas as seen from the descent ridge of North Olive.
	St. Nicholas' ridge from the col.
	Mount Collie as seen from the Olive / St. Nick col.
	Vern at the Olive / St. Nick col with the scary looking ridge to the summit behind him.
	Jason traverses the first bump on the ridge.
	A view down to our ski track on the Wapta from high on St. Nicholas' ridge.
	Jason at the summit of St. Nicholas Peak.
	Raff on the summit.
	Vern at the summit with the two summits of Mount Olive behind me.
	If you don't like exposure you either won't be here or you'll at least have a rope attached!
	You want to be veeerrrrrrry careful on this move... ;-)
	Jason on the crux downclimb. You have to be wearing crampons here at the very least. A rope would probably be prudent in most situations.
	Raff comes down the airy ridge.
	More exposure on the ridge. It was very exhilarating to say the least!