Eagle Mountain, Mount Howard Douglas

Eagle Mountain , Mount Howard Douglas – August 23, 2007

Mountain height:
            Eagle:                                       2820 m
            Howard Douglas                      2877 m
Total elevation gain:                             approx. 1700 m
Ascent time to Eagle:                          2:20
Traverse time to Howard Douglas:     3:20
Descent time:                                       2:10

Scrambling with Kevin.

Hoping for two official peaks to contribute to Kevin’s bid to bag ___ peaks at age ___, we set off to Sunshine Village , on what was bound to be a miserable weather day. On the topo map Eagle Mountain and Mount Howard Douglas appeared to be straightforward ascents. The forecast held up his end of the bargain and we reached the summit of Eagle Mountain in a thick layer of cloud that blocked views in every direction. It was however, one of the easiest ascents I’ve ever completed – 3 km up the ski-out, hike up a ski run and then a scree slog to the summit.

The summit of Howard Douglas was a far greater challenge than the topo indicated. We intended to descend south slopes to the Eagle/ Howard Douglas col, however, several cliffs prevented that. We did eventually make around to the slope leading to the col, but that route didn’t look promising either. On the way there Kevin found a long bamboo pole and decided to carry it on his backpack to the summit of Howard Douglas.

After losing more elevation we did find a feasible looking route up and though it turned out to be the “foreshortened scree slog from hell”, it did take us in the right direction. I thought Kevin would abandon the bamboo pole along the way, but to his credit he hauled that thing all the way up and even demonstrated some of his impressive Ninja poses and moves.

Though the clouds were present throughout the ascent, they did clear a little revealing an excellent summit panorama. After Kevin victoriously planted the bamboo pole at the summit and reinforced it with a huge summit cairn, we enjoyed an easy descent. Once off the scree, we followed a drainage through a beautiful meadow and then out via ski connectors. Though a bike would have been sheer heaven to descend the ski-out, one can’t complain about a wide and relatively smooth gravel road underfoot. Besides the miserable weather on Eagle, a fun and gratifying day out.