Summit Elevation (m): 3317
Trip Date: September 12 2015
Elevation Gain (m): 1700
Total Trip Distance (km): 20
Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2/3 – you fall, you sprain or break something
Difficulty Notes: A very remote peak, the main difficulty will be having enough energy to complete it! There are more difficult ascent options if you want them.
Technical Rating: SC6; YDS (3rd)
GPS Track: Gaia
Map: Google Maps
After a spectacular day spent approaching and ascending Mount Willis, Eric Coulthard and I awoke at sunrise to a beautifully clear day on Saturday, September 12 2015. We were quite eager to ascend the lofty summit of Mount Stewart that we’d been staring at for a good portion of the previous day. We were pretty sure that Stewart was an easy scramble from photos we’d taken from the summit of Cirrus Mountain to the west. The issue with Stewart wasn’t going to be the technical difficulties of the climbing; it’s the remoteness of the peak and the access to its easy southwest slopes that present the challenge. From our camp we had two choices for routes to the mountain. We could try to maintain elevation and traverse Stewart’s slopes above tree line for several kilometers before turning sharply left and ascending easy south slopes. Or we could try to find the trail that presumably runs down the valley along Cataract Creek to Pinto Lake that Eric missed last time he descended the valley while on a school trip. They ended up bushwhacking the entire valley to Pinto Lake and only realized there was a trail on the other side of the creek when they got to the camp! Good times…
We decided to let fate decide our approach route. We’d cross the valley towards an unnamed peak just north of Mount Stewart. If we crossed an obvious trail along the way, we’d turn further down valley and follow it until we got closer to Stewart. If we didn’t cross a trail we’d traverse above tree line instead. The air was surprisingly warm as we set off, still slightly stiff from the exertions the day before.
Our first navigational error involved an old moraine just south of camp which we ascended before having to lose height to a few stream crossings below. As we grunted up a steep stream bed and started off towards a long and tiresome traverse we had no way of knowing just how close fate had brought us to the trail… We kept traversing along the east side of the valley on a mix of grass, scree and annoying rubble. Making this traverse a real grind were the many gullies that we had to cross along the way – some being much more problematic than others. The common theme with the gullies was the slabby terrain that each presented. The terrain ranged from easy to difficult and we had to find our way around each one either by ascending or descending. Something I’ve come to understand over the past few years is that once you graduate from common hikes, scrambles and climbs with partial, or complete trails towards more remote peaks and backcountry traveling, you must get used to gaining and losing elevation and side-hilling as you travel. This is necessary when there is are no trails. You gain and lose height because it’s impossible to know exactly what the micro terrain is like no matter how good you are at reading a map or planning a route. You side-hill because this is key to avoiding nasty bushwhacking. I think of routes like Recondite, Alexandra, Totem Creek and Fortress (where we didn’t traverse and paid for it dearly). The bottom line is, if you can’t handle a bit of pain and suffering you should forget about traveling in remote areas of the Canadian Rockies. You won’t like it at all.
Thankfully the Cirrus Ramparts were stunning across the valley and the hours slipped by until I realized I was far enough south that I could double back and ascend the SSW slopes all the way up to the summit. As I scrambled and hiked up the easy terrain I saw that Eric scrambled up earlier than myself on harder slabs and cliffs. He later admitted that my route was better for descent. Rick Collier also scrambled up further north on harder terrain when he ascended this peak in 2008.
It was tough looking up the never-ending scree slope above me – knowing full well that I had to be higher than every other summit around before I could even think about being at the apex. Again, it was one foot at a time, carefully placed on slippery scree or kicking steps up fresh snow until I noticed some of the smaller peaks were now beneath me.
Once I could see over the ridge to the valley beyond I was once again treated to sublime alpine views that few people have seen much less traveled in. The terrain kept going up and up and up. The final few slopes had dizzying exposure off the east side and I worried that we might run into nasty terrain but that never happened. I was delighted to spot the summit cairn and traversed over to it, hoping to find an old register with few names.
I could clearly see an old tin register in the cairn when I looked inside. I was super excited as I gently pried it open. I’ve found one other register like this on a rarely ascended mountain and that register was no longer readable. This one was. I was disheartened to read a fresh entry from August 2015! Seriously?! What were the odds that someone else chose to ascend this remote peak this year? Oh well. I have to come to terms that more and more remote peaks are being ascended as folks become tired of full registers and familiar trip reports.
Their note indicated that all they found was the empty tin can. I added our names to the single sheet of paper and put it in a Ziploc bag to help it last a bit longer. The views were stunning from this lofty peak. Mount Stewart is also quite a bit higher than indicated in most sources that I could find. My GPS has been pretty reliable with elevations and measured it at 3317m. The other entry in the register had it at 3306m. Any peak over 10,850 feet is quite high for the Canadian Rockies. There was quite a bit more cloud than on Mount Willis the day before but the views didn’t suffer much as a consequence. The wind was chilly and it looked like the weather was changing (as predicted) so we started our descent.
On return, Eric refused to side-hill again, putting his faith 100% in finding the Cataract Creek trail. I was a bit dubious with this plan as we hadn’t seen a trail that morning and he hadn’t actually hiked on it before either. I stayed up high while he dropped down to the right into the valley. Before he got into thicker bush I decided I should join him to keep things safer and bee-lined as quick as possible down the slopes and into the scrub. It was quite bad in there. I found myself yelling for Eric and completely buried in thick bush. This wasn’t good! I pushed on and was very relieved to finally hear him yelling back that he had found the trail! Yes. We followed a fairly obvious trail up the valley. Every once in a while it would fade in marshy terrain or Grizzly diggings which were everywhere but then we’d find it back. At one point there was an opening down to Cataract Creek on our left with a cairn beckoning us down. The problem was that the obvious trail we were on continued directly up the valley. What to do? The river wouldn’t be easy to cross here, so we continued on the obvious trail. Later on we figured out that the trail we stuck to leads up to Cline Pass. The cairn we spotted likely marks the place where the trail links up towards Cataract Pass from the valley but there must be a river crossing involved.
With more daylight left than the day before we rolled into camp around 17:00 with lots of time to relax and make dinner. The sky was threatening as we turned in. Eric confidently pronounced the rain wouldn’t start “until midnight”. Five minutes later the patter of raindrops on the mid walls started! The surprise came a few minutes later when the lightning show began. I wasn’t expecting that in September. For the first hour or so the lightning stayed in the clouds and there was little or no thunder. Then it started hitting ground. It’s always an interesting experience being high in the alpine during a thunderstorm with nothing but a see-through space age material holding the elements back. We survived the night, and when I woke at 06:00 there was no more rain and the sky was clearing.
The hike back up Cataract Pass from camp was interesting. Of course by “interesting”, I mean, “tiring”! Another interesting thing is the naming. “Cataract Pass” is nowhere near “Cataract Peak”. It’s also nowhere near “Cataract Creek”. What’s with that? Same goes for “Brazeau River” and “Nigel Pass”. I digress, but one thinks of such things when one is exhausted…
Lactic acid was building nicely in my lower legs by the time we finally followed the last cairn over the pass and back down towards the magical terrain along the Brazeau River leading to Nigel Pass.
The rest of the hike out to Nigel Pass and from there to the parking lot was pleasant under a mix of sun and clouds and with brilliant fall colors lighting up the natural world in all directions around us. We were each lost in thought as we progressed back to the real word after a few days spent in paradise.
I think I’ve found a new area to call my “favorite”. The White Goat Wilderness ticks a lot of boxes for me. It’s gorgeous. It’s wild. It’s remote. It is largely unreported and unknown (at least to me). If nothing else, Eric and I had yet another great trip. We both commented that this one might not eclipse our Mount Amery trip, but it came mighty close to it and that says something.
What memories. I was part of that Brathay Exploration Group climb in 1979. So many memories. A copy of that written note would be most appreciated please.
Hey Phil, that’s so cool! Unfortunately I never find that written note- a photo of it was shared with me by another climber who found it later.
Hi, Brathey Exploration Group Canada 1979, 3 weeks in the White Goat Wilderness. So off to Canada. The expedition is led by Graeme Barrow who had been working in Edmonton and meeting with some Parks Canada staff had found that they where planning to carry out some mapping in the White Goat Wilderness. Their plan was to take a helicopter and drop into the area for a day or two and fly out again. Graham talked them into allowing us to do an extensive survey in a valley close to the head of the Macdonald Creek. Main studies being plotting features on aerial photo maps, climbing the main peaks in the vicinity and grading their difficulty, conduct a vegetation transect survey across the valley, record any wildlife sightings and generally explore an area of wilderness very rarely visited. The Canadians leap at the idea as they say, have no chance of being able to provide people and time to carry out any survey work of this sort of intensity.
Friday 17th July we head west from Edmonton, finally reach the end of the line, stopping at a remote spot where the Nigel Pass trail heads off towards the Brazeau river, the start of the trail to the White Goat Wilderness, well actually a lay-by on the roadside. Ok so where is the path, there isn’t one, it wouldn’t be a wilderness if there were paths everywhere. Boots on, rucksacs on and at 7pm in the cool of the evening we head out through young birch woodland following the Brazeau river upstream for a couple of hours and biviy camp overnight. The walk becomes steeper and more difficult as we enter virgin pinewoods, our Canadian friends tell us to watch out for wildlife, bears. Oh great, not only are we in thick forest, but also have bears for company, (didn’t tell us that last night), so that’s why they have those silly bells on their rucksacs. In true British fashion we make a lot of noise, we will scare any bears away. The climb becomes quite difficult as we now need to climb over fallen trees and cross streams and gullies using fallen trees as bridges. Slowly the trees start to become smaller as we reach the 6000ft tree line, the height at which the trees stop growing at this latitude in Canada. Finally reach the summit pass and we look down into the head of the Macdonald range. All around we can see jagged rock and ice peaks of the Rockies, an awe inspiring sight. Reaching our base campsite partially chosen by inspection of aerial photos and a bit of luck at 4pm on Saturday 18th July. The site is amongst willow scrub at 2230m with splendid views across the wide open basin at the headwaters of the McDonald Creek, backed by steep rock and scree rising to 3000m.
With enough food to last us until Tuesday, we where all relieved when the helicopter arrived on Monday evening with the first part of our food supplies. In the short time we had been here we had seen our first Mountain Sheep, Wolverine, Moose and Grizzly Bear. The Wolverine came into our camp one night and ate some of our dried egg, as non of us liked this egg it was not a great loss, but we did need to rethink where we kept our food supply. A boulder larder was quickly constructed. Oh yes the Grizzly bear, a mother with two cubs seen less than a kilometre away, watched with a mixture of fascination, excitement and apprehension by us all. The arrival of the helicopter caused them to take flight. The Canadians in the group where all for leaving the area altogether, saying.
‘We can’t stay if there’s a Grizzly near, and defiantly not one with cubs’
‘But why, it’s gone.
‘You don’t understand, troublesome Bears who are used to people in the National Park nearby are removed and taken to the Wilderness areas.
‘Like this area’.
‘Yes’.
We somehow convinced them to stay.
A couple of days later a few of us are exploring an area a mile from camp on the edge of the tree line, stopping by a small tarn, primus out and brew on, when out from the trees across the water comes our Grizzly with her two cubs. I have yet to see another group pack up and leave so quick.
To explore the area and gather data for the Parks Department we divided ourselves into four groups, Botanists, Geomorphologists, Mountaineers and Hikers. I was in the mountain group, although we all contributed to all the projects. Climbing many of the local rocky and glacial peaks, largely unnamed. The highest and most notable being an ascent of Mount Stewart (3258m), which involved a 3am start to cross glacial ice and return at 11pm, A hard climb which taxed us all, especially when crossing a large rock, which the last man across dislodge it and we sat watching this piece of rock weighing over a ton roll on and on down the mountain side. We managed ascents of five major peaks and three subsidiary’s recording the severity of different routes and assessing the mountaineering potential of the area. Most of the local peaks are quite crumbly making assents and descents tricky trying not to slip or cause land slides. We also find that whilst most of the maps have been drawn from arial photographs, they prove not too accurate in the location of paths, when following a route one day presents us with a 100 foot vertical climb. Looking across from our campsite the vegetation is predominantly Dwarf willow scrub, with patches of colourful Indian Paintbrush flowers. Happy days.
I never got back to the White Goat Wilderness, although we had a family ski holiday in 2007, around Banff, Lake Louise and Jasper
Wow! Thanks for sharing this cool story Phil! So neat to read about these things. I wonder what other “unnamed” peaks in the area you ascended? Willis? Afternoon? Thanks again for sharing.
Names of peaks, apart from Afternoon peak I don’t think any others in our area had names. Just been digging out my old maps, second edition 1:50000 Job Creek and first edition 1:250000 Brazaeu. We spent most of our time towards the head of the McDonald Creek. Climbing Afternoon peak and most of the peaks in the area and just south of that, from my maps unnamed. On my maps some have spot heights, 2692m, 3148m others nothing, maybe since 1979 some have now been given names. Mount Stewart was our highest, route taken via Cline pass.
We did try Mount Victoria from Lake Louise, but beaten back by electric storm, when your ice axe starts to sing you get down quick.
I still have a large collection of large sheet maps of the area given to us by the Parks Canada staff, all 1st or 2nd edition, not a trail or path on them, maps first produced from 1950’s 60’s and 70’s.
Good to see the area is still a challenge to get into, may it stay that way
Hi Any chance of emailing me a copy of the Brathey Exploration Group photo please
Sure! It’s quite damaged and not a great photo but you can find it at https://verndewit.zenfolio.com/p344717444/h8c6fc01a#h8c6fc01a.
Thanks. What I would like is a copy I can print off for my records