Princess Margaret Mountain

Princess Margaret Mountain – August 20, 2007

Mountain height:           2515 m
Total elevation gain:      1200 m
Ascent time:                  4:40
Descent time:                3:40

Scrambling with Kevin.

I’m dedicating this scramble to the real Princess Margaret – my aunt in England – a Princess in the true sense of the word (if that doesn’t get me extra English chocolate on her next visit nothing will!).

Though small in stature, Margaret is definitely a mountain (aunt) to be reckoned with. One must be humble, obedient, and contrite in their dealings with Margaret (take note Uncle Bill) and always remember to bow in the presence of a Princess.

We got the route idea for this ascent from the Ramblers Association, but neglected to inform the owner of the rock quarry that we were coming. This necessitated a circuitous bushwhack around the quarry to avoid trespassing – next time we’ll call first. After a long but easy ascent in the trees, the scrambling began. We were both surprised by the high quality of the rock and therefore the high quality of the scrambling. Steep slabs were fairly easy to negotiate because of plentiful and reliable holds. Atop a minor outlier the ridge soon narrowed – nothing too hair-raising and a good warm-up for the remainder of the route. We chose to stay on the ridge throughout the ascent. Easier scree slopes lay to the left, but as mentioned, the rock was very good (solid, just like Margaret), making for some excellent scrambling.

All accounts of the trip we had read revealed that a rappel was needed to get down a 5 metre step along the ridge. We had brought a rope and gear to set up a rappel, but decided to look for an alternate route first. The west side appeared to have some potential downclimbing routes and it only took a minute for us to find one. Downclimbing involved a couple of difficult and exposed moves but was easier than expected. From there the summit was easily achieved.

Threatening weather continued to pour in from the north, as it had been doing throughout the ascent, and so our summit stay was short. Just long enough to take in interesting views of the south side of Mount Peechee and Mount Costigan and check for potential routes up Charles Stewart to the east. Everything around us was getting rain and most of the mountains were shrouded in clouds. We took this to be a stern warning from Margaret before she unleashed her fury on us. Fortunately, like obedient children we heeded this warning and started a rapid descent.

Like the Ramblers, we got suckered into descending scree slopes to the south into a canyon far below. The water-worn rock in the canyon was magnificent, but the canyon was far from easy to negotiate, requiring careful downclimbing and a few route-finding challenges. As had been the case all day, Margaret was not about to be a pushover. Soon we reached a narrowing in the canyon that presented a significant challenge. Fortunately, Kevin was up to the challenge and stemming the walls of the canyon he quickly arrived at a deep pool of water that blocked the way. The only potential route was a precarious traverse on smooth, down-sloping rock above the pool. It looked very difficult, but Kevin deftly traversed the rock making it look easy. I didn’t have an easy time of it and turned around about halfway across. Falling backwards into the pool would not have been disastrous at all (probably more funny than anything else), but destroying my non-waterproof camera in the process was not an appealing proposition.

Unfortunately, Kevin’s victory was short-lived and the next step in the canyon was overhanging and definitely not negotiable. Kevin had to come back by climbing up and over a huge outcrop of rock. We returned to a large cairn that obviously marked the point where it was now necessary to regain the ridge far above. After ascending about 100 vertical metres we decided to traverse left to try to regain the ridge at a lower point, but were thwarted by huge vertical cliffs (Margaret was definitely showing us who’s boss at this point (more chocolate)). The decision at this point was to keep going up or take a chance that we had bypassed the overhanging section of the canyon and descend back down to it. I let Kevin make the decision and he opted to gamble with the canyon – that’s my kinda’ thinking – as they say” “No guts, no glory!” Good decision – this did take us past the difficulty. We were both a little surprised, however, to find many others beyond that one. They were not as serious as the overhang, but the canyon was a challenge from beginning to end with few let-ups. We were very relieved to find a trail that led us easily back to the car.

An excellent day on a wonderful mountain – great scrambling, interesting scenery, and a surprise around every corner - a more than fitting tribute to our Princess in Dunchurch , England ! Cheers.