Anderson Peak III

Anderson Peak II, Lost Mountain II – July 7, 2007

Mountain height:
        Anderson :           2698 m
        Lost:                      2509 m
Total elevation gain:     approx. 1400 m
Ascent time:                  6:00
Traverse time to Lost: 0:35
Descent time:               2:40

Scrambling with Mark.

I’m the least superstitious person around – I don’t believe in fate, destiny, the alignment of the stars, reading tea leaves, four-leaf clovers, rabbits feet, or lucky numbers. I did find strangely fitting, however, that on the seventh day of the seventh month of the seventh year (and on the seventh day of the week), we would stumble onto one of the most enjoyable scrambles we’ve ever done, and witness some very unusual weather conditions to boot. This also happened to be our Dad’s birthday (but then I’m not superstitious, am I??).

Last year, Mark and I intended to attempt this route as a more difficult alternative to the route as described in my Scrambles book. Unfortunately, by the time we got around to it, we realized the Red Rock Parkway was closed for the season and the trip would have to wait until the road re-opened.

We drove down to Waterton with a pretty decent weather forecast in hand, only to find that the entire area was blanketed in low-lying clouds. This was disappointing to say the least – doubly so when a warden informed us that there was a 40% chance of rain and no chance of sun for the day. Cursing and swearing, we had little option but to go anyway.

After hiking along Blakiston Trail to the ascent drainage, we started up, quickly arriving on steep scree slopes that were far less than enjoyable to ascend. It seemed the route would be a dud. Suddenly that changed, very much for the better. We traversed left into the dried-up drainage to find amazing scrambling up step-like terrain. Not only was the scrambling terrific, but the variety of interesting rock left visible by water erosion was phenomenal.

We expected the good scrambling and interesting rock scenery to last a short distance before scree and rubble reared their ugly, unwanted heads. To our surprise, the drainage went on and on and though scree did eventually appear, the quality of the scrambling remained consistently good. The only thing we now needed was a break in the bad weather and hallelujah…….we got one. Suddenly there was a little clearing to the west. What was unusual about this was that the low-lying clouds were streaming in from the east at a phenomenal pace. At this point, we were at the same height as the clouds and watching them speed right by us was amazing. They would quickly dissipate upon reaching an invisible border to the west of us.

Near the top of the ascent route, the infamous burgundy band of red argillite below a layer of black igneous rock made its appearance. Though we had now seen this striking example of rock layering on ascents of Blakiston, Dungarvan, Cloudy Ridge, Glendowan, and Drywood, it was nevertheless, still breathtaking. We soon reached the ridge to almost perfectly clear skies - above us, anyway. A quick and scenic traverse took us to the east summit and a wonderful panorama. Most interesting was the cloud layer below us and to the east. Except for the summit, the entire of Mount Roche was shrouded in clouds – that would have been a great summit to be on for the day. The traverse west to the true summit was easy and sported a slightly better panorama. Again, the weather provided much interest, as misty clouds settled in the valleys to the northwest.

After a 35 minute traverse over to Lost Mountain, we decided to call it a day and descended the south slopes of the mountain back to Blakiston Creek Trail. An outstanding scramble and an outstanding day.