Vimy Peak

Vimy Peak and Vimy Ridge – July 29, 2006

Mountain height:
Peak: 2379 m
Ridge: 2500m

Elevation gain:
    To Peak:          1100 m
    To Ridge:         approx. 500 m

Ascent time: 9:05 to Vimy Ridge
Descent time: 4:50

Scrambling with Mark.

There are few things in life better than a weekend in Waterton. You’d think that after a number of ascents in the park, the striking array of colours and beautiful scenery would start to lose its novelty, but exactly the opposite seems to be the case. I love it more each time I go (best relationship I’ve had in years!?).

Mark and I set out to try Vimy Peak and then continue on to the ridge, if time permitted. We biked the very narrow, but well-defined trail for 7 km. At that point, normally one would turn left onto the Vimy Peak Trail, which goes all the way to the summit. We decided against the “norm” and opted to bushwhack directly to the ridge – the distance didn’t appear to be too far. In fact, it was way further than perceived and the bush was horrendous. A frustrating hour later, we became entangled in a web of thorny bushes and had to abandon this route. It looked like the day would be a wash. Thankfully, we soon ran into another trail (which turned out to be the Wishbone again!) and started along it. Not wanting to follow this trail almost 11 km to Crypt Lake and then try to ascend to Vimy Ridge, we just went up the first drainage we arrived at and, purely by accident, this turned out to be an excellent ascent route.

We followed the dried-up drainage and then scrambled up the colourful ridge alongside it, until we reached the bottom of the mountain’s impressive, vertical, north face. We then found an apparent weakness near the left side of the mountain and after a little trial and error, were able to navigate a path through some stunning pinnacles and rock formations to the ridge. An easy hike took us to the first summit of the day and a terrific view of the Lower and Middle Waterton Lakes. From there, we quickly ran over to a lower summit further west, for a slightly better view of the lakes.

Returning to the true summit, the ridgewalk towards Vimy Ridge looked to be easy, but quite long. Nevertheless, there were options to bail along the way so we started off. The ridge was fun and easy and though the Waterton Lakes quickly disappeared behind various peaks, the view of Crypt Lake and taller U.S. peaks to the south was about all the motivation we needed. Concern set in when we both ran out of water, but we could see a snow patch in the distance and therefore continued on…..and on….and on. We reached a potential summit, but the highest one lie further southeast. Given the confusion regarding Buchanan Peak and Ridge and the true summit of Kerr, we weren’t about to turn around and risk coming up short of the summit – besides higher usually means better views and it’s all about the view!

Leaving our backpacks at the col, we slogged up to the last and highest summit of the day, enjoyed a couple of minutes at the summit and then returned to the col and a badly needed drink of melt water from the snow patch. We tried to avoid unnecessary elevation gains on the return trip by side-sloping, but in retrospect, it probably would have been just as easy to retrace our steps. Finding the Vimy Peak and Trail several hours later was a big relief and then a running stream, even bigger. I consumed almost 7 litres of water throughout the day and was still dehydrated that night. We did the last part of the bike ride in near dark conditions, arriving back at the car just after 10 pm (we started at 8 am). A very long, but fantastic day out, with an interesting and rewarding route to the summit of Vimy Peak.