Smuts, Mount

Published by vdewit on April 29th, 2009

Trip Details

Trip Activity:

Scramble

Attained Summit?:

Yes

Location:

Kananaskis Country

Trip Date:

August 6, 2005

Summit Elevation:

2,938m

Summit Elevation (ft):

9,640ft

Trip Report

On a early (0430) August 6 2005 morning, I joined Dave Stephens and Blair Piggot on a full day trip to scramble Mount Smuts and The Fist in Kananaskis Country. Blair and Dave do a lot of mountaineering and climbing trips together and every once in a while Dave manages to sucker Blair into a scramble.

Dave and I were turned back from summitting Smuts on July 23rd when a strong wind and impending storm forced us to repell back down the ridge after making it about 1/4 way up the 'tough stuff'. There was a reason why Dave and I really wanted to make the summit of Smuts and that was to place the memorial cairn for Van Belliveau who who tragically fell to his death from the summit of Smuts a few weeks earlier.

Mount Smuts has always made me more than a little nervous. The way Kane describes this mountain it's a 'climbers scramble' and 'exhilarating'. I love the whole 'exhilarating' thing but the climbing thing always made me a bit nervous. Lately some people have been posting reports about scrambling Smuts and reading them didn't help my apprehension any! I knew after our unsuccessful attempt that the ridge wasn't as bad as I had made it out to be in my head. I also knew that the super-exposed section of the ridge wasn't nearly as long as I had originally thought.

Saturday morning was a clear and windless one and as we biked from the trailhead we were in good spirits. After ditching the bikes almost 3km in we realized that we could have biked a bit further (to the first falls) but oh well! We quickly made our way along the trail to Smuts Pass and just before the climb to the pass we met up with Bill Kerr and a friend of his. After quick introductions we continued on and following Blair's blistering pace we were on top of the pass only just over an hour from the parking lot! (Blair apparently doesn't believe in the need to stop and catch your breath - he just motored all the way up to the pass with 1.5 stops)

We stopped for a quick snack and drink and then pressed on up the scree slope to the ribs that lead up to the ridge. Right away Dave and I knew that this would be a much better day than two weeks ago. The rock was dry and we could stay to the right of the gully on the slabs which made for quick and fun scrambling. (In other words if you are attempting Smuts and you can't climb the ribs along the climbers right of the gully don't even bother continuing!) Once again, Blair kicked our butts up the mountain and eventually Dave and I joined him on the ridge. My strategy was clear in my head. I already knew the route to the second rap station and from there I was going to go straight up. When I got to the crack that forced the Nugara brothers to go further left I was going to go right. (Kane's route picture shows the route always going to the right.)

Without waiting any longer I started up. The rock was dry, the sun was warm on my face and the breeze was light. I never stopped until I recognized the spot where I was planning to go off to the right. There are actually two cracks here. To get to the right-hand one you have to carefully work your way down a sloping ledge and than climb up the crack. This crack was steep and obviously exposed but I found the rock to be solid and in no time at all I was at the crux - an east-sloping slab that required some friction climbing to navigate up. After this bit of exhilaration I let out a whoop of relief and quickly scrambled up the rest of the nasty stuff till I knew I was onto easier terrain. I apparently went up the ridge very fast. Dave and Blair were nowhere to be seen and they told me later that other than the occasional whoop of excitement from above them they never really saw me till we met on the final summit ridge! I waited for a bit till I could spot Dave and Blair negotiating the tricky slab. I took some pretty cool pictures of the event and soon they caught up with me. Blair told me that since I was in some sort of groove I better keep going to the summit so I quickly took off and was soon standing on top of the infamous Mount Smuts about 2.5 hours after leaving the parking lot.

Dave and Blair joined me at the summit and we proceeded to build Van's memorial cairn. Once I saw the summit area it became obvious where Van had slipped down the west face. There is an area behind the summit cairn that has a short, very steep scree slope which ends in the 400 meter cliff down the west face - any slip in this area would be fatal. After saying a few words for Van we placed his memorial in the cairn and were ready to start down.

The alternate descent is not easy!! After the ridge we were kind of expecting the descent to be a trivial matter but of course it isn't or everyone would simply scramble up to the summit this way! It was a very loose, very steep gully that (in Blair's words) cause some puckering every once in a while! ;-) Eventually we made it out and after traversing slabby terrain we were on the easy slopes curving back to Smuts Pass.

Since we hadn't had enough difficult scrambling for the day (!!) we decided that it was time to bag The Fist while we were in the area anyway...