Mount Wilbur

Mount Wilbur
(via "Thin Man's Pleasure")

August 1, 2009

Mountain height:         2841 m
Elevation gain:            1300 m
Ascent time:                8:45
Descent time:              6:15

Climbing with Mark.

This route is aptly named. Drenched in two kegs of Moosehead beer, I barely tip the scales at 150 pounds and I still had to suck in my gut to squeeze through the hole on the “Thin Man’s Pleasure” route up Mount Wilbur.

We first saw the strikingly beautiful form of Mount Wilbur from the slopes of Mount Henkel, in July of 2008 (still one of my all-time favourite scrambles). Wilbur immediately moved near the top of our “to-do” list. Of concern, however, were the multiple warnings and some uncertainty in Gordon Edward’s description in A Climber’s Guide to Glacier National Park. Gordon states that the climbing is 5th class. Given the tremendous range of climbing levels that exist between 5.0 and 5.10, I wanted to get more specific information. Fred Spicker, an expert on mountains in Glacier National Park and author of many terrific reports on SummitPost, informed us that “Thin Man’s Pleasure” goes at 5.0. That was obviously music to our collective ears and was going to save us from carrying a ton of unnecessary climbing gear.

Also of concern was the warning to hit the trail by 6 am because of the lengthy ascent and descent. Mark and I are pretty slow technical climbers so we left the car at 4:10 am. After hiking right past the turn-off point at Redrock Falls because of the lack of light and the fact that Redrock Falls is no more than 1 metre high, we turned around and found the correct ascent drainage. Approaching the “great basin” below the daunting east face of Wilbur, the rising sun lit up the mountain and surrounding area in beautiful hues of gold and yellow.

From the great basin, the start of the route looked very close, but as Edwards says, it’s a good hour of scree and rubble to the ascent gully. And it was! However, the views of the impressive face provided enough entertainment along the way. Finally in the ascent gully, we put on rock shoes and took out the rope. That was probably overkill, but we would soon need them and I’d rather take the gear out too early than too late.

Half way up the gully, Edwards describes the hard, igneous rock (diorite) common to many mountains in the area (and Waterton), comparing it to climbing granite. This rock was truly amazing – solid, with huge holds, and beautiful to look at – everything you want in climbing rock. Thirty seconds of climbing the diorite and we could only think, “Why couldn’t the whole mountain be made of this stuff?” Hence the famous American expression, “Give me diorite, or give me death!”

Although the rock quality deteriorated after the diorite, the terrain was ledgey throughout and therefore fun to ascend. We finally reached the start of “Thin Man’s Pleasure”. The highlight of this route is climbing a steep wall of red argillite and then passing through a small hole, made by a chockstone, at the top of the argillite. The route is very similar to the final few metres of Grillmair Chimney on Mount Yamnuska.

Climbing up to the hole was steep, but with good holds; squeezing through that hole an exercise in human contortion (easy for those with Cirque du Soleil experience). It took me several minutes to get through. Mark then climbed up, passed the packs through (a trial in itself) and then squirmed his way up into the open gully. The whole process, though time-consuming, was very unique and heaps of fun.

Above the hole, climbing the next gully was easier, but fairly steep and exposed in a couple of sections. The crux of the trip came at the top of the gully. Here, you have to traverse a narrow ledge that peters out to almost nothingness, to gain the top of the parallel running "Chimney Route". The exposure here was brutal and even with a well-placed cam, I found the last couple of steps to be frightfully exhilarating.

The next section involved walking around a large section of the mountain on a wide ledge. Towering pinnacles of vertical rock made this one of the most visually interesting parts of the trip. The end of the ledge rewarded us with our first look at the milky-blue, icy waters of Iceberg Lake - also appropriately named, given the huge chunks of ice floating on the lake, even in the late month of August. The remainder of the ascent was much easier than what had preceded it.

The only real disappointment of the day was to arrive at the summit to skies that were almost cloud-free, but not haze-free. This marred what would have been a remarkable summit panorama. At least the views down to Iceberg Lake were still breath-taking.

Our descent was slow, but straightforward. We rapped a few sections and down-climbed the rest. Getting back down through the hole took as much time as ascending the same section. Were we to repeat the ascent (and this mountain definitely is worthy of a repeat ascent), we would rappel to the descender’s left of the hole, thus avoiding having to pass the packs through and the awkwardness of climbing down though the hole. Below the hole, the remainder of the descent was pretty easy.

One of our most interesting and enjoyable trips ever. Mount Wilbur will be seeing us again.

Mount Wilbur, as seen from the ascent slopes of Mount Henkel in July of 2008

Mount Wilbur as seen at 5 am on August 1 of 2009; the outline of the peak is just visible

Improving visibility

The lower slopes of Wilbur, with Grinnell Mountain behind;
right before this photo was taken we accidentally spooked a bear about 100 metres away;
he/she belted down the mountain at Mach 6