Noseeum Mountain attempt – May 31, 2008

Roundtrip time: 8:05

Scrambling and crawling with Mark.

How does “crawling” make it into the day’s descriptor?? ....by leaving our snowshoes in the car – that’s how! We certainly picked on wrong time and location to decide to retire our snowshoes for the year.

Using a great route description from Graeme Pole, we hiked along Noseeum Creek with ease, enjoying some terrific pinnacle scenery on the north side of Mount Andromache and the impressively steep walls of the Noseeum’s south face. Ascending the headwall at the head of the valley was also thoroughly entertaining. Several gorgeous waterfalls and beautifully coloured, solid rock were highlights of the ascent.

Atop the headwall, the remainder of the ascent appeared to be straightforward – a kilometre or so crossing a snowfield, ascending snow slopes to the ridge and then an easy-looking ridgewalk. We thought success was guaranteed. That was until we stepped out onto the snow to find it waist deep and completely unsupportive. Without snowshoes, we were forced to resort to crawling across the snowfield – it was the only way we could make any forward progress. Not surprisingly, this method of locomotion was excruciatingly slow and inefficient and therefore frustrating. After an hour or so of painstaking travel we conceded defeat and turned around. The summit may have been attainable, but the return trip would have been sheer misery and neither of us had the energy or motivation to complete the trip.

Thankfully the day was salvaged by visiting and exploring three of the waterfalls lining the headwall. Each was completely unique and absolutely stunning, with a blue sky above. As well, the volume of water of each fall had significantly increasing during the day. We spent several hours exploring the falls. On one of them, just for fun, I tried to run underneath the fall to a very small cave behind the water. I made it to the cave but it provided no shelter from the water, and I was thoroughly soaked within seconds. I had to run out immediately, as the water was as close to the freezing point as you can get – very exhilarating!

Perhaps our second best failure to date, eclipsed only by a failed attempt of Mount Loomis, several years earlier. 

Interesting scenery on the north side of Mount Andromache

A small waterfall

Ascending the headwall

The south peak of Noseeum Mountain

More interesting scrambling on the headwall

Looking down at the waterfall

Mark leads us through a gap in the rock

Mount Andromache

Approaching the last obstascle before reaching Noseeum Lake

Searching for a route up the obstacle

Finally, above the headwall; the summit of Noseeum is at the right

Same as above

The post-holing begins

The crawling begins

Trying to spot an easier route to the ridge

Travelling from rock to rock to avoid post-holing

My turn to crawl

The blue ring of ice surrounding the lake was one of the highlights of the trip

A closer look at the ring

A partial panorama; summit at the far right

Same as above

More crawling

Resignation.....

.....and retreat

Mark below the first waterfall

Same as above

Me

A last look at Waterfall #1

At the second

Beautiful rock alongside #2

Same as above

Scrambling up #3

Same as above

Mark comes up the fall

A last look at the beautiful waterfall

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