Matahpi Peak

Matahpi Peak

July 12, 2010

Mountain height:         2834 m
Elevation gain:            1000 m
Ascent time:                3:50
Descent time:              2:15

Solo scramble.

The rationale behind picking this sort of unusual objective was as follows:

I was desperate to ascend anything, but the weather looked to be iffy at best;
Matahpi shares the same approach as slightly higher and more ambitious Going-To-The-Sun Mountain, so becoming familiar with the route couldn’t be a bad thing;
It’s short and who wants to spend an inordinate amount of time in bad weather.

With that in mind, I left Siyeh Bend and hiked easily to the point where you leave the trail, as well described by Gordon Edwards. The entire route for this mountain is pretty easy to find and to execute. Boulder hopping up the colourful was a pleasant treat as was route-finding my way through the diorite rock band about halfway up.

At one point, while hiking with my head down, I looked up was startled to see about eight sheep right in front of me, not more than 10 metres away. They knew I walking right towards them but didn’t seem to mind at all (probably sensed that I was a St. Louis Rams fan – if I was a San Francisco 49’er fan, they would have charged me!)

The weather was surprisingly decent and the view south towards Reynolds and company excellent throughout. Perhaps the most impressive sight was the vertical north face of Going-To-The-Sun Mountain. Matahpi’s north face was pretty cool too.

A vicious west wind curtailed my summit stay, but the weather was starting to deteriorate at that point, so it was time to leave anyway. Another surprise animal encounter, this time with a deer, marked the only incident on descent. Deer are typically the most skittish of animals, but this one actually moved towards me as I was backing up. I gave her a wide berth and she walked right by.

Not my most memorable day in the mountains, but definitely a mountain worthy of a visit.

Mount Reynolds (centre) and Bearhat Mountain (right)