Little Evan

"Little Evan"

November 11, 2010

Mountain height:         2667 m
Elevation gain:            1050 m
Ascent time:                8:00
Descent time:              4:00

Scrambling with Kevin.

A long way for a “little” peak.

The original objective for this trip was the statuesque, unnamed peak east of Mount Evan-Thomas, it’s striking west side readily visible from almost all the mountains of the Opal Range. Appropriately named “Ripsaw” in Gillean Daffern’s Kananaskis Country Trail Guide, Volume 2, the mountains profile from several angles resembles the teeth of a saw blade. In height, the mountain stands at a very respectable 3008 m, exceeding most of the more well known peaks of the Opal Range.

The planned route, via Little Elbow Creek Trail, appeared to be simple enough, however the significant horizontal distance was of concern to me. With approximately 10 hours of daylight, starting and finishing the 40+ km trip by headlamp would be a forgone conclusion. Unfortunately, I had not done a long trip in over two months. A fairly productive summer put me in probably the best cardiovascular condition of my life; two months of sloth after the summer had left me feeling like a giant, bed-ridden Twinkie.

It took us about 3 hours to cycle the mostly snow-covered Little Elbow Trail to the Romulus Campground. My cycling pace was not going to impress Lance Armstrong and I pushed my bike up almost everything with a positive slope. We then crossed the river and cycled another kilometre or so, before abandoning the bikes. The deteriorating trail was not conducive to easy cycling and in the words of the immortal B.B. King, “The thrill is (was) gone”.

By this time, the day’s objective had finally come into view. Speculation regarding the ascent route was to now become the theme of the day. Unfortunately we had not brought the specific description from the Green Book, detailing the first ascent by Don Gardner and J. Calvert, in 1976. “Easy climbing via the northeast ridge” was the only piece of information we could remember and from our vantage point the northeast ridge looked far from easy. The topo map was of little help, lacking any form of accurate detail.

We hiked several kilometres further up the valley to get a better view. It appeared that the south ridge would offer the easiest route up, but that was some distance away. My lacklustre performance up to that point was cause enough for me to opt out of the south ridge option. We still had over 1 km of elevation gain to go and attempting that route had “epic” written all over it. Instead the decision was made to make a stab at “Little Evan”, the unnamed peak to the east of Ripsaw. Kevin named the peak, in reference to its proximity to the Little Elbow River and Mount Evan-Thomas.

The majority of the ascent up Little Evan was very easy, even if my brutally slow pace didn’t reflect that fact. Halfway up the foreshortened slope, we were able to see the entirety of Ripsaw’s northeast ridge. It was breath-taking – a series of towering spires and awesome mini-mountains of rock. In regards to “easy climbing”, this was not it! Nevertheless, we did decide to take a detour over to the base of the ridge to get a better look. The view of Ripsaw from the Ripsaw/Little Evan col did provide the best scenery of the day, as the overcast skies briefly gave way to clear ones. Again, the northeast ridge was simply amazing.

With all possibilities of ascending Ripsaw now completely down the proverbial crapper, we turned our attention towards the far more modest objective of Little Evan. Kevin had his sights set on the ambitious and unique challenge of ascending 28 peaks in the Opal Range and Little Evan was one of them. Even that ascent was far from a pushover. The slog up to the ridge preceded a challenging ridge scramble to the summit. Several sections of the narrow ridge were fairly exposed, requiring some decent concentration.

8 hours after leaving the parking lot, we topped out on the 2667 m summit of Little Evan. Although overshadowed by the significantly taller Ripsaw, the view was very rewarding. Many familiar peaks took on quite different personae from this unique vantage point. Mount Romulus was especially beautiful.

To avoid the narrow ridge and get out of the cold wind as soon as possible, we took an alternate descent route east of the ascent slope. Ankle-jarring rubble and scree rendered it a less-than aesthetic route, but it was reasonably fast and easy. Lower down, a drop-off steered us back onto our original route. Reunited with our bikes by 5 pm, the headlamp lighted bike ride back to the parking lot was mercifully easy, taking only 1.5 hours (although I still had to push my bike up all the hills!).

Overall, a long, but more than worthwhile day on a very cool little peak.

Epilogue: It appears we were in fact off route for the Ripsaw summit. The northeast ridge and “easy climbing” was reached via a ramp on the east face of Ripsaw that we didn’t see. More than likely snow-cover and sketchy conditions would have turned us back anyway, so Little Evan was a good consolation prize. Ripsaw will see us again.

Unrelated aside: halfway through the NFL season, the St. Louis Rams are 4-4 - how excited am I!!

The southwest side of Mount Remus