Lineham Ridge and GR593982

Lineham Ridge and GR593982 – July 1, 2006

Mountain height:
Lineham Ridge: 2689 m
GR593982: 2807 m

Elevation gain:
To Lineham: 950 m
To GR593982: 280 m

Ascent time to Lineham:           2:40
Traverse time to GR593982:   0:55
Descent time:                            2:20

Solo scramble.

I guess it is better to be lucky than good sometimes. I stumbled upon this terrific little scramble route purely by accident. My initial objective was GR627936, a fairly significant summit north of Mount Head and south of Lineham Ridge. Instead of the circuitous planned route along Lineham Creek, I decided to take a more direct route, primarily to check out the interesting rock fins mentioned in Bob Spirko’s ascent of Serendipity Peak (the peak south of my objective). The fins were really cool, but after an hour of travel, the objective seemed too far away and would require a significant elevation loss. I decided to turn around. In retrospect, the original route, alongside the creek, might have yielded better results.

Thankfully, I did have another (and much shorter) objective as a back-up - GR593982 – the summit to the east of Lineham Ridge. If that route didn’t work, at least I might be able to get to the top of Lineham. Instead of taking the lengthy Lineham Creek approach and ascending the southeast ridge, I followed the Picklejar Lakes Trail. Fortunately, in my absent-mindedness, I missed the trail, marked on the map, which led to the summit of Lineham. This wasn’t terribly disconcerting, as gaining the ridge looked to be easy from all sides. Gaining the left skyline seemed to be an obvious route. It was and I was pleasantly surprised to find enjoyable scrambling along the lengthy ridge. Not only that, but the colours were great – the ridge was lined with blue, yellow, and purple flowers, and the rock colours would change every couple of minutes.

The ascent of GR593982 was not as enjoyable as Lineham, however, at an elevation 100 m higher than Lineham, it did offer a better view (especially the striking Dogtooth Mountains) and again to my surprise, an easy descent route became visible at the summit. This entailed a very tedious slog down a rubble slope, but once at the bottom, I found the Picklejar Lakes Trail and enjoyed an effortless hike back to the car, with the added bonus of seeing the scenic (and very popular) Picklejar Lakes. A very enjoyable scramble and an unexpectedly terrific day out.