Nigel Peak

Published by vdewit on April 27th, 2009

Trip Details

Trip Activity:

Scramble

Attained Summit?:

Yes

Location:

Banff National Park

Trip Date:

September 14, 2007

Summit Elevation:

3,211m

Summit Elevation (ft):

10,535ft

Trip Report

My brother, Rod, decided that he needed some exercise this fall so he flew down from Winnipeg for some peak bagging fun on Thursday September 13 2007. After looking at the weather forecast I decided that we should try something with a fabulous view. We settled on Nigel Peak with an option of also doing Mount Wilcox if we had the energy.

Early Friday found us bombing down the highway, with a clear sky beckoning. On our way past Mount Temple I was very pleasantly surprised by the lack of snow on the scramble route. I commented to Rod that he may want to conserve some of his energy because tomorrow was likely going to be another big day...

After a pleasant drive down the ice fields parkway we arrived at the Wilcox campground and proceeded up the well used Wilcox Pass trail. After about 5 minutes we cut off trail onto some very steep, grassy slopes. Once at the top of this steep slope we could clearly see our objective and headed towards it. You can clearly see the scree trail to the left of a deep channel in the slope. To the right of the trail and left of the channel is the best route up. This will involve bits of slabby terrain mixed with bits of scree bashing. The good part is that the scrambling is quite solid as long as you stick to the slabs. The bad part is that as soon as you wander off the slabs you will hate life.

Without rushing, but maintaining a good pace we topped out at the col after about 2 hours from the car. The views were amazing in all directions and we were still 400 vertical meters from the summit! A trail could be seen clearly going up the north bowl towards the northeast ridge which we would follow to the summit. There was no snow in the bowl so we proceeded easily across and up the well defined trail.

Once on the northeast ridge things got a little bit more interesting. For the sake of saving weight in my pack (because we were planning on two peaks) I left my crampons in the car and only had my axe. This was ok except for a few places on the final ridge where crampons would have felt more secure. The fresh snow was hiding where the glacier started so I carefully probed with my trekking pole before each step. The only problem areas were a steep snow slope just to climber's left of the ridge crest and right at the very top under the summit cap. Both areas weren't too bad but a slip and slide would have you plummeting down the east glacier over some nasty drop off. The snow was soft enough that I think we would have stopped in time to avoid the serious fall but you never know...

Once on the summit we were treated to some of the best views I've ever had in the Rockies! My summit panorama shows at least 22 peaks over 11,000 feet!

The trip back down to the meadows was largely uneventful and easy on loose scree. Rod slipped coming off the summit block but the snow was soft enough that he could plant his feet and stop from sliding out of control.

Once we got to the lower scree slope on Nigel we began traversing towards Mount Wilcox to try our second peak of the day...