Mount French

August 4, 2008

Mountain height:         3234 m
Elevation gain:            1330 m
Ascent time:                7:50
Descent time:              5:10

Mountaineering with Mark.

As the third highest mountain in Kananaskis, exceeded in elevation only by Joffre and Sir Douglas, you’d think Mount French would receive a great deal of attention. Aside from the obvious – it’s falls short of 3353 metres (11,000 feet) – we found out why firsthand: the big “E” – exposure! I bet your average nudist colony sees less exposure than the south ridge of Mount French. Thankfully the exposed sections are short and only one really makes your question your sanity when traversing it.

Rod McAlister had completed a solo ascent of French in August of 2007 and recommended the route to us. Knowing Rod’s amazing abilities as a solo scrambler, we chose to take a rope and some protection and treat the climb as a mountaineering trip.

It took us a surprisingly long four hours to reach the Haig Glacier. We had taken the same amount of time on snowshoes, earlier this year on an ascent of Mount Jellicoe. I imagine the circuitous nature of the summer trail and the large amount of new deadfall to climb over accounted for this. After zipping quickly around to the southwest side of the objective we started up a snow slope towards the ridge. The snow was easy to ascend, but quickly gave way to some of the worst scree ever – a fact that Rod had warned as about and also mentioned by Alan Kane in the summit register.

The ridge was a different story. A little scree might actually have been nice - anything to account for the fact that in place of tedious scree there was nothing but air. The ridge wasn’t too bad at first, but shortly before the summit we arrived at one of the most daunting mountains scenes we’ve seen in a while. The ridge narrowed to about 30-40 centimetres (12-16 inches for the imperialists), with an enormous vertical slab on the west side and a severe drop on the east. Though not technical, we roped up and set up the belays as best we could, even though a slip off either side would result in a significant pendulum fall. Thankfully, this section was only about 35 metres in length.

Everything after that was child’s play, relatively speaking and we arrived at the summit, quite happy with ourselves. Even though the weather was not fully cooperating the summit panorama was absolutely stunning – definitely in the top 5 of all-time. It was unbelievable how many peaks were visible. I especially enjoyed the slabby west face of Mount Smith-Dorrien and the view south towards Joffre. The summit register was placed there in 2000 by Alan Kane and there were four or five recorded ascents since then, with a gap of six years between 2001 and 2007 where no-one visited the summit of this spectacular peak. To our surprise, three of those ascents appeared to be solo efforts – hats off to Alan, Gary, and Rod.

We expected to take almost as much time going back across the narrow ridge and so we left the summit at 4:30 pm. Going back across the crux section was a little harder than going up it and we took all the time needed. The remainder of the descent was so easy compared to what had preceded, it was almost criminal! Having said that, the trail along French Creek was about 5 km longer than I would have liked and both Mark and I were happy that we wouldn’t have much need to hike that trail again.

Overall, a thoroughly satisfying day on a magnificent and unjustly neglected mountain.

Birdwood and Commonwealth reflected in Mud Lake

Approaching the moraine of French Glacier; the northeast face of Mount Robertson shown here

Stuffing my face with food before tramping up the glacier

Mark leads us up the glacier

I follow

Mount Robertson again

On the Haig Glacier with Munro, Sir Douglas, and Robertson

Heading around to the southwest side of French, Jellicoe at the left

Mark looks up the ascent slope

Heading up that slope

Mark comes up the slope, with the Haig Icefield stretched out below

On a narrow section of the ridge (but not the most narrow)

The beautiful west face of Smith-Dorrien

Looking south

The ridge starts to narrow again

Then it widens considerably

Mark tries to looks happy as we arrive at the crux (I felt naueous!)

Inspecting the crux

Past the crux (thank the Good Lord) and heading to the summit

At the summit looking south

Mount Jellicoe in the centre

Looking north; the peak in the sunlight, at the right is Prairie Lookout (only 40 m lower than French)

South again; Joffre obviously dominates the view

Especially now

King George; Prince Albert is hiding in front of George, Princess Mary is the pointed peak to the left,
with Prince George in front of her; Prince Edward is at the right (that's a lot of British royalty!)

Assiniboine at the distant left; Birdwood at the right

Mark at the summit

Another summit photo, but I'm wearing my Rams cap in anticipation of the upcoming NFL season
(highly unlikely the Rams will win the Superbowl, but after last year's 3-13 record, they can't be much worse!)