Mount Foch attempt

Mount Foch attempt – July 17, 2009

Mountaineering with Kevin.

You really have to be in complete awe of anyone who is able to complete routes such as this one. The northeast and east ridges of Mount Foch, as described in the Green book, is so fraught with unseen difficulties, it’s a miracle that the first ascentionists (F. Crickard and R. Higgins in 1957) could complete the ascent at all, let alone do it in 8 hours.

To get to the east ridge, you first have to make it to the summit of The Turret. On the map this appears to be a straightforward ascent from the parking lot. However, the bush was so dense, we decided to go first to Rawson Lake, ascend the ridge that lies due west of the objective (The Turret), descend into the valley, and finally ascend The Turret via an obvious weakness on the west side of the peak. Getting to scenic Rawson Lake was easy; slogging up to the ridge, just that – a slog; descending into the valley, tedious, time consuming, and far from easy.

4 hours into the trip we were finally at the position to start the ascent. The summit of Foch now a very slim possibility, we started up to at least get to the summit of The Turret. The weakness turned out to be deceivingly steep, with loose and slimy, wet rock. Kevin led the ascent, but soon we were both onto terrain that was intensely unnerving at best. We both agreed to bail at this point and slowly downclimbed, using a belay from pitons that Kevin placed. Bushwhacking back to the lake was not as difficult as expected but going up this same terrain would be sheer hell.

The trip did reward us with good views of the Kananaskis Lakes and Mount Sarrail. 9 hours of interesting trial and error.

An outlier of Sarrail reflected in Rawson Lake