GR369377: ridge south of Mount McDougall – May 1, 2005

Mountain height:       2,682 m (8,797 ft)
Elevation gain:          1,152 m 
Ascent time:              5:10
Descent time:            3:20

Solo scramble.

With a high pressure system moving in from the west, I was expecting a good weather day and some beautiful scenery. Instead, the trip turned into a repeat of the “Plateau Mountain fiasco” of 2 weeks ago, as the system decided to make its untimely appearance about 12 hours after the fact.

We spotted this ridge from an attempt of Mount McDougall , on December 27 of last year. From Volcano Peak (enroute to Mount McDougall), it looked to be a fairly straightforward ridgewalk, with be couple of drop-offs as potential obstacles/challenges. No official summit, however, the highpoint was only 50 or so vertical metres lower than McDougall and almost guaranteed a wonderful panorama. With that in mind, I left the parking lot at 8 am , hoping for an easy and pleasant day out…I didn’t get what I had hoped for!

The first 4.5 km, along Evan-Thomas Creek Trail, were far from exciting and were I to do it again, I would definitely bike the trail, even though it was quite rough and rocky, at times. Lacking a route description, I programmed an appropriate point to leave the trail into my GPS (what a truly magnificent piece of technology!), and went from there. Having suffered several times through the horrendous bushwhacking, typical of the area, I wasn’t surprised to find myself fighting the dense brush and deadfall, once again.

Once above the treeline, the scenery should have been terrific, however, the low cloud ceiling all around ensured disappointment. Nevertheless, I was fairly optimistic that clearing would occur later in the day. Up to that point, the ascent had been terribly uninspiring: an hour of boring trail, followed by an hour of navigating through dense forest. It didn’t improve when, higher up, I found myself on lichen-covered boulder covered in a fresh layer of snow. The snow made the rocks quite slippery and of course, it also hid holes between the boulders. Ascending the treacherous terrain was horribly slow and labourious and soon, I was almost ready the right-off the entire trip. With the hope of improving weather, however, I continued on.

The first highpoint sported a respectable view of Mount McDougall to the northeast, and Fisher Peak to the south would have been fantastic, were it not for the increasing cloudiness. Thankfully, the actual ascent did start to get a little more interesting at this point. After traversing the ridge a short distance, I came to a couple of scenic little notches that required downclimbing or circumventing. The downclimbing was beyond my level and so I descended slopes to the right and traversed around them. In retrospect, the first would have presented little problem, however, the second notch was far more exposed and I would have had to backtrack on this one. This little section of excitement was followed by another short stint along the interesting ridge, before another drop-off barred the way.

After an unsuccessful attempt at traversing steep, snow-covered slopes to get to easy terrain, I decided to set up a rappel to get down the 7-8 m rockband. I used a large rock as an anchor and started down. About 1 metre down, however, I realized that I might have problems getting back up this section, even with a rope to “batman” up. I quickly climbed back up and started looking for an alternate route around the rockband. There was one, about 25 m to the right, and I was soon at a lowpoint, with a simple scree slog to the summit. The weather continued to worsen and by the time I arrived at the summit, there was little view to speak of. Also, of great surprise to me, was the fact that I didn’t seem to be at the highpoint of the ridge, as indicated on the topographical map. Although it was difficult to see, because of the heavy cloud cover, there appeared to be a higher point several kilometers further along the ridge. Checking the map and a GPS reading confirmed I was at the highpoint, indicated on the map –  the other summit simply wasn’t there. Gaining that highpoint would have required a significant descent to a col (again, not shown on the topo), followed by another long scree slog. In the dismal weather conditions, I had neither the energy nor the motivation to make an attempt and after a short break, I turned around.

The descent was uneventful and almost as equally tedious as the ascent. In an attempt to avoid some of the nasty bushwhacking back to the trail, I tried staying to the climber’s right of the slope. A big mistake, as the terrain on that side was even worse and longer too. The “boring” Evan-Thomas trail was a relief to see. Overall, a disappointing day, but I will be back someday to complete the job. 

The ridge leading to GR369377 (just out of the picture, to the left) is in the foreground; photo taken on December 27, 2004, from the ascent slopes of Mount McDougall; Fisher Peak to the right

The summit at GR369377; again from Dec. 27; I wish I had the same weather conditions, as seen in the photo 

An early morning look at Mount Kidd from Highway 40

At the first highpoint, looking along the ridge to the summit

The first obstacle; I circumvented it on the right

Looking back to the downclimbs I went around

More of the ridge and GR369377

Looking back at the second rockband, easily circumvented to the left

Again, looking back along the ridge

GR369377, with the higher-looking summit barely visible to the left

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