Within 2 hours of leaving the campsite we were on top of Strachan.
While I can heartily recommend Mount MacLaren as a short(ish) scramble from Carnarvon Lake, I can’t really say the same thing about Mount Shankland.
The summit views were pretty sweet from MacLaren, including many of the Kananaskis peaks I’ve stood on like Holy Cross, Head, Gunnery and even all the way to the Highwood Pass with lofty summits like Rae and Mist showing up.
On Wed or Thu the usual flurry of emails went out regarding plans for the weekend. When the dust settled, Phil Richards and I were left choosing between two lengthy day trips. In the end, Watermelon Peak won out. Most people do Watermelon as part of an overnight bivy at Lake Alice, and while this is a wonderful way to experience this peak and this lovely area, we simply didn’t have the schedule to allow it this time. It was while we were poking around at the route and planning the trip that Phil wryly texted me – “you realize that Bobac is also in the area”.
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.
I wasn’t sure that I would manage to summit my last 11,000er on the main Columbia Icefield in the spring of 2016. Rumors were flying around that the Athabasca Glacier approach was toast this year thanks to an extremely warm winter / spring combined with low snow and an serac event that covered the route I’ve always used through the headwall with tons of ice and snow earlier in the year. I wasn’t too concerned, as I knew I could approach the south ridge from the Saskatchewan Glacier if I had to, some other year. The South Ridge is the easiest route on Andromeda (there are a lot of routes on this particular 11,000er) and probably one of the technically easiest ascents on the Columbia Icefields – but it does have a lot of objective hazards so I didn’t want to underestimate it. To be honest, I had mixed feelings about doing my last Athabasca Glacier ski mountaineering approach. It’s true that this approach is full of objective hazards and I’ve been extremely lucky not to have had a single bad experience through the icefall, but it’s also a gorgeous area with rock, snow, ice, wind, clouds and sun all competing for attention as skiers skin up steep snow through crevasses and under towering ridges of snow and ice a vertical kilometer above, staring coldly down at them as they thread their way through it’s hard, blue detritus. It’s an area that hundreds and hundreds of visitors to our beautiful province gaze towards every day and wonder who the heck goes up to that forbidding place and actually enjoys themselves while doing it!
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.
On March 23/24 I joined Kevin Papke for the first summit attempt on his quest for 50 summits in a “Summits for Seniors” fundraiser in his 50th year. Considering his birthday is on March 22nd Kev wasted no time to start his summit bids! We decided that in order to make a big day trip slightly shorter we would ski into the Bow Hut on Friday evening and summit Habel on Saturday before heading home. We left the parking lot under warm conditions, lots of fresh snow and cloudy skies – but with high hopes that the weather forecast for Saturday would come true with a mix of sun and cloud and little wind.
