Divide Mountain

Divide Mountain

August 2, 2009

Mountain height:         2641 m
Elevation gain:            540 m
Ascent time:                1:40
Descent time:              3:15

Scrambling with Mark.

After 16+ hours on wonderful Wilbur the day before, we required a short trip. Two options were immediately apparent: 1. Mount Oberlin - the shortest and easiest trip in the park; 2. Altyn Peak - not as short as Oberlin, but covered in red argillite - a type of rock that is "Simply Irresistible" to us.

While stuffing our faces with a delicious breakfast in the Park Cafe (St. Mary), who should walk in the door, but Bob, Dinah, and Sonny - what a truly small world! The trio had completed Altyn the day before and were on their way to ascend one of the six, 10,000 ers in GNP - Mount Siyeh. They also informed us that Oberlin was off limits and so our decision was made for us - Altyn Peak.

Pulling out of the parking lot to turn around, Mark suddenly pointed to a distant peak in front of us and said, “What about that one?” A look at the map revealed the mountain in question to be Divide Mountain and there was also a brief description in the guidebook. Upon further investigation we discovered Divide to have several perks for us: 1. it appeared you could drive all the way to the base of the mountain; 2. that drive looked to be largely uphill and would decrease the elevation gain for the trip; 3. the skies still appeared to be hazy again and so we were after something without a mind-boggling summit view; 4. we had never visited that specific area of GNP.

All 4 perks proved to be exactly that. By the time we had parked the car, we were no more than 1.5 horizontal kilometres from the summit and only 540 vertical metres.

The ascent, via the northwest slopes and north ridge was very easy, the ridge providing a fair dose of enjoyable hands-on scrambling. The summit view was also a very pleasant surprise, even in the hazy conditions. As an ultimate front range peak, the view to the east was obviously flat prairies, however, the panorama to the south and west was filled with many unknown, but beautiful peaks. The statuesque form of Mount Siyeh was clearly visible and we wondered if Bob, Dinah, and Sonny were making their way up to that impressive vantage point. In fact they were: Bob’s report; Sonny’s report.

Given the minimal time and energy expended to ascend Divide, we decided to attempt the next peak to the south – White Calf Mountain. It would require losing almost all the elevation we had gained, but appeared to be a straightforward ascent, via steep scree slopes. I had left the guidebook in the car, but could recall some mention of a long, loop route, taking in Divide, White Calf, Kupunkamint, and Curly Bear. Well, it seems my mind (memory) is no longer the silicon carbide trap it used to be. Later, I would discover the loop starts with White Calf Mountain and does not include Divide Mountain (ooops!)

Descending the south ridge of Divide was interesting, as gaping fissures and steep rock-bands barred the way. Progress was slow, but then ground to a halt when the ridge dropped off quite severely. This necessitated a grueling traverse to the centre of the face, where the cliff-bands petered out.

By the time we were nearing the bottom, all motivation to ascend White Calf had been sucked out of both of us. We abandoned the attempt and decided that the easiest route back to the car was around the east side of the Divide. Though longer than a route via the southwest and west slopes, we were done with side-sloping rubble for the day and the southwest route appeared to be all side-sloping and all rubble. The east route was far from a cakewalk, but at least was interesting and quite scenic.

A wonderfully short and easy ascent and a not so wonderful descent.

Divide Mountain