Gap Peak attempt via southeast ridge – December 23, 2007

Roundtrip time: 6:50

Scrambling with Mark.

We saw this interesting ridge while taking an alternate descent route off Gap Peak earlier this year. A good friend informed us that he had tried the ridge, but didn’t have a rope. He soon reached terrain that might require one and wisely backed down.

We left the city perhaps a little too early. In the dark, it was difficult to discern where the correct ridge was. We picked the most obvious one and started up. It turned out to be the ridge east of the one we intended to be on, but they both merged into one higher up so this wasn’t a big concern.

The only real concern was the viciously cold wind that greeted us upon reaching the upper ridge. We continued to a point where the ridge narrowed and a rope was a good idea. Unfortunately, it was too cold to do anything technical and so when a steep rockband reared up in front of us, we had little choice but to back down. Good thing, as a rather nasty storm moved in from the west during the descent.  We’ll chalk this one up as a good reconnaissance mission.

Interesting sky colours in early morning

 

Same as above; Mount McGillivray to the right

 

Looking at the upper Ridge; the summit of Gap Peak is the highest at the left; the proposed 
route follows the ridge, first going left then right and then left again to the summit

 

Mark checks out a potential ascent route up a rockband; we ended up going around

 

Mark on the ridge, with Mount Fable in the distant centre

 

Mark comes up the ridge

 

Approaching the point where the ridge narrows

 

Small trees along the ridge provided good belay positions

 

A wider section of the ridge

 

The end of the line

 

Back at the first highpoint where the ridges meet

 

Surprisingly, there was a very large canister bolted to the rock at the highpoint where the ridges meet; 
no register, just a couple of rocks with writing on them; we left the canister, but took the rusty piece of pipe

 

Mount McGillivray provides a backdrop for the Bow River and Lac Des Arc

 

Wind Mountain (left) and the three peaks of Mount Lougheed (and a storm coming in from the west)

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