Summit Elevation (m): 2595, 2515
Trip Date: June 13 2015
Elevation Gain (m): 1500
Round Trip Time (hr): 10.5
Total Trip Distance (km): 31
Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2 – you fall, you sprain something
Difficulty Notes: Only difficulties are route finding and the large gains and distances involved.
Technical Rating: SC6
GPS Track: Gaia
Map: Google Maps
Ever since I first biked the Big Elbow loop in the front ranges of Kananaskis Country along the Sheep and Elbow Rivers I was interested in scrambling Threepoint Mountain and Mount Rose. I’m not sure why, but these two peaks kept coming up in conversations. While scrambling Cougar Mountain in 2010, I remember looking over at the two mountains and wondering if they could be done together. On May 31 2015 I scrambled Bluerock Mountain and found myself gazing once again at Rose and Threepoint, wondering about them. When Phil Richards sent me a PM on ClubTread asking if I’d be interesting in giving Threepoint and Rose a go, I couldn’t resist. Our first plan fell through due to my laziness at getting up early, but with the weather looking like it might allow us to sneak in a trip on Saturday, June 13 if we left early enough, we made plans to leave the trailhead at 05:30.
After dodging at least 4 or 5 deer on the way to the trailhead, I finally met Phil and we hopped on our mountain bikes for the approach ride up the Elbow River. Phil had recently ridden the road for about 6km with his wife, so we knew it was in decent shape to that point. I haven’t biked much this year but the old muscles came back and soon I was huffing and puffing my way uphill – my heart felt like it was going to jump out of my chest after the first big uphill! Thank goodness it didn’t. We got some nice morning views of Threepoint along the trail before coming to a very washed out section. We navigated this section but soon came to a point where the old road is completely gone – washed out by the 2013 floods. At this point we could have biked another 2km or so before cutting left to Threepoint, but with the washouts and navigation headaches ahead, we decided to simply abandon the bikes and start our hike.
The first job we had was crossing the Elbow. It was pretty tame at this point and we crossed without going deeper than around our knees. From this point we had to stick to climber’s left of the river which meant a few side excursions through flood debris and along trashed river banks. Eventually we found ourselves directly under the west end of Threepoint’s NW ridge and started working our way up through light forest towards it. From the bottom we could spot broken cliff bands above – the same ones shown in Nugara’s book. Instead of following his line, we went further climber’s right (south) and managed to find a break through the bands lower down before heading straight up towards the pinnacle high above steep scree slopes. This section was a grunt! When we got close to the pinnacle / first summit, we trended climber’s left on Nugara’s route line again, before breaking through the scree ascent slope and onto the ridge proper, just east of the pinnacle.
The view to the main summit and the surrounding area was excellent. What a morning we were having! We were enjoying much better weather than expected, especially the wind was much calmer than I thought it would be. On the drive up, I noticed a lot of fresh snow on Bluerock, but we got lucky with very little ice / snow on our route.
The ridge and final ascent slope on Threepoint looked a bit intimidating, but as usual once we got our noses in it, the terrain was no more than easy scrambling. After a glorious ridge walk and steep ascent we found ourselves on the first summit of the day at the early hour of 09:45 with excellent views in every direction.
We both knew that our day wasn’t over yet – we wanted to try the route to Mount Rose before the weather moved in. After a quick bite to eat and some summit photos, it was time for the real test of the day, finding a route from Threepoint Mountain to Mount Rose.
Mount Rose
After a fairly straightforward route to the summit of Threepoint Mountain it was time to explore. Nugara is pretty sure in his guidebooks that there is “no direct route” from Threepoint over to Mount Rose, it’s shorter neighbor to the south. He’s right, of course. There is no direct scramble route. But when there’s no direct route what do you do? Obviously you scout around a bit and look for an indirect one. The thing with Mount Rose is that while it’s a nice enough little summit, surrounded by some very nice terrain, it’s not really the sort of mountain you want to dedicate a whole day to ascend.
Phil and I both remarked more than once that if we didn’t get Rose with Threepoint we wouldn’t be coming back for it any time soon. From the summit of Threepoint, there were a few obvious gullies to try on the ridge splitting south (skier’s left) off the west ridge that Nugara recommends using for an alternate descent. We knew that the long band of cliffs running along this ridge were huge and even overhanging so the odds of these gullies working were slim. We also figured that for sure Nugara would have tried them – although if he did Threepoint in the winter he may not have bothered.
If the gullies didn’t go we were prepared to descend all the way to tree line before crossing a creek and re-ascending Rose. This would involve hundreds of meters of height loss / regain and we weren’t that keen on the idea. Clouds were also building and we knew that it could easily be raining in a few hours. We easily descended the west ridge before cutting off to the left towards some obvious gullies. The first gully we checked looked very steep. Low 5th class for sure. Phil went a bit closer for a look, while I checked out the gully slightly further south. At first the gully looked impossible. Then I gave it a closer inspection and it started looking feasible. An even closer inspection made it look dead-easy. Excellent! A short moderate scramble and we were through. “All” that was left now was a long side hill traverse and climb back up to Mount Rose.
The long side hill traverse to Rose wasn’t nearly as bad as we thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong – it sucked, it just sucked less than expected. The scree was reasonably stable compared to the stuff we ascended Threepoint on, and the distance wasn’t as much as we thought either. Looking up at the summit block we found ourselves once again wondering if this was going to remain easy / moderate scrambling but we suspected it would be, based on our experience on Threepoint. We were mostly right. We stuck to the ridge and ended up on some moderate / exposed terrain just before the summit.
We could have easily avoided this on climber’s right but didn’t feel like it. It was the most enjoyable scrambling of the day, to be honest. The summit views were cloudier than Threepoint’s, but of course similar. I really love the green meadows in this area – I can see why it’s heaven for sheep (and cougars).
After snapping some photos and grabbing some lunch (yes, it was only around noon – you gotta love early starts!) we started the long trek back. We descended the west ridge of Rose to near treeline before cutting down towards the creek, but staying high above it on skier’s left to avoid boulder hopping and the rushing water below. I was nervous about conditions in Cougar Creek, but when we finally got there, the creek started out very wide and easy to walk along.
Eventually our luck ran out and for the next few kilometers we had to ascend / descend along Cougar Creek on the right (east) side, roughly following an old horse / sheep trail. We even found evidence of a few old camps along the way. The terrain was a bit challenging, but beautiful. We finally managed to get back to our up-track and followed the GPS back to our river crossing shoes and our bikes. The ride out was fast and fun.
I highly recommend Threepoint and Rose as a combination in the direction we did it (thrashing up Cougar Creek would not be a good way to start your day). The views are great, the terrain is fairly easy and these two mountains should be accessible for a good part of the year, considering their front range locations.
