Lone Mountain

Lone Mountain

August 9, 2011

Mountain height:    2420 m
Elevation gain:       1000 m
Ascent time:           4:15
Descent time:        4:00

Solo scramble.

Like Kishinena Peak, Lone Mountain was one of those peaks I had little interest in. Upon reflection, however, when putting the question to myself, “Which Waterton mountains were not worth the effort?”, the answer came back as a definitive “none, they were ALL terrific in at least one way”. And my recent ascent of Kishinena itself was one of my most enjoyable trips in the park. I could therefore simply not pass up on this isolated, little peak.

The other characteristic common to both Kishinena and Lone is that they are both fairly lengthy trips; 26 km and 32 km roundtrip respectively. While 16 of the Kishinena kilometres are bikeable, the Lone trip must be completed entirely on foot (definitely another factor that prevented me from making an attempt earlier!)

I left the parking lot at 7:30 am with the intention of hiking about 8 km along the Blakiston Creek Trail, ascending the north face and then descending the recommended (by Rick Collier) south ridge. All started off as planned, but in retrospect I should have worn a wet suit, not hiking attire! Even with water-treated boots and gaiters I was completely soaked from mid-thigh down within an hour of leaving – unusual in that travel is along a good trail all the way. The cause was precipitation, from the previous night’s awesome storm, clinging to the vegetation lining the trail. It was unavoidable and I spent most of the remainder of the ascent “squelching” my way to the top.

Upon reaching the 8 km mark, although several feasible routes appeared, they all required extensive stints through bush that would have been far worse than what I had encountered up to this point.

Being soaked from mid-thigh down is one thing, but doing the ascent drenched from head to toe is quite another – I opted to stay on the trail and ascend the south ridge.

As Collier states this route is really the only sensible way to get up and down Lone Mountain. The scenery on approach to Lone Lake was very pleasant and the ascent a total pushover. Although the grade at the bottom of the ridge was steepish in places, by the time I reached the summit I hardly realized I still going uphill!

I didn’t have the same “WOW!” reaction, upon arriving at the top, as I did for Kishinena Peak, but still the views were much better than expected. Especially noteworthy were the unique forms of rarely ascended King Edward, Starvation, and Miskwasini Peaks and Kenow Mountain.

A long summit stay was in order so that I could attempt to dry out my footwear. Fortunately I had brought with me a pair of MEC neoprene socks for the Blakiston Creek ford – a great recommendation by Raff. They worked magnificently in place of my hiking socks and although my boots remainder soaked throughout the rest of trip, the neoprene provided a much better level of comfort than soaking wet hiking socks.

I would have stayed at the summit much longer, but the thunderstorms predicted for the afternoon made a premature appearance, just before noon. While I basked in beautiful sunshine, rainclouds were forming all around. The bigger peaks in the vicinity (Blakiston and Anderson) seemed to be creating their own storms. It was time to go!

But first…I at least had to look down the north face, just to see things for myself – famous last words! It only took a glance down the face to immediately set in motion my usual rationalization process for attempting unknown, alternate descent routes:

    1.   It was a fast way to lose elevation quickly in light of the incoming storms.
    2.   It would shave 6 horizontal kilometres off the descent.
    3.   It looked easy from the bottom and from my present vantage point.
    4.   Descending through the bush is far easier than ascending through it.
    5.   The bush would probably be dry by now.
    6.   It was part of the adventure!

There was a cliffband about midway down, but I had spotted a potential weakness through from the bottom and thought I could find that weakness. Alternate route – on!

Not surprisingly, the route began well and ended horribly! I lost elevation quickly and expected to be reunited with the Blakiston Creek Trail in short order. Not so. Finding the weakness in the cliffband was a nightmare. The top of the band was guarded by thick alders and even getting close to the edge to find the weakness was fraught with difficulty. After fighting my way across the top for a good half hour, breaking my sunglasses and losing half a hiking pole in the process, I did find the weakness, only to discover it was not much of a weakness. In fact it was vertical and I was forced to take out my rock shoes to get down the short step.

Breathing a sigh of relief I put my hiking boots back on and continued down. Within minutes another rockband, unseen from below because of the thick vegetation, was encountered. Fortunately this one was not vertical and I was able to squirm my way down using alder branches as handholds.

That was the end of the rockbands, but getting back to the trail was a bush battle of Biblical proportions. Arriving at Blakiston Creek, I simply walked through the knee deep waters instead of trying to find a place to cross where my feet would be spared of getting wet – I couldn’t get any more drenched than I already was!

Two hours was easy hiking ended a somewhat adventurous and (yes!) very rewarding day. Another Waterton peak gets the thumbs up!