I camped in my truck near the Pincher Ridge parking spot so that I could take advantage of the nice weather and a week off with some Nugara scrambles. The day after Pincher Ridge I decided to give Victoria Peak and Ridge a shot.I brought my bike to help make the potentially long day a bit shorter because for the first time in a very long time, rain and even t-storms were in the forecast for the afternoon and evening.
I left truck at 0930 after an easy but long drive. My muscles were still a bit sore after my recent Assiniboine trip but I was feeling pretty good overall. I was originally planning on a Victoria Peak / ridge trip but was concerned I didn’t have enough time any more. I’d do that one the next day instead so I needed a shorter trip. I probably wasn’t really ready for a Nugara ‘difficult’ but I started up anyway. I headed up steep grassy slopes north west of parking area and then up an obvious break lower down in the cliff band than Nugara suggests but it worked perfectly.
I’ve wanted to do a traverse around the Tent Ridge Loop for years already. When the family was heading out to the mountains to do a hike I decided this would be a perfect chance to do it. All I can say is follow Gillean Daffern’s guide TO THE LETTER. This includes walking BACK along the road from the parking area on the Mount Shark road. If you’re only going up Tent Ridge, take the obvious trail up the logging road a wee bit further UP the road and follow directions, but if you’re doing the loop ignore this obvious trail and walk BACK along the road, following her directions.
On Thursday August 9 2012 I decided that the day would be best spent by trying something I’ve wanted to do for quite some time already – the traverse from Kent Ridge to Mount Inflexible. There’s been some discussion around the traverse from Inflexible to Kent Ridge with the overall conclusion sounding like it was easier than expected so I wasn’t too concerned about making the attempt solo.
On Saturday, August 4, 2012 I was joined by the illustrious Sonny Bou for a jaunt up Ribbon Peak and hopefully Bogart Tower. Ribbon Peak has been on my radar for a few years already, mainly due to a trip report from Andrew Nugara and consequently it’s appearance in his scrambles book. For some reason or another I really like the Memorial Lakes area and I’d been up there 2 or 3 times previous and never realized the scrambling objectives that are in the area.
After reading Bob Spirko’s and So Nakagawa’s trip reports on Mount Lougheed, I really wanted to give it a go in 2012. For some reason it’s already been a pretty popular peak with other’s this year so I knew it was in good shape. When Wietse and Kevin Papke were throwing around the idea of heading out on Sunday, July 22nd I proposed peaks II and III of Mount Lougheed and they quickly agreed. Why didn’t I also include peak I and do the traverse? I’m not sure. I wasn’t really in the mood to challenge the “5th class terrain” just under peak II and didn’t have the energy for the whole traverse. I’ll do peak I as a separate scramble another day. Kevin already had peak I too, so he wasn’t motivated to repeat it either.
After almost 2 months without a summit and a long family vacation which saw me drive over 5000 kilometers in 2.5 weeks, I was more than ready to get out to the solitude of the Rocky Mountains again! Since I had just driven 10 hours the day before, coming back from visiting family in the Vancouver area, I decided that I would do something fairly low key on Thursday, July 19. I have wanted to hike Windtower for a long time already and this seemed like the perfect day to do just that, so I did.
I wasn’t sure how it would feel to bash my way up a scree slope after just ascending two of the nicest peaks in Alberta a few weeks previous (North Twin and Twins Tower) but surprisingly I really enjoyed my solo ascent of Buffalo Point. Considering this was my 300th peak, it was strangely appropriate that it’s ‘unofficial’ and off the beaten path and that I did it solo, as so many of my favorite outings over the past 10 or 11 years have been solo ascents of piles of scree and for some strange reason I still love doing it! I guess I must genuinely love the mountains if I can enjoy a scree bash almost as much as a fine ski ascent.
On Saturday, January 7 2011 I joined Raf, Wietse, Marcel and Greg for a front range scramble up Kananaskis Peak in (this will be hard to fathom), Kananaskis. Why were we scrambling instead of skiing? I’m not sure, to be perfectly honest. Maybe it was all the avalanche fatalities over the past week or maybe it was the spring-link weather that Calgary has been getting, but I was more in the mood for a scramble and obviously so were the other 4 guys so that’s exactly what we did!
After a pleasant solo scramble up Mount Bryant the day previous, I wasn’t sure about another off-season peak in possible wind and snow but still found myself driving to Okotoks to pick up Wietse on Sunday morning! How can you turn down a peak with the name “Shunga-la-she” right?! I had a feeling that I should plug a few way points into my GPS for this outing. While looking at the map and at Bob’s trip report I realized that the road crossed the river about 700 meters further west than Bob’s crossing. I decided that it would probably be worth crossing the bridge(if there was one) rather than getting our feet wet in mid-November!
I’ve wanted to scramble Mount Bryant for a while already. We’d gone past the mountain back when we scrambled Mount Howard and I met So Nakagawa for the first time afterwards – he’d just come back from Bryant. I wasn’t expecting anything spectacular but I was very pleasantly surprised by this outing. First of all, it felt quite remote. I stopped several times in the creek bed on approach and listened to the sound of silence – a very pleasant sound. The creek approach is also surprisingly fun and easy, thanks to a great trail that runs along the sides.
I don’t have very many (any?) GR’s in my summit log. (Grid References, or unnamed summits). The reason is obvious – without a named summit it’s hard for others to relate what the heck you’re referring to if you simply reference a number! Lately I’ve been reconsidering this logic. I actually like going up obscure peaks and out-of-the-way spots and calling everything by it’s GR might be kind of fun…
On a late September day in 2011, Hanneke and I spent a few hours hiking the gorgeous Pocaterra Cirque and Ridge near the Highwood Pass in Kananaskis Country. This area is known for its colorful larch displays and it didn’t disappoint! We enjoyed warm weather and calm winds.
On Friday, September 16 2011, I found myself with a day off and no scrambling partners. The weather had initially looked quite nasty for the icefields parkway regions but a glance at the weather forecast at 05:00 on Friday morning had me jumping in the truck and driving out to the trail head. I knew I’d have clouds and rain or snow, but the promise of some sunny breaks lured me out anyway.
Andrew Nugara’s trip report from Mount French is what attracted me to this wonderful peak. Great views, 3rd highest peak in K-country and some severe exposure to test hardened scramblers sounded like the perfect objective for a nice summer day. My goal for 2011, if I had one, was to try some more difficult scrambles and start doing more Alpine climbing, especially those involving relatively simple glacier ascents. I started the year well by skiing a bunch of peaks on simple glaciated terrain and soloing the west ridge of Baldy in the rain. I think I ended the summer fairly well too – with an ascent of Mount French with So Nakagawa as my company for the day.
On Friday, September 09 2011 I joined Sonny Bou for a scramble up Mount Vaux in Yoho National Park. (Note: when Sonny and I scrambled Vaux it wasn’t in a guidebook or nearly as popular as it is today.) Mount Vaux is not your every day scrambling objective.
On Friday, August 26 2011, So Nakagawa and I ascended Cathedral Mountain under a gorgeous early morning sky from our bivy site near the glacier. Cathedral is one of the most picturesque mountains I’ve ever climbed and this makes it into a top summit for me. Given the very cooperative weather over August, I knew that I wanted to climb something with a glacier and a bivy on the weekend of August 26th. Originally I was contemplating Mount Wilson but after thinking about it for a while, I realized that Cathedral Mountain was even higher on my ‘hit list’. Why? For the past 3 years I’ve been trying to find perfect conditions to ski Cathedral but every time those conditions arose (not that often) I had other commitments and couldn’t do it.
Since school was just around the corner (where does time go?!) and Hanneke, my wife, was on call for the weekend, we decided that the weekend of August 19-21, 2011 would be a good weekend for a father / kids adventure. After some debate, the kids and I decided that Yoho would be a cool place to camp and the Burgess Shale guided tour would be a pretty awesome thing to try! Of course, since I’m a peakbagger and we had another two days to do other things besides the shale tour, I found us a nice peak to bag on Saturday, August 20.
Mount Des Poilus has been on my radar for quite some time. Originally it was always a ski objective but lately I’d also been looking at it as a possible summer peak. After reading Andrew Nugara’s one day ascent of Yoho Peak and a separate (impressive!!) one day climb of Mount Des Poilus I had the brilliant idea to combine the two with a bivy to eliminate two long day trips and a repeat of the somewhat tedious approach. When Raf indicated that he was also interested in Des Poilus as a summer trip, I told him of my plan to spend 1.5 days near the Des Poilus glacier and combining Yoho and Des Poilus into one trip. He loved the idea. On August 13 & 14 2011 we were joined by Alan Fortune for this little adventure.
On Tuesday, August 09 2011, Wietse and I scrambled to the summit of Mount Noyes in Banff National Park. This scramble is uncanny in it’s similarities to Mount Weed, the mountain just to the south of Noyes. As awesome as the views from Weed are, I would have to say that Mount Noyes is a more enjoyable scramble, or it certainly was for me. The main difference between Weed and Noyes is that Weed is pretty straightforward route-finding and a fairly typical Rockies approach. The route finding on Noyes isn’t nearly as straightforward and there are some hidden gems along the way. I had more fun on the Noyes approach than I can remember on any recent approach over the past couple of years.
On Sunday, July 24 2011 I was joined by So Nakagawa and Ali for a jaunt up Mount Ishbel in Banff National Park near Hillside Meadows. Over the years Ishbel has become a bit of an obsession for me simply because when you drive home from anywhere west of the Castle Mountain junction you get an amazing view of the long ridge of Ishbel rising up to an impressive summit. Also, over the past few years a number of friends have done the mountain and have come back with stories of a hands-on difficult scrambling experience and varying degrees of satisfaction with the ascent. The descent down the east face is almost always described as being much more involved – most parties rappel at least some portion of it.
On Saturday, June 18 2011 Wietse, Kevin (Papke) and I stole a day on Mosquito Mountain along the Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park. The weather forecast was dreary but we all really wanted to get out and stand on a summit. I’d been planning a fall trip up Mosquito for a few years already, but since So posted a TR from early June on this summit I thought “why not do it now” and so we made plans.
On Sunday, June 12 2011 I decided that I needed a break from work and headed off to the mountains for some “me” time. I had an idea in the back of my mind that if the weather looked decent I would attempt a short, but difficult, scramble out of Andrew Nugara’s book – Mount Baldy via the West Ridge. As I drove into K-country I noticed that the weather was cooperating. There was a mix of sun and cloud with some scattered showers but nothing too dramatic.
Summit Elevation (m): 2868Trip Date: April 09 2011Elevation Gain (m): 1000Round Trip Time (hr): 7Total Trip Distance (km): 15Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2/3 – you fall, you break your leg. Unless you’re caught in an avalanche – then you could die.Difficulty Notes: Winter ascent includes serious avalanche risks. Learn how to manage these risks and perform avalanche burial rescues before attempting this trip. Technical Rating: OT4 – Skiing; YDS (3rd)GPS Track: GaiaMap: Google Maps On Saturday, April 09 2011 So and I did the Bow Peak […]
I made it this time! After a previous attempt at the summit of Jimmy Simpson with Raff and Josh in January of 2007 I returned 3.5 years later and bagged it via the other side on a gorgeous fall day. Ironically there was probably more snow in October than we had on our first attempt in January. Originally I had a trip planned with Kerry to do Cathedral Mountain. Due to fresh snow of unknown quantity and an aversion to a 03:00 wake-up time we canceled those plans on Friday evening. I knew what I’d replace it with – I was in the mood to try a solo jaunt up Jimmy Simpson.
