Cone Mountain attempt

Cone Mountain attempt

April 18, 2009

Mountain height:         2910 m
Elevation gain:            approx. 1200 m (came up 35 m short)
Ascent time:              9:35
Descent time:              5:40
Roundtrip distance:    approx. 28 km

Snowshoeing with Mark.

Chalk this one up as a good learning experience. I’ve always been curious about the limitations of single-day snowshoe travel in regards to horizontal and vertical gain – 1200 m vertical and 28 km horizontal is too much – way, way, way too much! Though not as physically brutal as our Castleguard, Chephren, and Kitchener trips, Cone definitely makes it onto the list of “Trips that could actually tire you to death”.

We got the idea for this route from Kevin Barton. It’s probably the easiest route to the summit, but still has a sting in its tail. The route crosses Spray Lake at the south end, follows Turbulent Creek, for about 4 km, goes up a side drainage, and then ascends a relatively low-angled ramp, almost directly to the summit.

Crossing Spray Lake was quite dull, when compared to our Fortulent trip earlier this year, and required a short detour to get around sections where the ice had melted. A 2 hour, 4 km snowshoe up Turbulent Creek followed. It was surprisingly easy, due to supportive snow and thin forest. After turning up the side drainage and following a small creek, we finally broke treeline and started up the main snow slope leading to the ramp. Travel to and up and ramp was straightforward, but very strenuous (similar to a recent ascent of Mount Wilson). A significant layer of fresh snow atop several metres of older, stable snow made it so. Several hours passed before the ridge finally became visible.

Although the weather was decent, it was far from perfect. This was a huge source of disappointment for us, because the promised amazing view from the top was the primary motivation for this ascent. Nevertheless, we plodded on with the faint hope the high, thin, cloud would dissipate. It didn’t and we staggered up to the ridge to a view that was great, as opposed to stupendous. Of course, the view towards Mount Assiniboine was the feature attraction, however equally rewarding scenes stood in almost every direction.

Naturally, the view in one direction was still blocked by the final section of ridge to the summit. Unfortunately that section looked pretty nasty: heavily corniced and very exposed. We had brought along an all-too-short 30 m rope, but viciously cold weather, the lateness of the day, and less than perfectly clear skies promoted us to retreat after a brief attempt to negotiate the narrow ridge.

The first part of the descent was magnificent. We plunge-stepped down the ramp at a very brisk pace. What took almost 5 hours to ascend, we descended in 1 hour. Throughout we talked about when we were going to try to reach the summit again - by the time we reached the car, we had both vehemently swore to never return, as least not on snowshoes! Isothermal snow ensured our descent of Turbulent Creek would actually take longer than ascending it and the mind-numbing almost 2 hour walk across Spray Lake was exactly that – mind-numbing. After a 15+ hour day, wearing snowshoes for about 12 of the 15, we were both physically exhausted. Cone Mountain may have to wait a very long time before it sees us again!

Crossing Spray Lake, with Cone Mountain ahead; it looked way better in February