Iceface Peak

Summit Elevation (m): 2898
Trip Date: September 07 2024
Elevation Gain (m): 1300
Round Trip Time (hr): 8
Total Trip Distance (km): 20
Quick ‘n Easy Rating: Class 2/3 – You fall you break something and feel silly doing it.
Difficulty Notes: Moderate scrambling with some route finding through cliffs on descent.
Technical Rating: SC6-
GPS Track: Gaia
Map: Google Maps

On August 24 2024, Andrew Nugara ascended an unnamed 2898 meter peak at the headwaters of Noyes Creek that he later realized was called “Iceface” on bivouac.com. Almost exactly a century before Andrew left his boot prints here, the boundary commission ascended the very same peak, not naming it at all, but taking photos for posterity nonetheless. It didn’t take Wietse and I quite 100 years to repeat an ascent, we decided to speed things up a little and waited only a matter of weeks. 😉 Of course others have also ascended this diminutive peak sandwiched between Mount Noyes to the south and Marmota and Spreading to the north. In my research over the years I only knew of two ascents that both rated their routes as “4th-class”. This always surprised me, given how bloody easy and straightforward the ascent looked on satellite maps. But what do I know?

Apparently I know a little. Andrew confirmed a few things for me in his trip report. First and foremost – Iceface is NOT a 4th-class scramble unless you really, really want it to be (i.e., ascending the steepest parts of the west face from Noyes Creek). Second, if you’re not careful with the route you will hate your life for at least part of the day. There is much rubble and misery to be had if you get unlucky or unwise with route choices – even if they are technically pretty easy. So with that said, we got the exact same views as Andrew did but we avoided all the route choices he made! LOL – I’m not kidding!

I was sure that I must have hiked up Noyes Creek before but I was confused with Silverhorn Creek. Phil Richards and I hiked up Silverhorn Creek in 2017 on a very smoky ascent of Quill Peak. Wietse and I parked at the surprisingly busy Waterfowl Lakes parking area and quickly crossed hwy #93 and started up the creek. The first 2.5 kms up the creek are typical Rockies creek hiking. A mix of boulder hopping, smatterings of trail (north side) and avoiding wet feet as much as possible.

Although my topo map promised a lake after 2.5 kms, what we got instead was more of a swamp. In May or June there might be enough water for a very shallow lake here but I doubt it. We crossed the mud flats without getting our feet too wet.

The swampy area happened to be near the split in Noyes Creek with one branch continuing up to the NE and the other to the SE. I had a track from Phil where he accessed Marmota Peak via the NE branch, but Wietse and I were going to take the SE route to a high col between Mount Noyes and the SE end of Iceface. Nugara indicated to me that this was the route he would take if he could do things over again.

The next hour or so was pure hiking magic. Just as Nugara suspected, the SE branch of upper Noyes Creek is a very special little area. After a light bushwhack we were hiking open terrain on rubble and hardpack slopes, directly into a warm summer sun with stunning views in every direction.

We decided that rather stick in the creek (to our left) we would cross an open area to a buttress and take rubble and scree slopes to the top of it instead. This worked perfect. From the top of the buttress there was very little height loss back into the valley and our views even improved somehow. Now we could see the distant col and an immense waterfall plunging hundreds of feet from a hanging glacier on Mount Noyes’ NE face.

At the end of the approach valley there were various options for ascent. Rubble slopes near the center looked unattractive so we chose climber’s left where slabs and easy ledges made things much more interesting and fun. There were easy to moderate scrambling lines up this terrain but nothing harder than that. The waterfall off Mount Noyes kept distracting us as we ascended.

As we topped out just over the col, we could see an easy route up more rubble to the north, directly up the end of the SE ridge of Iceface. A line of cliffs above didn’t look very threatening and as we approached them we easily found a ramp leading up and over – again no more than easy scrambling here. 

Our views to Quill Peak and the poorly named “PorDol” were hazy but still very respectable as we looked back from on top of the cliffs. I remembered that Phil and I had a lot more smoke on our ascent of Quill, I even got a migraine headache as we slogged up the endless summit slopes. Despite my headache, we added Conical Peak to make a long day even longer. What kind of idiot does that sort of thing?! Hmmm.

From the cliffs there was only more scree to the summit, but the angle eased off considerably and we hiked easily towards the summit bump. Looking back to Mount Noyes we could also see the dark north face of Mount Weed to the south. Wietse and I did both of those peaks many years ago with each other.

Views to Marmota and down Porcupine Creek to Porcupine Lake were stunning as we ascended to our high point for the day. Check out the following two comparisons made from stitching the 1924 Boundary Commission photos together and comparing with my panoramas a century later.

Despite some haze in the air the views from Iceface were even better than I was expecting. South Totem, Spreading Peak, Corona Ridge and Marmota Peak featured prominently and all brought back great memories of previous trips.

After snapping summit photos we had a decision to make. Up until standing at the top we were planning to return the way we’d come. But the day was so gorgeous and the traverse had been so rewarding that we didn’t want it to end just yet. We knew that Andrew made some mistakes on his route that we wanted to avoid, but I had a secret weapon that he didn’t. I happened to have Phil Richard’s GPS track from an ascent he and Raf made of Marmota Peak via the NE branch of Noyes Creek. I knew that as long as we could descend to that track we’d find an escape to the valley below. We decided to take a chance and descend the north bowl of the false summit into the upper NE branch of Noyes Creek and hope a route presented itself there. Fingers crossed – and not for the first time today.

As expected, the walk over to the north summit was easy and very scenic. Views back to Iceface with its east glacier were especially sublime. Views of Noyes, Quill and other giants in the area continued to keep my camera warm. This was turning into a very worthwhile objective.

We were relieved to see an easy scree run from the false summit to a low col towards Marmota. We couldn’t see the whole exit line from here however. Wietse was a little nervous but I assured him that it would go. (I crossed my fingers once again – this time behind my back.)

Much of the scree and rubble in this area is hardpack and nasty stuff that doesn’t slide underfoot and threatens to “cheese grater” you if you slip or fall on it. I HATE that stuff! Thankfully the scree leading into the north bowl was nice and soft and fast as we descended to a col and then down into the bowl below, following a faint goat track.

As we passed a scenic, shallow pond in the north bowl we realized that our escape wouldn’t be quite as easy as we first thought it might (big surprise).

From the edge of the north bowl we could see down to a large plateau. Getting down to this plateau would be fairly straightforward but the worrying thing was obvious cliffs running below it. Darn it! Would we be totally screwed? I was still oddly confident that we would find a route – the terrain looked like it had options and I could now see where Phil’s track likely went.

As expected, once we got to the edge of the plateau we spotted an escape route that would likely get us onto Phil’s track under Spreading Peak. The route would involve side-hilling rubble slopes above the cliffs and then navigating more rubble high above the valley to treeline to avoid them.

And then, as we traversed we got lucky! A very obvious and straightforward rubble ramp led down through the cliff bands to the valley below. We didn’t trust our own eyes and hummed and hawed for a bit before committing to the descent.

The rubble ramp went very easily. Sweet! We were now at treeline and our confidence in our exit was 100%. Phil’s GPS track came onto our line a few hundred meters down the creek. We couldn’t believe how awesome this route had worked. I love it when that happens.

We easily escaped one last band of stubborn cliffs before starting the long (HOT) exit of Noyes Creek. It wasn’t difficult but seemed to take a long time to balance and hike our way over loose boulders and debris in the dry creek bed. After the “lake” (swamp) the creek was flowing again and travel remained easy. 8 hours after leaving the parking area we were back. 

This wonderful scramble has a little of everything that most explorers I know, look for in an obscure little peak. It’s off hwy #93 so you know the scenery is going to be stunning. It’s up a wild creek, so there’s water and more scenery. It has glaciers and waterfalls – more scenery! And it includes easy scrambling, gorgeous hiking and it’s a loop so you get to enjoy different landscapes on descent. To top it all off, there’s a sneaky route through impossible cliffs to get you back into the creek. Why the heck wouldn’t you want to do this peak?! Just don’t read Andrew’s report and you’ll be fine. 🙂