Loaf Mountain

Loaf Mountain II attempt, Loaf Mountain III – August 2, 2006

Mountain height: 2639 m
Total Elevation gain (both trips): 1950 m
Roundtrip time (both trips): approx 11 hours

Solo scramble.

What’s with the weird title?? The reason I listed this as a failed attempt, followed by a successful attempt is basically because I tried the east end of the mountain, getting to within 200 vertical metres of the summit, hit an impasse, went back down to the car, and then summitted from a different route. It kinda felt like doing two different mountains on the same day, even though they were one in the same.

My initial plan was to bike to Bovin Lake and then approach the summit from the gentle west slopes. When I arrived at the end of the road, however, it appeared that a far more interesting route would be to gain the ridge at the far east end of the mountain, followed by a long ridgewalk to the summit. The only obstacles appeared to be a row of striking pinnacles at the start of the ridge. Perhaps they could be scrambled over, perhaps they could be circumvented, but there was only one way to find out.

It’s too bad that this route didn’t go, because the scrambling all the way to the ridge was very enjoyable. From there, I started towards the pinnacles and reached a cairn in short order. As expected, the pinnacles were narrow, steep, and with significant exposure on both sides. I scrambled very slowly and carefully down into a notch and then up the other side, careful not to upclimb anything I couldn’t downclimb. Though only a few moves, this last upclimb was definitely at the upper limit of what I could downclimb. I arrived at the top to the very disconcerting sight of a tattered rappel cord – pretty much the last thing you want to see when you’re solo scrambling. I continued on for a couple of steps, but the terrain ahead obviously required climbing gear and a climbing partner. There was no hesitation and I turned around.

Once back onto safer terrain, I tried to circumvent the pinnacles on the south side of the mountain. A route was visible, but it would have required a huge elevation loss, and wasn’t worth the effort. I retreated back to the ridge and then back to my car via an alternate descent route (interesting, but much longer).

At 2:45 pm, my choices now were to call it a day or try the original plan. I chose the latter, but even that was a bust. Biking the Bovin Lake trail is definitely for mountain bikers, not people like me who own a mountain bike, but want their mountain bike trails smooth, wide, and relatively flat. The Bovin Trail was steep and covered in rocky debris. Add to that a strong headwind and my less than peak physical condition (after the previous day trip and the morning attempt), and I ended up pushing my bike for 70% of the trail. At the 3 km mark, I simply gave up, threw my bike into the bushes and started up the gentle north slopes towards the ridge. This was an easy, but mundane ascent route, though getting into the rocky drainage provided at least a small amount of scrambling.

Once on the ridge, the slog to the summit was very easy and highlighted by increasingly amazing views of the mountain itself. Basically the entire ridge is a huge rounded heap of red argillite rock. As I gained elevation, the ridge behind me took on the look of the big, fat, red snake. As well, the red rock on Loaf’s northerly neighbour, Mount Drywood, added further to the colourful spectacle.

The summit view was fantastic. Drywood, Pincher Ridge, and the full length of Spionkop Ridge were especially stunning. For descent, it was finally time to use the route I had planned on since the beginning of the day. The easy west slopes were a treat to descend and arriving at the col, I decided to gain the next highpoint south along the ridge to get a look at Bovin Lake. I then descended to the lake and followed the trail back to my bike. The bike ride back was not the best, though considerably more preferable to walking. I ended up riding my brakes most of the way down the rocky sections of trail. Not the most exciting ascent route in the world, but the views from the summit and the scenery along the way were well worth the slog.

Gaining the east ridge, with the pinnacles ahead; the lengthy ridge of Loaf to the right and the summit is the highest point peaking over at the distant right