Headed for the Mountains
Join Date: Nov 2014
Location: Canmore, AB
Interest: Being outside! Hiking, Scrambling, Trail running
Posts: 312
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West Castle Mountain and Lys Ridge
October 23, 2016
A great ridge scramble that looked like it was going to be much more ‘scrambly’ that it really was.
Things that happened:
We laugh and talk about Type 1 and Type 2 fun. But sometimes it’s just a case of keeping at it, living in the wonders of the moment with the bonus of making great memories. There were plenty of moments were we wondered about whether to continue on, knowing that we would be condemning ourselves to hiking out in the dark, or take what we had and turn back. There is a long story behind this trip, and a ton of detail that I wont go into here: Vern’s TR for West Castle and Lys will no doubt describe all of those details along with the output of his great photographic skills.
We set out to do Centre Peak in the Livingstone Range, but because of a recent road closure we couldn’t drive the necessary approach. We thought about lesser objectives, but really wanted to get the most out of a late season, perfect scrambling day. We settled on West Castle Mountain (and see if we cared to continue to Lys Ridge – we both thrive in digging deep to push our bodies long past comfortable, so I guess we knew that if it was possible we were going to go for Lys).
The approach road is a slow and careful 6km with plenty of rocks and potholes, but in a 4WD we were fine. I imagine through spring to fall this rough road could range from sheer impassable to just fine in a standard SUV. It looks like the road holds large puddles for some time after rainfall/snowmelt. Despite checking a number of puddles, none we came across were deeper than a few inches, and the dry creek crossing was… dry. I would only really head down here if you had at least fairly good clearance and were confident in your vehicle. You get the point, be prepared.
The first order of the day was crossing the South Castle River, which was flowing fairly high (more on that at then end of this report…). It was knee deep and we picked a slower flowing area.
Ascent up firm dirt and shale-scree and open forest beside a boulder field was steady and got a ton of elevation done early. The immediate rockband was ascended by wrapping around to the west side to find a clear, initially easy gully that required only a short 2m section of moderate scrambling at the very top.
The ridge was then a mixture of open hiking, snow and a few brief moments of scrambling. Because of the snow, we tended to avoid scrambling sections where alternatives presented themselves, which worked fine.
Looking back from our shaded, snow ascent we couldn't help but wonder whether the sunshine and dry slope opposite might have been a nicer choice for the day
Finally on the ridge we approach the first rockband. We curved around the west side to find a simple snow-filled gully for fast ascent
The top of the gully is a nice little walled bowl, a short moderate step got us out of this feature and back onto the ridge top.
The ridge is long, but a really pleasant trip. When looking at the ridge ahead, there always seems to be some involved scrambling, but as you approach those sections, either there is a simple easy scrambling route available if you look for it, or what appeared to be a likely steep rockband is actually a steady hike through with minimal hands-on rock required. Of note, bypasses from scrambling by sidehilling takes one into some steep angled slopes that can slide with the wrong kind of snow, but when snow-free would be simple easy scrambling terrain.
The ridge wriggles on and on
Lots of bumps along the ridge, some were walk up's others were more scrambly
Often it's the detail that makes a trip. I was wandering along lost in my thoughts on a hiking section of ridge and just happened to look to my right as I passed this wonderful nature's sculpture
The ridge looked much more involved than it was. Except for one or two short moderate sections, this was mostly a hike, although taking care to make the right choices when assessing where to drop from the crest to bypass scrambly sections.
Lys ridge just kept on giving...
Looking back on what we had done...
Mount Haig was really impressive from this angle in the low light of fall
One more bump and then we're on the simple 2km plateau to the summit
We reached the summit of West Castle after about 3.5 hours from leaving the car, and the summit of Lys Ridge after about 7 hours. We did think that there may have been bail-out options between West Castle and Lys to the exit valley to the west, but later as we exited we did notice intermittent cliffs low down that may have blocked these routes. So take care if you think about bailing out, you may get to within 100m of the trail and reach an impasse at a cliff.
Smiling our way to the summit
Descent could be tricky, and we made our way down the steep slope to the valley and our exit trail
The downclimb from the summit to Rowe Lake was steep but low-moderate or moderate scrambling depending on route selection. We had thin snow on the upper part of this descent, which was softened by the sun and was not an issue at that time of day. Lower down the snow was ankle deep, and made for a nice plunge step descent taking care for the odd slab.
The trail out was great except for being surprised by 3 water crossings. 2 were of Grizzly Creek, and not an issue for us – ankle deep. The final crossing was a complete surprise... We maybe could have researched this further,for some reason we thought it would be benign. We ploughed into the South Castle River fairly quickly under headlamp, knowing that the road was about 500 metres away. After a few steps we realized that the river was flowing very fast at this point and as we got closer to the far bank it got to crotch-deep and threatened to carry me away a few times. Clearly, this was a bit of a lesson for me, I shouldn’t have just expected to walk through this river. But under headlamp we could not scope the area for the best crossing, and knowing that this was a hiking trail with a new bridge installed over Grizzly Creek at a section that was only knee deep, I figured that the trail would lead us to a good crossing point. Bottom line, this was the crux of our day.
We were back at the car just inside 11 hours, with a distance of about 25km.
This seems to be a great fall trip, check out this link. But, I feel that we were lucky to have just enough snow and no wind to make this a really nice trip. You can't hike ALL the larch-drapped ridges in a 2 week window in late September.
A great ridge scramble that looked like it was going to be much more ‘scrambly’ that it really was.
Things that happened:
- A pack of wolves at Beaver Mines.
- An ‘interesting’ drive approach.
- A long and really enjoyable ridge.
- Picking easy and fun lines to bypass any of the moderate steps.
- A final 2km plateau to the summit that felt like a victory lap.
- No wind, really no wind (well okay except for at the very summit).
- Sheep breaking trail for us on the ridge.
- Moose breaking trail for us on exit.
- Four river crossings, including one under headlamp that was the closest I’ve come to feeling that I was going to wash away downstream, and
- … and a pair of large, wild eyes in the night.
We laugh and talk about Type 1 and Type 2 fun. But sometimes it’s just a case of keeping at it, living in the wonders of the moment with the bonus of making great memories. There were plenty of moments were we wondered about whether to continue on, knowing that we would be condemning ourselves to hiking out in the dark, or take what we had and turn back. There is a long story behind this trip, and a ton of detail that I wont go into here: Vern’s TR for West Castle and Lys will no doubt describe all of those details along with the output of his great photographic skills.
We set out to do Centre Peak in the Livingstone Range, but because of a recent road closure we couldn’t drive the necessary approach. We thought about lesser objectives, but really wanted to get the most out of a late season, perfect scrambling day. We settled on West Castle Mountain (and see if we cared to continue to Lys Ridge – we both thrive in digging deep to push our bodies long past comfortable, so I guess we knew that if it was possible we were going to go for Lys).
The approach road is a slow and careful 6km with plenty of rocks and potholes, but in a 4WD we were fine. I imagine through spring to fall this rough road could range from sheer impassable to just fine in a standard SUV. It looks like the road holds large puddles for some time after rainfall/snowmelt. Despite checking a number of puddles, none we came across were deeper than a few inches, and the dry creek crossing was… dry. I would only really head down here if you had at least fairly good clearance and were confident in your vehicle. You get the point, be prepared.
The first order of the day was crossing the South Castle River, which was flowing fairly high (more on that at then end of this report…). It was knee deep and we picked a slower flowing area.
Ascent up firm dirt and shale-scree and open forest beside a boulder field was steady and got a ton of elevation done early. The immediate rockband was ascended by wrapping around to the west side to find a clear, initially easy gully that required only a short 2m section of moderate scrambling at the very top.
The ridge was then a mixture of open hiking, snow and a few brief moments of scrambling. Because of the snow, we tended to avoid scrambling sections where alternatives presented themselves, which worked fine.
Looking back from our shaded, snow ascent we couldn't help but wonder whether the sunshine and dry slope opposite might have been a nicer choice for the day
Finally on the ridge we approach the first rockband. We curved around the west side to find a simple snow-filled gully for fast ascent
The top of the gully is a nice little walled bowl, a short moderate step got us out of this feature and back onto the ridge top.
The ridge is long, but a really pleasant trip. When looking at the ridge ahead, there always seems to be some involved scrambling, but as you approach those sections, either there is a simple easy scrambling route available if you look for it, or what appeared to be a likely steep rockband is actually a steady hike through with minimal hands-on rock required. Of note, bypasses from scrambling by sidehilling takes one into some steep angled slopes that can slide with the wrong kind of snow, but when snow-free would be simple easy scrambling terrain.
The ridge wriggles on and on
Lots of bumps along the ridge, some were walk up's others were more scrambly
Often it's the detail that makes a trip. I was wandering along lost in my thoughts on a hiking section of ridge and just happened to look to my right as I passed this wonderful nature's sculpture
The ridge looked much more involved than it was. Except for one or two short moderate sections, this was mostly a hike, although taking care to make the right choices when assessing where to drop from the crest to bypass scrambly sections.
Lys ridge just kept on giving...
Looking back on what we had done...
Mount Haig was really impressive from this angle in the low light of fall
One more bump and then we're on the simple 2km plateau to the summit
We reached the summit of West Castle after about 3.5 hours from leaving the car, and the summit of Lys Ridge after about 7 hours. We did think that there may have been bail-out options between West Castle and Lys to the exit valley to the west, but later as we exited we did notice intermittent cliffs low down that may have blocked these routes. So take care if you think about bailing out, you may get to within 100m of the trail and reach an impasse at a cliff.
Smiling our way to the summit
Descent could be tricky, and we made our way down the steep slope to the valley and our exit trail
The downclimb from the summit to Rowe Lake was steep but low-moderate or moderate scrambling depending on route selection. We had thin snow on the upper part of this descent, which was softened by the sun and was not an issue at that time of day. Lower down the snow was ankle deep, and made for a nice plunge step descent taking care for the odd slab.
The trail out was great except for being surprised by 3 water crossings. 2 were of Grizzly Creek, and not an issue for us – ankle deep. The final crossing was a complete surprise... We maybe could have researched this further,for some reason we thought it would be benign. We ploughed into the South Castle River fairly quickly under headlamp, knowing that the road was about 500 metres away. After a few steps we realized that the river was flowing very fast at this point and as we got closer to the far bank it got to crotch-deep and threatened to carry me away a few times. Clearly, this was a bit of a lesson for me, I shouldn’t have just expected to walk through this river. But under headlamp we could not scope the area for the best crossing, and knowing that this was a hiking trail with a new bridge installed over Grizzly Creek at a section that was only knee deep, I figured that the trail would lead us to a good crossing point. Bottom line, this was the crux of our day.
We were back at the car just inside 11 hours, with a distance of about 25km.
This seems to be a great fall trip, check out this link. But, I feel that we were lucky to have just enough snow and no wind to make this a really nice trip. You can't hike ALL the larch-drapped ridges in a 2 week window in late September.
Last edited by PhilR; 10-31-2016 at 11:14 AM.
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