Cathedral Core Area Circuit

Grade III-IV, 5.7
Cathedral Provincial Park, Keremeos, BC
7-8 AUG 2012 | Aaron, Kyle & Pip

After a bit of a hiatus (children were born, a house was built .. it wasn't all time wasted) Scramblegs is back in action with a return to Cathedral Park for attempt #4 at The Circuit, a goal that dates to the earliest days of Scramblegs and involves hitting every peak in the core area (map.pdf) from Lakeview to Scout Mtn. Although we still haven't quite got it all wrapped up in one day, we did manage the crux of it (the Matriarch – Grimface traverse, Grade III, 5.7) on this trip. We hiked up Lakeview Trail (.gpx) in the afternoon and camped at Quiniscoe lake. This is the last time Pip will use his bivy sac in any buggy conditions. Early start and off to Lakeview Mountain (rather than taking the most direct route to Matriarch, for the circuit we wanted to make the loop as big as possible). From Lakeview it was down and up to the Boxcar and across Denture Ridge (this took more time and route finding than we'd remembered from our last attempt). At the base of Matriarch we met up with a couple climbers who had come direct from the lakes and were starting up the first pitch of climbing. It was nice having them ahead of us, particularly for the Grimface climb as we weren't 100% sure about the route. Got caught in a hailstorm at one point in the morning, but progress was pretty good for a three-some. Up and down and up and down and up and down. Awesome! A pretty major screwup on the last big rappel off Matriarch and Pip had to prusik back up the rope to the anchor to get it untangled. Crazy how ropes can tie themselves in knots. Once off Matriarch we were into new terrain. Got over to the base of Grimface without too much trouble (one nameless member had to be babied across an exposed bit of ridge walking) and the climbing to the top of Grimface was fun and easier than expected. Back down the other side and started hoofing it to the lakes and all the way down the road to the car. Awful. An 18hr day all told. The full loop around to Red and Scout Mtns. remains to be conquered.

Gear:
60m rope, harness and belay device, helmet, small set of cams (Black Diamond 0.3, 0.5, 0.75, Metolius 7), small set of nuts (didn't place any), one hex, a little bigger than my biggest cam (placed it once), draws incl. a couple long slings.

Photos

Mt. Begbie

Grade I, Class 3-4
Revelstoke, BC

As Aaron put it, climbing Begbie gives you a little bit of everything. A nice, steep'ish approach through old-growth forest, then into the alpine and across the mountain's lower slabs with good views of the route ahead and of Revelstoke and surroundings behind. Up a small but quite heavily crevassed glacier. Back onto rock across an exposed ledge, followed by a long stretch of mostly easy scrambling with the odd tricky bit to the summit. Oh, and some very cool geology thrown in as well. We had a great day (about 12hrs car-to-car). The crux of the climb for us turned out to be the glacier, which was a surprise. Despite thoroughly researching the route (a 5min look at a couple of blog posts; there were photos) we underestimated it a bit and weren't entirely prepared. We had axes, and Aaron and Pip had micro spikes, which were just good enough, but Ben had yak tracks, which were not (on the advice of his more experienced partners he left heavier boots and full crampons in the car). Nevertheless, after a bit of screwing around we got up and over it and onto the rock. Across the ledge we made use of the bolts to fix a line; not strictly necessary but a nice bit of security. After that we could've (but didn't) dropped all the climbing gear as it wasn't needed for the scramble to the top. This felt like a bonus outing at the end of the season. Great day. Great company.

Participants: Aaron, Ben & Pip

Gear: 30m scrambling rope (8mm), ice axe, crampons (sort of: see above), 4 slings w. biners (to clip bolts on ledge), harness and belay device.

Trip photos   GPX   KML

Middle Teton (South-West Couloir)

Grade III, Class 2-3
Grand Teton National Park

Hopefully this will be our first of many trips to Grand Teton National Park. On this visit we just had the morning to get up something before continuing on with our families north to Yellowstone. Pip conspired to kill the whole adventure at birth by neglecting to set his alarm, but Aaron (with some reluctance it is reported) saved the day and got himself out of bed. By 5am we were on our bikes for the 20km ride from our campground at Signal Mtn, to the trailhead at Jenny Lake. From there it was up and down 6,000' in five hours, including a little bit of 3rd class (unexposed, non-technical) scrambling near the top. Great views, but no time to properly enjoy them. We'll be back! [note: take the GPS tracks provided here with a grain of salt: we were a little off-route at times as we went through the boulders and up towards the base of the couloir).

Participants: Aaron and Pip

Photos   GPX   KML

Mt. Robson (South Face)

Grade IV
Mt. Robson Provincial Park
3,954m
25-27 August

It's not exactly a scramble - some would call it mountaineering - but the guidebook says something to the effect of "actually only a hike, though a grunt of a hike at that". The climbing isn't technical, it's just sustained 4th class with a bit of glacier thrown in, on a big, committing mountain. Jeff and I had been to 11,600', 3 years ago but the weather didn't allow us to go higher then. This trip was initiated on Thursday afternoon when Jeff had a break in his residency (year 1 family practice in Ontario) so he called to see if I was up for an adventure and arranged a flight to be in Prince George the next day. I borrowed a mountain bike, ice tools and a light weight rope Thursday night (from 3 different people), then left work early Friday to pick him up at the airport and head to Robson. It was drizzly Friday night so we slept in the valley and headed up the next morning. We were pretty lucky to have the weather clear and it was completely calm the whole climbing day. It was absolutely calm on the summit, which almost never happens, so we felt pretty lucky. The weight of the commitment was pretty heavy so we didn't linger or relax much. It was a LONG way down. We had hoped to descend the whole thing in a day, but that didn't happen ...

Participants: Sean & Jeff

Trip photos