Mount Kitchener

Mount Kitchener II (via east ridge) – August 19+, 2006

Mountain height: 3505 m
Elevation gain:   1000 m
Ascent time:       13:50
Descent time:     12:45

Mountaineering with Mark, Kevin, Raff, and Jason.

You’d think a roundtrip time of almost 27 hours would indicate our party of five was benighted on this 11,000er of the Columbia Icefields. In fact, we weren’t – conditions and circumstances simply dictated that it was going to take that long to get up and almost as long to get down and we were on the move for all of those 27 hours. I guess we did spend the entire night on the mountain, but we were never stuck.

This was a chance for Kevin, Mark, and I to redeem ourselves for our incredibly scenic, but failed attempt of Kitchener last year. On that trip, we had taken the suggested route that first ascends an unofficial subsidiary peak of Kitchener, called K2. That part of the trip took far more time than expected and as a result, we passed our turn-around time and had to retreat a short distance from Kitchener’s infamous notch. We were more than happy to be have Raff and Jason, who also wanted to attempt this infrequently ascended route, along for the trip

We left the parking lot at 5:30 am, and made a fairly quick ascent to the Kitchener/K2 col. In light of last year’s problems on K2 , we opted to bypass that peak and head straight for the col. The glacier proved to be more problematic. The snow was quite soft and the bergschrund open except for a small section on the left. Getting over there was also a risky proposition and we considered turning around. In a last ditch effort, Mark led us way over to the left side and the relative security of (loose) rock.

A debate ensued. With the snow in bad condition already, it was turn around immediately or continue on and wait until much later in the day to descend, when the sun was off the glacier and the temperature dropped to harden the snow. We chose the latter and scrambled carefully up the loose, but “ledgy” rock towards the “notch”.

Having fairly recently negotiated the “notches” on Mount Cline, Mark, Raff, and I were very curious to compare the two notches of Cline to the single notch of Kitchener. It took not more than three seconds of inspection to determine Kitchener was hands down the winner of “The Battle of the Notches”. Kitchener’s notch was much deeper (over 20 metres) and required a far more serious upclimb on the other side. The rock was very loose, snow remained on parts of the faces and the bottom of the notch, and the exposure was absolutely unforgiving.

We arrived at the notch at approximately 2 pm and to make a long story short, it was almost 7 pm before all five of us were over to the other side. And were we not for the last minute “heroics” of Jason, we would have abandoned the attempt. I was able to get to the bottom of the notch and across a short, but narrow snow arête to the other side, but was not at all comfortable about trying to ascend the far side, graded at a suspect 5.2. Jason stepped up here. He rapped down and then almost effortlessly climbed the 25 m face with a belay from below, earning significant praise from the rest of us. The process of getting the rest of us over was time-consuming, but necessary given the serious exposure.

A 20 minute hike across the glacier brought us to the summit, almost 14 hours after leaving. Though somewhat cloudy, the summit view was fantastic. Mark and I were especially gratified to see the Twins up close and our first look at the east side of Mount Tsar. Our summit stay was just long enough for everyone to snap a few photos and then it was a hurried descent back to the notch. On the way, Mark managed to find one crevasse the hard way and I found two. Nothing serious – they were only about 50 cm across, but I did draw a little blood when one foot went into the crevasse and I stabbed myself in the calf with my crampons on the other foot.

Getting back across the notch was faster, but still time-consuming. It was well passed 9 pm by the time we were all safely back and starting the descent. Instead of trying to downclimb the rock by headlamp, we opted to get onto the glacier right away and go straight down. Kevin led the way, but once on the glacier it became apparent that the rest of us would have difficulty descending this way. The glacier was pure ice at the top and Kevin was the only group member equipped with an ice tool. The next option was to rap down the rock as far as possible and onto the glacier where it was still snow covered. This was a decent decision, but again, it took forever to get us all down to a snow platform that we would use to start a running belay down the glacier. Of course, at the late hour of 2 am, the snow had had plenty of time to harden and we were therefore blessed with great conditions. Kevin again took the lead and we slowly worked our way down and off the glacier, breathing a sigh of relief that the worst was over.

The remainder of the descent, while not difficult, was simply not fun. Jason and Kevin went ahead, appearing to still have something in reserve, but Mark, Raff, and I were all sleep deprived and I could hardly walk 100 metres before wanting to lie down in the jagged rubble and sleep. In addition, we couldn’t find the scree trail we came up and instead ended up side-sloping across kilometres of tedious glacial rubble. The only bright side of the descent was that it took so long, the sun was fully up and we didn’t have to cross the Sunwapta River in the dark. At 8:15 am we completed one of our longest single day and toughest trips to date. Thankfully, the summit and the great company made it a more than worthwhile endeavour.