Summit Elevation (m): 2453
Trip Date: March 05 2016
Elevation Gain (m): 1500
Round Trip Time (hr): 11
Total Trip Distance (km): 25
Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2/3 – you fall, you sprain or possibly break something (east ridge route).
Difficulty Notes: By “Kane standards”, this is a moderately difficult scramble with some route finding. Easiest route is via Association col on ascent or if just doing End, ascend and descend the east gully system which is moderate. NOTE: If doing the traverse via west slopes to Association Peak, there is a steep chimney to negotiate which is low 4th class.
Technical Rating: SC6; YDS (3rd)
GPS Track: Gaia
Map: Google Maps
On Saturday, March 05 2016 Mike Mitchell (Giant’s Gate Journeys) and I left my truck (parked the wrong way on a one way for some reason…) at the Yamnuska parking lot and headed off up an obscure cut line on an adventure to scramble End Mountain and hopefully Association Peak and Hill along the way. Alan Kane and Kris Thorstenstein scrambled both of these peaks in 1989 via the Yamnuska (Yam) shoulder, and for some reason neither of them appeared in Kane’s scramble book. Apparently the latest & greatest way to approach these two mountains on the eastern front ranges is to access them from easy approach roads via First Nation’s land to the east with a free permit that must be obtained beforehand. Since Mike and I didn’t have a permit, we chose to access them the semi-hard way – via the Yam shoulder and old roads around the east end of the shoulder. Back in 2008, Raf Kazmierczak followed Bob Spirko’s 2007 ascent route up Association Peak and attempted to traverse the ridge to End Mountain, roughly 1.5 kilometers to the north. Raf confidently stated that the traverse was “not doable” due to a series of large gaps requiring technical mountaineering and a “mother of all gaps” stopping even a roped team from continuing. At the time, Raf indicated that he was going to attempt the SE ridge next, which looked to be “less than 5.5 climbing” – but obviously still looked fairly intimidating from his angle on the upper ridge.
Fast forward to June of 2014 and Raf was back at it – determined to bag End from Association! And he did! By utilizing an impressive route around a large ledge system on the west side of the traverse from Association to End, Raf and his group managed to squeeze their way up a rock chimney to access the rubbly summit slope of End and tag the peak via a ‘new’ (not widely published) scramble route. For some reason I didn’t read of too many folks attempting this new route until Phil Richards and some friends did a combined run / scramble of Association and End in an extremely fast 8.5 hour day via the Yam shoulder in late February 2016 and found another ‘new’ (unpublished) moderate scrambling route down the east face of End just south of the east ridge – no 5.5 climbing necessary.
Thanks to social media, it would only take a week or so before hordes of eager scramblers, including myself and Mike (and at least 3 others already), would take advantage of Phil’s trip report of the new, easier route to the summit of End Mountain via the east face / ridge. I’m not sure why Association and End are so popular but folks seem eager to bag them in the scrambling / hiking off-season. I think it must be pent up scrambling energy combined with the fact that these two peaks are both easily visible and impressive from hwy 1 when approaching the Rockies from the east. I’ve done the Yam shoulder height gain / loss several times including for Wendell, East End of Wendell and even Association Peak. I was wary of the long, tiring approach and was surprised myself that I was doing it yet AGAIN after swearing it off the last time! I told Mike that although I was keen on tagging End, I was not going to ascend Association for a second time. Initially the plan was that we would ascend End up the east face / ridge rather than descending it, and then Mike would proceed to Association Peak while I would descend our ascent route and tag Association Hill before we’d meet up again lower down on the approach trail.
I remembered the general theme of the approach route that Bill, Wietse and I took on Association Peak back in 2013, but thanks to a data purge on my part, the GPS track was lost to me which resulted in us making some minor navigation errors. The gist of the shortcut route over the Yam shoulder is to use a cut line on the very edge of the Provincial Park boundary to gain height about halfway up the shoulder before trending climber’s right around the east nose of the shoulder on lightly forested / open grassy slopes. Once around the nose, there are several old roads that can be used to navigate down to Old Fort Creek. From the creek bed the route is obvious and eventually joins with the more traditional Yam shoulder route. The morning flew by pretty quickly until we hit the old roads, which were covered in a disappointing amount of snow. The forest beside the roads was almost completely melted out. Thankfully there were some old animal and snowshoe tracks that supported our weight, but it did slow us down a bit. Once we finally descended to Old Fort Creek we had a great view of all three destinations ahead of us – a LONG way ahead! We followed the dry creek bed and flowing stream up valley before taking the obvious trail (cairn in the creek bed to the left of it) to the Association col between the peak and the hill. My dumb knees were feeling a bit weak all day already to this point but I decided my cardio was still good so stubbornly pushed on.
The road from the col down towards End Mountain was again, covered in snow. As a matter of fact, the bowl between the lower Association and End slopes had quite a bit of snow in it and we ended up in knee deep patches on our traverse towards the northeast end of End. The route was pretty obvious to this point and there were many approach options. Gullies along the way added some interesting bits of terrain.
Once I arrived at the bottom of the SE gully off the east ridge of End, I carefully followed Phil’s GPS track towards impressive pinnacles towering high above. A traverse between two lower ridges took us across a steep, icy drainage. Make sure you catch this traverse as the drainage could be problematic to cross higher up, especially with snow and ice like we had. The obvious pinnacle soaring above us was a great route marker as we slowly gained height beside it on climber’s right, but still well to the left of the east ridge proper. We gained height on loose scree and grass before heading right to the edge of the east ridge to check out the rest of the route from there.
From the east ridge proper, we had great views north to Black Rock and Phantom Craig but our view of the east ridge was very intimidating’ Thanks to Phil’s route description and GPS track, we knew that we had to traverse climber’s left under some serious cliff bands, and pick our way up to the summit of End, through loose gullies and under several pinnacles and cliff bands.
Even with a GPS track, we managed to get off route a few times due to the tight terrain, but keeping in mind that the route is only ‘moderate’ scrambling, we managed to find our way through. I built several cairns to assist myself on descent as Mike would be needing my GPS to continue on to Association afterwards. There were some slabby, slightly exposed sections through here that had serious consequences for a slip. I recommend only small experienced groups tackle this route – especially if you are descending it ‘blind’ – i.e. coming down without going up first. For reference, Association Peak is extremely easy hiking compared to End.
The final open scree slope to the summit was a bit of a drag, but soon we were standing on the summit of End Mountain with great views in all directions. Dark clouds were looming to the west, but didn’t seem very close at this point so we didn’t worry about it. Even the infamous Chinook winds were pretty tame and we enjoyed a quick break before continuing our separate ways.
Just as Mike was leaving for his traverse to Association, I had a change of heart and decided the better option was for me to join him, rather than go back down End on my own. There were two reasons for my decision. Number one was the safety factor. We’re both experienced scramblers but separating our paths, this far from the car and with all the navigation issues involved in both routes had me concerned. Number two was the fact that the ledge traverse looked fun and interesting, while the return via the east ridge of End to the Association col wasn’t that exciting. We followed the south ridge of End for a couple hundred meters to the next high point before trending down to skier’s right – aiming for the chimney that Raf’s group used to break the line of cliffs.
Even with a GPS track this chimney wasn’t entirely straightforward to find from above. Being 15m off Phil’s track meant we were 12m higherand 3 meters east, separated from his ledge by a serious cliff band! We saw a choke stone in a steep gully but with no obvious way over it, we tried descending skier’s left alongside and got ourselves cliffed out pretty quick. After kicking rocks down (very loose terrain), I was surprised to see someone on a wide scree ledge beneath us, probably sheltering himself from the barrage we were sending down his way! We yelled back and forth – he was wondering where we came from and whether or not he was at the correct chimney to escape his ledge. We figured out that he probably was, and soon he was scrambling up the gully as we made our way towards it, now beneath the choke stone on skier’s left of it.
The solo scrambler broke climber’s left out of the gully (opposite side we were on) well before reaching the chockstone , turning up towards a cairn on the scree slopes under the summit, that we had missed on our descent (we went left when we should have gone right after seeing the chockstone from above). We asked him what the gully was like and he told us it would be OK but had some ‘tricky’ sections near the bottom. He was planning to exit the east ridge route and I assured him there was a moderate scramble route with freshly built cairns if he looked hard enough for it. We parted ways and Mike and I traversed into the chimney. Here’s where things got interesting. The first thing to note about the chimney is that it’s *not* a ‘moderate’ Kane scramble, despite several hints out there that it might be. I’ve done many (all) of the Kane moderates including the tougher ones and this one is not like any of those. The only reason I stress this point is to save future scramblers who aren’t comfortable with difficult scrambling a lot of grief if they get to this part of the route and wonder where the heck the ‘moderate’ route is and possibly get hurt trying to find it or navigating to a much more difficult one.
With lots of snow the chimney might feel easier than for us – we only had hard snow and ice along the bottom of it. Also, climbing up the gully is much easier than down it – it has good hand holds and fairly solid rock where you need it. One of the reasons Phil’s group looked for another route down the east ridge in the first place, is because of the difficulties they foresaw descending the chimney. Going down was pretty easy stemming on dry rock for the most part, but with ice in the gully bottom, there was absolutely zero room for a slip, which made it feel a bit harder. The toughest part wasn’t the ice or the stemming though, it was the escape from the bottom. An awkward side step got us in position to get over the boulder blocking the chimney exit, but here the holds ran completely out! Mike did a few awkward moves before dropping down, banging his shin pretty hard in the process. I was quite tired by this point and not ‘feeling it’ – my legs were really shot as I tried to find a reasonable way down the last 6-8 feet. Eventually I sort of gave up and handed my camera down to Mike before asking him to spot me. I hung from a good hold and lowered my feet around 6-8 feet with outstretched arms before dropping the last foot or so – onto a small icy patch of snow. It worked out OK, but again, this isn’t what a lot of people would be comfortable doing on a ‘moderate’ scramble route. The good thing is that you’re likely not going to die if you fall on this crux, that’s why it’s still ‘only’ a class 3 scramble IMHO.
After the crux, we still had to pick our way along the ledge to the Association col. We didn’t have any issues and enjoyed the terrain / scenery along the way immensely. I was very happy with my decision to join Mike, even if it meant pretty much re-ascending Association Peak. At the col, Mike continued on easy slopes to the summit of Association while I slowly picked my way down the large bowl to the north. I didn’t find the trail, but had no major difficulties with the descent. Since I was about 30 minutes ahead of Mike, I lounged around at the pass between Association Peak and Hill and waited in warm sunshine, until it became a blizzard. Thankfully Mike joined me just as I was bundling up against the brief snow squall and we headed up the easy NW ridge of Association Hill.
After we successfully scrambled End Mountain, Mike and I set our sights on my second and Mike’s third summit of the day. There is no good reason not to hike to the summit of Association Hill if you’re in the area anyway and you’re a peakbagger. Personally, there was no way I was going over the Yam shoulder for a 5th time so I had planned End and Association Hill from the start. Mike figured he might as well have a nice three peak day and joined me.
The best part of Association Hill is that it gets you part way back to the parking lot so other than the 100 meters of height gain from the col, it’s pretty much a free summit with better views than expected. We started our hike in a mini blizzard – accurately predicted by SpotWX.com to within 30 minutes! Just as predicted, by the time we reached the summit the views were back and the sun was out. That is the most accurate forecasting I’ve experienced in a while. After a few photos at the summit it was time to turn our attention to the long way out, especially as sunset was in about an hour.
We quickly exited the light forested slopes on the south end of Association Hill before linking up with the approach track from Old Fort Creek. At the creek we filled our empty water bottles before slogging the rest of the way to the truck.
We needed headlamps for only the last 10 minutes or so. All-in-all this was a great 11.5 hour day in perfect spring-like weather and conditions. I didn’t need gloves or a toque all day, even at the various summits, other than the last 20 minutes or so. Can’t complain about that in early March.
