Newman Peak III, “Newman Senior
III”
June 3,
2017
Mountain
heights: 2515 m, 2640 m
Elevation gain: approximately 1200 m
Solo scramble.
The goal
of this trip was a quick visit to Goat Lake. I suspected that the insane
winter snowpack (still deep in June) would render other objectives out of
reach. Although there was a significant amount of snow at the lake, it was
solidly packed and therefore easy to walk on. And so after a beautifully scenic
jaunt around the mainly ice and snow covered lake, I started up the valley
towards the Avion Ridge/Newman Peak col. This was my third time in this area and
the first where I would have perfect weather conditions. As such, the scenery
throughout was breath-taking. Naturally, the remaining snow contributed
immensely to this.
After
passing a couple of beautiful waterfalls and slogging (easy slogging because of
the firm snow) up to the col, I couldn’t resist a quick run up the east summit
of Avion Ridge. It’s a short, but wonderful extension of the trip that gets you
a little higher than Avion Ridge’s true summit in no time at all. The views
from this summit were spectacular!
“Spectacular”
also applied to the remainder of trip, first to Newman Peak and then to “Newman
Senior” (a less convoluted name than “The East Peak of Newman”). From the
summit of Newman Senior, for a few minutes I considered attempting a traverse
over to Mount Glendowan, but decided to save it for another day. Instead I
settled for an interesting alternate descent route back down to the valley and
Goat Lake.
A phenomenal
day – awesome to finally experience this area in perfect weather conditions.
An outlier (left) of Avion Ridge and one of the two summits of Avion
Goat Lake
The super colourful first summit of Avion
Looking up the valley
The first waterfall
The second waterfall in the distance
The second
Rock by the waterfall
Almost to the col. Newman Peak behind
The fun and easy route to the east summit (far left) of Avion Ridge
Looking over to Spionkop Ridge, Newman Peak and Newman Senior
Still lots of snow desperately clinging onto the ridge
Approaching the summit
The summits of Miskwasini Peak and Kenow Mountain
Looking further along the ridge to the true summit
Partial summit panorama
Kinnerly Peak in GNP dominates the distant horizon
King Edward Peak and Starvation Peak look pretty good too
Long Knife Peak ALWAYS looks great!
Heading back over the colourful ridge
Newman Peak
Looking back up the ridge
Looking forward to Newman Peak
The view to the northeast is filled with the tantalizing colours of The Castle
The easy traverse to the highpoint of Spionkop Ridge. Loaf Mountain (to
the right of Spionkop) is always easy to reach (but long)
The view to the west
The view to the northwest and north
Newman Senior
Loaf Mountain and the stripes of Pincher Ridge at the far right
More cool colours of The Castle. Sections of Spionkop Ridge, Loaf
Mountain, Drywood Mountain, and Pincher Ridge are visible
The intriguing continuation of the ridge to Mount Glendowan at the far right
Not much of a cairn here, but a wicked view
A last look at the summit view before heading home
Along the alternate descent route there were massive chucks of snow breaking off the ridge. Very cool but don't get too close!
No shortage of different coloured rock on this mountain
Looking back at some of the descent route
Following this ridge is the difficult, but incredibly interesting way to ascend Newman Peak and Newman Senior
More colours
I had to find a weakness through this rock band that guards much of the upper slopes
Back in the valley
Last look at Newman Peak and the ascent route
