Smoat Peak

Smoat Peak attempt – November 3, 2007

Mountain height: 2549 m (came up 50 vertical metres short)
Elevation gain: 1220 m
Roundtrip time: 10:20

Scrambling and a little mountaineering with Mark.

Initially, I was going to call this mountain “Small, Old Goat Mountain ” because it is the highest point of the north end of the massif also home to Old Goat Mountain and Mount Nestor . That title being somewhat cumbersome, I shortened it to “Smoldgoat Peak” and finally settled on “Smoat Peak” - at least that gives you an explanation for my simplistic logic!

While a direct route to the summit was clearly beyond our skill level, I had seen a potential route up the east face and north ridge. Most of the route went up an avalanche gully. Only the top section looked questionable. The bushwhacking at the beginning was fairly light and ascending the avalanche gully was fast and almost the pleasant opposite of foreshortened. As expected, the upper section was far too steep to be scrambled and so we traversed north, looking for an easier route. An “easy” route never materialized, but a less steep route did present itself near the far northeast end of the massif.

Admittedly, I was very uneasy about tackling this route in its present condition. Just enough snow cover to make things dangerous and cold - we would definitely be ascending with crampons and wearing winter gloves. Mark, however, was up to the challenge and led the entire ascent up the face to the ridge. I was quite happy to get a good belay all the way up. The quality of the rock was outstanding and we both wished we had tried this route in the summer, when the face could be easily scrambled.

Not surprisingly, the ridge greeted with us a continuous blast of bone-chilling wind. We didn’t think this would be a factor, as the ridgewalk to the summit appeared to be easy, albeit long. Generally it was easy, although there were a couple of sections that were mildly exposed, their seriousness exacerbated a little by the high winds. Unfortunately, the weather completely deteriorated at this point and views were limited. We negotiated the ups and downs of ridge for what seemed a very long time before the final push to the summit was upon us. This push sucked the life out of both of us. I could scarcely remember a time when I had to stop so frequently to catch my breath. The wind, at this point, was relentless and severely cold – not the refreshing and exhilarating wind I had enjoyed with Raff and Ferenc in October on Thunder Mountain.

Just as we thought we were about to reach the summit a nasty little surprise appeared in the form of a narrow, exposed ridgewalk to complete the ascent. We were about 200 horizontal and 50 vertical metres from the summit. Without the wind we simply would have walked or crawled along the ridge. With the wind an attempt wasn’t even an option. Had the skies been clear, we may have tried to find an alternate route to the top, but they weren’t, we were both bitterly cold and time was a factor. Retreat was the best thing to do.

In an effort to get out of the wind as quickly as possible, we took an alternate descent route, directly down the west side of the peak. This meant that we would have to hike around the base of the north end of the mountain, but better a long, draining descent than battling the cold for another hour. This descent route was tedious and very long. Fortunately, for most of it we were able to follow faint animal trails and then a decent human trail back to the east side of the mountain. Definitely a mountain we’ll be returning to.