Summit Elevation (m): 2935, 2984
Elevation Gain (m): 2400
Trip Time (hr): 10
Total Trip Distance (km): 25
Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 3/4 – you fall, you break something or worse
Difficulty Notes: A fall on the crux would severely injure or kill so take necessary precautions.
Technical Rating: SC7; YDS (4th)
GPS Track: Gaia
Map: Google Maps
I took a few months off in the summer of 2009 and spent many good days with my family and extended family. Towards the end of the summer I realized that my time off was coming to an end and I should take a week to climb some peaks and spend some time alone to ponder life and my future. On Monday, August 31 2009 I decided to attempt Pilot Mountain and Mount Brett as a day trip. Both of these mountains are rated ‘difficult’ by Alan Kane and both of them deserve this rating. I knew that I was in for a long day and was hesitant about doing it solo but sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith and go with it – and I’m glad I did!
Since running into a bear on Cascade the Saturday before I was a bit nervous about this but knew that I could handle the situation so that helped too. I decided to follow Bob Spirko’s directions for Pilot, simply because I would spend more time on my bike, especially handy on the descent from Mount Brett after a long day. Bob indicates that the second drainage is not easy to spot from the trail and he’s right. I didn’t bring a GPS and didn’t have an odometer on my bike either so I kind of had to ‘wing it’ as far as Bob’s detailed descriptions of the trail head. Luckily there have been a few more ascents of this route and I had Bob’s picture of where he started. By comparing Bob’s picture to the cairned spot I knew that this had to be the place and started up a small trail on the right hand side of the over-grown drainage. Soon I spotted a pink ribbon and was gratified to know I wasn’t lost yet! I found the pink ribbons on the rest of the route very helpful and also kind of humorous – there’s a LOT of them.
The faint trail is very faint. Without the ribbons in some sections I would have lost it, but the terrain will guide you to the right place. In general you stick to the climber’s right of the gully – quite close to the edge with occasional plunges into the forest for no particular reason. When I got to the rock slide I was guided across by a pink ribbon again.
Soon after the rock slide, I encountered the steep cliff face with the two treed ledge options. I went up to the second ledge as Bob suggests and it worked really well. I would suggest staying as high as you can as you contour around the cliff face – just don’t go on any crazy difficult terrain because it’s unnecessary. When I was done contouring around the cliff to climber’s right I eventually spotted the cliff that the Kane route traverses underneath and then the pinnacle that I headed towards.
After the pinnacle the route is fairly obvious although I certainly didn’t find that there were as many cairns as Bob seemed to encounter.
The rock flake wasn’t the crux for me – it was protected and moderate at most. The section after the flake was in my mind, the difficult part. It consisted of exposed slab with lots of very loose debris just waiting to throw me off the mountain. I really had to concentrate both on the way up and down. It’s easy to get off route here and end up on some really exposed terrain that would no longer be scrambling.
The summit is surprisingly spacious on Pilot. I got a good view of Mount Brett (it looked very far away!!) and my possible route over to it from Pilot. The smoke spoiled my views a bit but it was a gorgeous, windless, sunny and warm summit and I had the whole Massive range to myself so I wasn’t about to complain.
I carefully descended the crux after the summit and made my way back down towards the pinnacle and my route over to Mount Brett.
After ascending Pilot Mountain I decided to take advantage of the long approach up the Redearth valley by bagging Mount Brett while I was in the area anyway. I have to say – this is a long day. When Kane says you’ll be bagged afterwards, he’s not kidding! After descending into the valley between Pilot and Brett I was left with almost 1000 meters of height gain and some difficult terrain to negotiate – and it was a hot day which didn’t help the energy levels. That would leave me with a total of 2500 meters of height gain in a remote area on difficult terrain. It was an awesome day but probably not something I’ll repeat too often – especially as a solo objective.
The route is fairly straightforward. Descend into the valley either right under the pinnacle or you can traverse up high on Pilot to skier’s left and drop into the valley a bit further up. Either way leaves you with a trudge up to the lower ridge on Brett.
The scrambling on Brett is certainly harder than on Pilot. I ended up going around the second down climb on climber’s right without realizing I was bypassing the down climb – I simply followed the terrain and ended up there. I didn’t enjoy it though. It’s still very exposed and it’s loose and down sloping.
It was a nice surprise to arrive at the summit, since I was still expecting the down climb! The views were excellent and I spent some time at the summit enjoying my accomplishments of the day. I even had a phone conversation with Kevin Papke at the summit! I had to return all the way to the parking lot so eventually I reluctantly started my descent.
The crux that I by-passed on the way up is actually more exposed if you go over it on the way back. I found myself clinging rather desperately to a questionable hold while my feet sought solid ground for a few moments! I’m still not sure which way I prefer, I’m just glad I’m done it. I would do the alternate descent that Kane mentions (and that I failed to notice when I read the description) for the safest option.
The rest of the walk to my bike was uneventful except for a few nervous moments when my tired brain mistook a large grey rock for a grizzly. (I nearly pepper sprayed it when it refused to move! )
The bushwhack to the Redearth road was a bit of a drag and I found myself wondering what the heck I was doing out there on my own but eventually I did make it back to my bike. The ride out was fast and fun. My round trip time of 10 hours wasn’t even that bad, but it felt a lot longer. I would highly recommend doing these two mountains together if you can handle the long day of difficult scrambling and the elevation gains.
