Molar Mountain

Molar Mountain – August 15, 2007

Mountain height:           3022 m
Total elevation gain:      2410 m
Ascent time:                  5:30
Descent time:                5:35

Solo scramble.

What’s with the crazy elevation gain???? It’s not as though I started the ascent from Regina ! An ascent of Molar Mountain requires you to gain 700 vertical metres to Hector Pass and then lose 620 of those metres into the Molar Creek valley, at which point you start the actual ascent. Of course, on return you have to gain those 620 metres back again. Fortunately, the fantastic scenery is enough to keep your mind occupied when your body is saying, “what the heck are you doing to me?!”

Molar Mountain is a strikingly unique set of two peaks, readily seen from Hector, Little Hector, or Andromache. Using Graeme Pole’s route description I made my way to Hector Pass under perfectly clear skies. To descend to the valley I took the left-hand side of the slope, descending the wonderful karst pavement mentioned in Pole’s description. Once near the bottom I opted to deviate a little from the described route and make a more direct route towards the mountain. (Almost) needless to say, this didn’t turn out for the better and simply increased threefold the amount of bushwhacking and climbing over deadfall.

Once out of the trees the views towards the rarely seen west side of Mount Hector were terrific. Unfortunately, the actual ascent didn’t also earn a favourable adjective – a labourious, soul-sucking scree slog that never seemed to end – “gruesome” seems to fit. The most depressing part of the ascent was looking back to Hector Pass to see that hours after standing there I had not even gained that elevation back, let alone the remaining 500 vertical metres. Still, the mountain itself and the impressive vertical walls of Molar Tower were stunning and provided plenty of motivation to keep going. Negotiating a path through the cliffs was easy and after another endless scree slog and some routefinding through the upper cliffbands, I reached the summit.

The view was spectacular. Especially interesting was the vast array of unnamed peaks to the east. Near 11,000er Cataract Peak was fairly prominent, but so were tons of other beautiful peaks. Entries in the summit register were fairly sparse – eight, including the first ascent in 1904 (rewritten).

For descent, I stuck more closely to the described route at first, but decided to try an alternate return route once back down in the valley. I wanted to get a closer look at the northwest side of the Hector Glacier. After ascending a ramp through the headwall, I continued up towards the glacier on smooth glacially-scoured rock that was heaven to walk up. The lower part of the glacier was nothing special, but a little higher up the awe-inspiring forms of glacial ice made an appearance. I spent an hour looking around and then finished the trip. Regaining the 620 m of elevation was not half as bad as I was expecting, but I was pretty tired upon reaching the car. Not the greatest scramble in the Rockies , but the scenery and views made for an incredibly rewarding day out.