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Tag : obscure

Simpson Peak

As we were ascending Simpson Ridge to the NW of Simpson Peak, we kept looking for possible routes that would save us time and effort in a traverse between the two. The immediate obvious one sucked as it involved losing hundreds of meters of elevation from the ridge before following a steep snow line up to the peak. Since it was 18:00 when we were finally done with the ridge, we no longer had time or energy for this option anyway. That’s when I spotted another potential route that would be much quicker if it worked. In a route-finding theme for the weekend my mountain goat senses were tingling quite accurately for once!

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Camp / Mitchell Range / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Simpson Ridge (Mount Edmonton)

As of July 2018, Simpson Ridge had been on Phil and my peak hit list for more than a few years already. The main reason was an enticing comment from the indomitable Rick Collier about his second ascent of the mountain in 1996(76 years after the first ascent in 1920!). Reading that there might still be an original 1920 summit register waiting to be rediscovered put our imaginations into overdrive. We didn’t yet know about the naming confusion or the difficult and multiple attempts at the original ascent – and didn’t realize this very interesting part of the mountain’s history until after returning from our trip days later.

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Backpack / Camp / Mitchell Range / Scramble / Trip Report 0
Phil exits the SE gully to the south ridge with stunning views opening up all around us. Birdwood at left with Warre and Vavasour at center-right.

Currie, Mount

After our trip up Mount Morrison and Owl Peak earlier in the week, Phil and I had been thinking (obsessing) about its supposedly easy neighbor to the south – Mount Currie. This might seem strange to some folks, but Phil and I don’t just love peakbagging, we love getting to peaks that are not done very often and are remote and somewhat challenging to access.

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Blue Range / Scramble / Trip Report 1

Castle Rock Peak

With the upcoming Thanksgiving long weekend and some unexpected days off work beforehand, I was looking to take advantage of a pretty nice wx with a scramble or two before the snow starts to pile up in earnest around the Rockies. Lucky for me, I received an invite from Cornelius and Trevor inviting me for a jaunt up the relatively obscure front range mountain, “Castle Rock”.

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Bike / Ghost Wilderness Area / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Quill Peak (+ Porcupine, PorSilDol, PorDol)

I was feeling quite ill the week of August 7th 2017. I’d probably been on one too many long day trips with Dr. Phil – or I was just allergic to work. Probably the latter. Of course, as the weekend approached and looked to be quite clear and warm, we started throwing around plans despite my current illness. After finally settling on a pretty fantastic trip that excited both of us, we were discouraged to find out that despite its relative obscurity, this particular peak was being visited by another party on the very same weekend. We decided we didn’t care (even though we really did) and upheld our plans for a two day trip.

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Murchison Group / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Cataract Peak

I capped an awesome 9 days off in July 2017, with a long-sought adventure up the distant, obscure and somewhat neglected Cataract Peak, just across the Pipestone River Valley in Banff National Park. This mountain has been on my radar for many years now – mostly because it’s high (almost 11,000 feet) without being so high that it gets more attention (i.e. 11,000 feet). When Ben and Steven did it back in September of 2014 I was fairly bummed that I didn’t get to join them.

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Drummond Group / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Park Mountain

I’ve been eyeing Park Mountain before I knew what it’s name was. The first time I hiked up Mount Schaffer I wondered what that nice mountain to the south, across McArthur Lake was and whether or not it was a scramble. Over the years I learned that it was called “Park Mountain” but never did read any detailed online trip reports from anyone who’d done it. Rick Collier briefly mentions that it’s “easy” in his trip report from his climb of Mount Biddle in 1987 and David P. Jones rates the Southeast Ridge as “Facile” (easy) and 3rd class – the same rating he gives Mount Schaffer which is a hike. This little bit of beta was enough to convince me that this was a moderate scramble at most. Just a week before our ascent, I read that a friend, Marko Stavrik was also interested in Park Mountain. I figured it was high time I tried the route for myself.

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Bow Range / Rockies / Scramble / Trip Report 1

Breaker Mountain (Capricorn Lake)

After first becoming interested in Breaker Mountain in 2013 while perusing Google Earth for ideas, Phil took Rick’s trip report on Bivouac (a 1987 spring ski ascent) and successfully completed an ambitious solo trip up Capricorn Creek to Capricorn Lake in October 2014 to scout the route to the Parapet / Breaker col. Thanks to intermittent snow flurries at Capricorn Lake and an impending snow event he never made it as far as the col. Ever since then, Phil has been trying to find a partner to suffer the approach with him and try to find a scramble route up Breaker. Finally, for reasons still unknown to me, I agreed to his suggestion and we each booked off work for Friday August 5th to make the attempt during a good weather window – a rare thing in summer 2016.

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Camp / Hike / North Waputik Mountains / Rockies / Scramble / Trip Report 1
A wild scene involving Mount Douglas and its larch covered lower northern slopes.

Drummond, Mount & Packers Pass Peak

By the end of September 2015 I was getting a wee bit desperate to finally see some fully turned larches. Despite getting out a lot in the middle of the month, especially to Waterton Lakes National Park, I’d yet to run into the full fall golden goodness of larch heaven that I’ve come to crave at the end of each scrambling / hiking season in the Alberta Rockies. As usual for the 2015 season, the weather did not cooperate when I needed it to! The forecast for the weekend of September 25-27 was looking a bit thin. Sunday was the best looking day by far, but as the dates crept closer the forecast grew dimmer until even Sunday was looking like a good shot at cold, cloud and possibly rain or even snow.

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Rockies / Sawback Range / Scramble / Trip Report 4

Stewart, Mount

After a spectacular day approaching and ascending Mount Willis we awoke with sunrise to a beautifully clear day on Saturday, September 12 2015, quite eager to ascend the lofty Mount Stewart that we’d been staring at for a good portion of the previous day already. We were pretty sure that Stewart was an easy scramble from photos we’d taken from Cirrus’ summit to the west. The issue with Stewart isn’t the technical difficulties of the climbing; it’s the remoteness of the peak and the access to the easy southwest slopes.

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Backpack / Cloister Mountains / Rockies / Scramble / Trip Report 8

Willis, Mount (Nigel Pass, Cataract Pass)

There are a few notable things about the White Goat Wilderness Area as compared to a national or provincial park. In a way, it’s even more restrictive. There are no horses, no motorized vehicles and no air traffic allowed. No fires, hunting or even fishing either. But random camping and backpacking is highly encouraged – provided it’s done responsibly of course. I’d certainly seen mountains in the White Goat before, notably the three summits just north of Mount Cline and the massive summit of Mount Stewart, which I’d last seen from Corona Ridge. (Stewart was actually another choice for the weekend Steve and I did Corona Ridge and Marmota Peak…)

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Backpack / Camp / Cloister Mountains / Rockies / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Evelyn Peak

Of course when I started my two week vacation in September, the weather turned for the worse in the Rockies. And when I say “worse”, I mean way worse… First of all was the dump of snow that covered the entire range of the Alberta Rockies from north of Jasper to Waterton Lakes National Park. While a bit of snow isn’t a huge issue, especially in the fall – it definitely limited my choices for peak bagging. I had to dial down my ambitions from lofty 11,000ers to trips that involved more hiking and backpacking. I didn’t mind, to be honest. I was in the mood for more reflective trips anyway – sometimes the intensity of larger peaks can distract from the beauty and peacefulness of the area that you’re traveling through. Not a terrible thing necessarily, but it’s nice to stop and smell the roses every once in a while.

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Camp / Maligne Range / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Marmota Peak

After a long day on Corona Ridge where I was dealing with a stomach flu, we awoke at 04:30 surprisingly willing to tackle another long objective in the area – Marmota Peak. After staring at it for hours from our scramble of Corona Ridge, we were excited to see if our chosen route would go. The route was easy enough to spot – a high-line traverse (more side-hilling!!) along ridges and cliffs beneath Spreading Peak before ascending a gully to a ridge abutting the west face of Marmota. From here we’d gain the upper ridge and traverse to the summit – one of two high points at the southern end. Unfortunately it was obvious from Corona Ridge that the cooler looking south peak was lower than the other two, and our GPS units confirmed that it was about 80m lower.

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Camp / Murchison Group / Rockies / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Farbus Mountain

After two long, exhausting days spent scrambling to the Lyell hut, climbing 4/5 of the Lyells and even Arctomys Peak, we were feeling a bit burned out on Sunday morning, June 28th. The night before, we’d come to the conclusion that getting up early enough to attempt Lyell IV (Walter Peak) was simply not going to happen – and it wouldn’t have mattered on hindsight because the snow was a giant slurpee over night anyway, with no freeze whatsoever.

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Alexandra Group / Alpine Climb / Camp / Snowshoe / Trip Report 0

Warre & Vavasour, Mount | Albert North Station

As part of a father / daughter backpacking trip over the last weekend of summer 2014, I decided it was time to take Kaycie on a real back country adventure instead of front country ‘easy’ stuff. She was game for something a bit more rustic after our bivy on White Buddha back in May. I had my eye on a trip that Rick Collier did as his first overnight solo in 1985. I was fairly confident that nobody had replicated Rick’s trip in the 29 years since he did it and I was intrigued to bivy in a remote area of Banff National Park that I’d never been in before.

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Backpack / Camp / Hike / Scramble / Trip Report / West Royal Group 6

Little Alberta, Mount

I had the whole week of September 1-7 off, but ended up working a couple of days on Tues / Wed due to bad weather. By Thursday I was ready to resume my break. Steven, Ben and I had plans for Fri-Sun so I had an extra day to do something myself. Originally I had a peak in mind but after thinking about it I decided to hike into the Woolley / Diadem bivy area by myself on Thursday and spend an extra night just chilling and reading or taking photos at one of the best bivy sites in the Rockies.

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Scramble / Trip Report / Winston Churchill Range 2

Smith Peak

Summit Elevation (m): 3087Trip Date: September 1 2014Elevation Gain (m): 1200Round Trip Time (hr): 6Trip Distance (km): 15Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 1 – you fall, you tripped over your own feetDifficulty Notes:  No difficulties if dry. No difficulties if wet. By far the hardest part of this mountain is getting up the first 200 vertical meters of it and driving to the trailhead.Technical Rating: OT3; YDS (Hiking)GPS Track: GaiaMap: Google Maps Because we’re suckers for punishment, we decided it would be a good idea […]

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Camp / Harisson Group / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Princess Mary, Mount

Summit Elevation (m): 3084Elevation Gain (m): 1800Round Trip Time (hr): 24Total Trip Distance (km): 28Related Trips: Mount King George, Prince GeorgeQuick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 3/4 – you fall, you break something or worseDifficulty Notes: Steep, loose southwest gully to a loose, low 5th scramble up the summit block. Ice or snow would complicate things greatly.Technical Rating: SC7; YDS (4th)GPS Track: GaiaMap: Google Maps After descending the glacier and loose scree of King George’s upper mountain, we realized that with a whole afternoon still ahead of us […]

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Camp / Royal Group / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Portal Peak

I decided to take advantage of a good weather forecast and a day off work on Friday, August 1 2014 to attempt one of my last remaining peaks along the Wapta Icefield – Portal Peak. I’d heard rumors for years that this was only a ‘scramble’, after hearing initially from Dave Stevens that this was a climb – and not an easy one. I remember looking at it from the summit of neighboring Mount Thompson thinking it didn’t look that easy…

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Scramble / Trip Report / Wapta Icefield 1

Marlborough, Mount

After a perfect day on Mount Joffre I woke up the team at 03:30 on Sunday morning for an attempt at my 400th peak – Mount Marlborough. We packed up camp under a clear, cool sky and soon found ourselves under the approach gully up the north west side of the mountain. The snow was fairly hard, but there was a punchy crust if you went looking for it. We knew that we had to get up and down the steep south face to the upper ridge before the morning sun started to hit it. There was recent avy debris in the upper bowl so we knew that parts of the slope wanted to slide.

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Alpine Climb / Joffre Group / Scramble / Snowshoe / Trip Report 0

Cirrus Mountain (Mount Huntington)

As another weekend approached, the familiar email chains started to fly once again. Weather reports and routes were scouted and by the time the dust had settled there were 2 options remaining on the table; Mount Joffre or Mount Cirrus. Joffre was higher on the list (being 600 feet higher) but the weather forecasts couldn’t quite agree on how much rain each area was going to get or when it was going to arrive and in what fashion (i.e. snow, t-storms or just a sprinkle). Given our dislike of crappy summit views, especially on peaks with tough approaches, we settled on Cirrus and finalized our plans.

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Alpine Climb / Cloister Mountains / Snowshoe / Trip Report 0

Fortress Mountain (Lake)

After a successful summit bid on Catacombs Mountain we woke up on Saturday with lots of energy to tackle our next objective – crossing two passes before attempting to summit Fortress Mountain via her southwest slopes. UPDATE 2015: The bridge across the Athabasca River, near the Athabasca Crossing campground collapsed in 2014 and there are no plans to replace it. Rumor has it that the Athabasca River can be crossing roughly 1km upstream of the old bridge location but I haven’t verified this yet. This renders accessing the Fortress Lake area very difficult on foot.

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Camp / Hike / Hooker Icefield / Scramble / Trip Report 0

Catacombs Mountain

Eric is great at planning aggressive and remote mountain adventures. He spends hours on his web site, planning and scheming up new approaches, routes and summits to bag. This trip was no different. Using photos of Catacombs from other peaks, he scouted out a route up the south flank of the mountain that looked to be scrambling to the summit glacier cap. From there it would be a bit of an unknown to travel on the glacier to the summit – we had no idea if the glacier would be passable from our top-out point above the south face.

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Alpine Climb / Camp / Hike / Hooker Icefield / Trip Report 5

Amery, Mount & Monchy / Hooge Peak

Wow. That 3 letter word pretty much sums up this trip. Don’t bother reading further unless you’re interested in more detail. Wow. There – I just said it again. This was one of those trips that’ll stick with me for the rest of my life – or at least while I have a reasonably intact memory. Eric Coulthard is one of those people who dreams up trips while looking at his extensive online library of photos and possible routes. While climbing Mount Fryatt a couple of weekends ago with him, he suggested that he might be giving Mount Amery and some other peaks in the area a shot this fall.

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Alpine Climb / Camp / Lyell Group / Trip Report 0