Mount Anderson

Mount Anderson attempt – September 4, 2005

Roundtrip time: 6:30

Scrambling with Jodi.

After seeing Mount Anderson from the summit of Blakiston, earlier this year, I thought that Anderson’s summit might make a worthwhile objective. Anderson is one of the higher peaks in the Waterton area and from Blakiston, an ascent via the south slopes appeared to be only a steep hike. I had also heard that it was possible to summit Lost Mountain and Mount Bauerman, as well as Anderson in a single trip and a quick look at the topo map revealed the trip to be seemingly straightforward.

Jodi and I got a relatively late start (1:30 pm) and so we opted to try only Lost and Anderson – a route that involved a 5 km hike along Blakiston Creek trail, a slog up to the summit of Lost Mountain, and then an easy traverse to the top of Anderson (or so the topo map indicated).

About 2-3 km into the hike, looking up at the interesting southeast slopes of the mountain, we believed a more direct route to Anderson’s summit might be possible and so we changed the plan and headed up. The terrain looked to be very steep near the top, however, we thought we would be able to traverse ledges and escape to the summit ridge via several weaknesses in the rockbands.

The terrain was interesting right from the onset, as we ascended a dry water gully, comprised of steppy bands of red and green argillite. Higher up, we traversed left, looking for the easiest route up the increasingly steep terrain. Much of the hands-on scrambling was very enjoyable, even though the rock was often quite loose. I learned a great deal from observing Jodi climb – she is a far better climber than I and watching her move effortlessly and gracefully up the steep terrain certainly gave me something to aspire to.

Unfortunately, the higher we got, the more we were pushed over to the right (southeast) side of the mountain – away from the easier terrain at the lowpoint and closer to the almost vertical walls of the mountains east side. We pushed on (up several rockbands that I knew would present a downclimbing challenge to me), looking for a weakness that might lead to the summit ridge. Eventually, we did end up at the east side, looking in amazement to the vertically impressive east face of the mountain. A little more upward progress was made before we were forced to abandon the attempt, a little more than 200 vertical metres from the summit. Nevertheless, the scrambling to that point had been terrific and we were both satisfied with the progress we had made.

As expected, downclimbing the route was slow and, at times, quite unnerving. The terrain was often very steep and exposed. Jodi led the descent and helped me negotiate the downclimbing in a couple of sections. Once past the rockbands, the remainder of the descent was easy, highlighted by the incredible beauty of Blakiston Creek’s red and green rock. A fantastic day of exploration and adventure, even though we didn’t make the summit.