Newman Peak, Spionkop Ridge, Avion Ridge

Newman Peak, Spionkop Ridge, Avion Ridge – August 1, 2006

Mountain height:
   Newman:                 2515 m
   Spionkop:                2576 m
   Avion:                      2440 m

Total Elevation gain: approx. 1600 m
Roundtrip time: 8:10

Solo scramble.

Back in October of 2005, Mark and I completed a disappointing ascent of Newman Peak, in which we were expecting great weather, but got overcast and gloomy conditions. We, therefore, decided to forgo an ascent of close-by Avion Ridge. With better weather in the forecast, I biked several kilometres up the Snowshoe Trail and started up towards Goat Lake. On the way to Avion I spotted a potential route to a southeast outlier of Newman. Leaving the trail, I headed up the southwest slopes to the ridge, being extra careful not to dislodge any rocks onto hikers below. The outlier provided a great view of the valley below and peaks such as Anderson and Glendowan.

The best part of the ascent was the ridge traverse towards Newman. The traverse, on very varied terrain, was interesting and had several sections that looked too difficult to scramble, but were in fact easier than appearance dictated and very enjoyable to ascend. Once the scrambling was over, I was closer to the higher unnamed point at GR127513 and so I went there first. Getting over to Newman from the GR was fast and easy.

To my surprise, the summit of Spionkop Ridge appeared to be very close and also easily reached. It was and again provided a very interesting and unexpected diversion. From the summit, looking down the length of Spionkop Ridge was stunning and yet again I was shocked to see that the summit of Loaf Mountain was now only a stone’s throw away. I considered continuing on to Loaf for a brief second, but then realized that I had set out to do Avion Ridge only and I seemed to be hitting everything around it, but not the actual objective!

Time was now becoming a big concern, as I didn’t want to ride my bike out in the dark – hiking by headlamp is one thing, biking by headlamp is a whole new ball game! I rushed back to the Newman/Avion col and started towards Avion. Unfortunately, I had to side slope the west side of the ridge instead of taking the more scenic route on top of the ridge, because of the time constraints. Avion was shortly reached and I’d have to say it was quite anti-climatic. A little ironic that the one thing I set out to do was the least satisfying. Obviously, I took the hiking trail out and managed to get back to the car before dark. A terrific day of unexpected diversions.