Crumble Peak

“Crumble Peak” – August 10, 2009

Mountain height:         2850 m
Elevation gain:            approx. 1500 m
Ascent time:                5:05
Descent time:              4:05

Solo scramble.

For the first time in a long while I was tempted to leave the designation of a peak as Unnamed at GR_______; in this case GR561031. However, as the highest or second highest point of the Highwood Range, I thought it deserved better than that. Since the mountain is a typical Rockies piece of crumbling rock, “Crumble Peak” seemed unoriginally fitting (of course, the name could be applied to 90% of our lovely peaks).

I poached the idea for this ascent from a recent report on the Old Goats website. Alistair Des Moulins had ascended a number of GR’s west of Junction Lake and provided excellent route information for each. I had already tried (and twice failed) what I thought was the highest GR – Highwood Peak at GR571010. Since Mr. Des Moulins had successfully reached the apex of Crumble Peak and it appeared to rival Highwood Peak for top honours of the Highwood Range, an attempt was well worth my time. The only aspect of the trip I was not looking forward to was several significant elevation losses on the way in (and of course the requisite gains on the way out) and a fairly long stint of route-finding through thick forest.

After hiking a short way up Mist Ridge and then losing elevation into the valley to the east, I did fortuitously stumble upon the horse trail described by Mr. Des Moulins. Even so, the next hour was trying, due to being stuck in the forest with no views and a great deal of route-finding when the trail veered off in the wrong direction. I finally made it into the correct valley, but things didn’t improve. As such I took a long break, sitting alone in the middle of a forest, in the middle of nowhere – I guess I can’t expect every trip to be a Cathedral, Edith Cavell, or Henkel.

With less than a renewed sense of determination, I continued up the valley to finally break tree-line. The remainder of the ascent looked to be….rubbly! And rubbly it was, giving Farquhar and Putnik a good run for their money in terms of being the biggest pile of crap in the Canadian Rockies. Though, yet again, the dismal weather was the primary culprit for draining my motivation, not the ankle-twisting rubble underfoot.

After an energy-sapping slog to the ridge I completed the ascent in slightly better spirits. The summit view was impressive, but definitely required completely clear skies to justify the slog. It was next to impossible to determine if Crumble was higher than Highwood Peak to the south, from my vantage point.

After returning to the valley, I took an alternate descent route, side-sloping the west side of the range towards Picklejar Creek. This reduced slightly the necessary elevation gain on return, but also offered different and better scenery. Ironically, the best views of the day were the dark clouds over sun-bathed Lineham Ridge.

For anyone wanting to reach the summit of a mountain that has seen only a few ascents and will likely stay that way forever, Crumble Peak is a good bet.

Pleasant scenery on the lower slopes of Mist Ridge