Seven Sisters

The seven sisters is as much of a Crowsnest Pass icon as Crowsnest mountain itself.  However, the peak may be more of an ambience setter for it's larger neighbour than a destination in and of itself.

The seven sisters was first climbed in 1951 by Bruno Engler.  This ascent would have happened a number of years after his time working as a ski instructor in the Waterton (late 30's to early 40's for 2 seasons) then Blairmore area (early 40's - about 4 or 5 seasons).  Engler did a number of routes in the area that he termed quite difficult and maybe a bit haphazard.  It is speculated that this included some of the short routes at the Blairmore Riverside crag and some unknown alpine routes, perhaps around the Ptolemy - Parish - McLaren area.  I've also found out he climbed the seven sisters on a route he considered extreme.

See one of Engler's pictures with Fritz Frei here (Not sure about where that would be on the sisters, as none of the summits have that type of bridge with an open backdrop….  My guess is that it was a staged shot somewhere on the peak.  Probably on the top of the ridge, but not yet on the main (6th) summit tower)  UPDATE: Here is the actual location of the shot - right side of pict.  

The only other reports I've heard of seven sisters ascent are a 2008 attempt by Rick Collier (no summit pyramid done), and a 2014 early Sept solo ascent (unknown friend of Raff's and unknown summit tower, likely the main 6th one, climbed at 5.6).  There's also fairly good reason to suspect that Martin Krippl & Greg Hooge from Lethbridge may have done one of the summits in the 80's (they had done a number of technical ascents in the southern area during that era).


Height: 8,501
View-o-meter: 4/5
Scrambling Difficulty: 5th class
Total Trip Difficulty: Moderate
Best Feature: The desert towers of the Rockies
Worst Part: Rotten rock

Approach
Drive up the Allison creek road to the normal Crowsnest Mtn. start.  Allison creek road is a paved road that leaves highway 3 just west of Crowsnest Mtn.  Continue pass the Allison creek campground.  About 5km past the a compressor station a good dirt road spur takes off on the right.  Follow it for about 500m, parking where the road first touches a cut block  (49.710202, -114.604285).  Hike up an old narrow logging/jeep road which marks the start of the Crowsnest Mtn trail.  The first opening you come to - an open slide run - is the easiest way to approach the main stack of towers.  A large weakness in the bottom cliff band makes for a technically easy talus approach.  (see left side of below image).

The easiest approach is straight up the old slide run

(If you're doing one of the south towers, follow the Crowsnest Mtn. trail until it leaves the tress, then sidehill to the col.)

Our Detour
Instead of following this route to the main summits, we decided to try to gain the topmost talus slope and traverse the ridge just under each of the seven towers (see google images to see what I'm talking about).  While the towers look connected to the lower cliff bands, there is a large continuos talus slope that runs under them all.

The three gullies which bar approaching a pure traverse

Unfortunately, the images from Crowsnest underestimate the climbing on the 3 approach gullies and an apparently feasible southern ledge system.  The rock on the southern ledge system is horrible, and there are some solid 5th class blanks here and there.  Perhaps a closer look in summer would yield a viable way to ascend the southern arete, but I wouldn't hold my breathe.

We decided not to try to run out one of the icy gullies and rapped down to reach the main talus slope between the 1st and 2nd cliff bands.

The traverse along the coal band and up higher under the sisters is actually pretty nice.

Coal intrusions and high sulfur content rock make for horrid looseness.  Up high things get better.

More Context

The number of summits is actually pretty deceiving when traversing.  Each tower seems certain to be the biggest and last.  However, they just keep coming.

The southern flank of each of the towers would prove extremely difficult.  Only one tower had a feasible southern line.  On each tower obvious climbing routes occurred on the north part of the towers and occasionally on the west or north-western face.  I'm not sure I believe reports of summit ascents from the south-west.  My guess is people have been mistaking west for south-west.  

Ascending the Seventh Sister (or the first if you count from the north)

Traverse along the coal band until you get to a talus slope that breaks through the second cliff band.  Angle up to the top of the ridge.

The talus slope in the center.

Traverse under a series of towers along a faint sheep trail and on 2nd class talus slopes.  There are two or 3 traverses that have some exposure for 3-5m.  However, only one is narrow enough to necessitate side shuffling and hands (4th class).

Nice ridge lines throughout.

Uncertain as to which pinnacle was going to be the last sister, we traversed all the way to the most northerly one.  With conditions such as they were, the last, and perhaps easiest sister seemed good for the day. 

First pitch of seventh sister (5.4 / 5.6 / 4th class)

We had a false start for the first pitch, and ended up opting for what look like a rope-dragger of a pitch to tackle a key off-kilter fist crack flake (and first guarantee of pro).  Luckily we didn't have to head to the fist crack.  Two marginal pieces of gear led an exit onto the arete.  Once on the arete there was 5m of bulgy steps followed by a 5m section of large wafer edges. On top of the wafers we found a very good belay.  On the way down we set our rap above the bulgy steps at the base of the crux wafer face. 

Overall, while gear wasn't good, there was enough to keep you from falling off the mountain.  In the summer you could almost scramble this section.  However the wafer section is solid 5th class soloing with a deadly 30-60m bounce.  The chances of wafer breaking are also pretty high.  It would be a heady scramble.  However, there is a large ledge right below, so you never know….

On top we noticed the start of a cairn on the sixth sister.  This might have been from the 2014 Sept long weekend solo ascent.  Trevor asked if we should build a cairn on the summit.  None of the summit rocks seemed to have never been disturbed.  I said "Why ruin it for someone else? It's nicer the way it is - undisturbed"  

We down climbed 10-20m of 3rd class terrain with two short 4th class sections and got a solid hex from which to start the first of two 30m raps.

We followed the north ridge's talus down to what looked like an easy exit point.  Unfortunately a band of fossil limestone blocks easy exit from the upper talus ledge system.  We cut around to the east and, instead of picking our way through that fossil algae band or walking another km to find a break, rapped off a good horn.

The fossil algae band blocks the way for a clean and easy ridge traverse

While you could avoid descending the fossil algae band by following the talus ledge back to Crowsnest (and your car) , we had earlier decided to follow alpine meadows to the north west.  Descent through the trees was pretty easy.  A good game trail avoided getting caught in the steep sided creek drainage.  The last 500m through the trees was a bit aldery, but nothing terrible.  

The seventh sister from the north west

In hind sight, the quickest way down from the 6th or 7th sisters would have been to head straight down the talus and do a 30m-90m rap through the bottom cliff band visible in the image above, but out of sight when descending.

The Sisters

While I could be off, here's my best recollection of pictures and tower numbers (as measured from south to north….).  Here's the best image I've found from which to do the numbering (many other images seem to only show 6 towers/sisters).  Note the linked picture is taken from the east, while my description and most people come at things from the west.

Sister 0
North side shown

Un-numbered minor sisters right (south) of the first sister (as numbered s to n).  The 1st sister's south face is partly visible on the left.

If you look at the above picture and the gap between the right-most pinnacles  you'll find where Engler's 1951 staged shot was.  Unless he did all the easy towers, I doubt he ascended that nubbin.  The location of the climber in the 1951 image certainly isn't on the obvious ascent route.  From the location and shadowing the image was taken early in the afternoon.  I doubt they would have taken the time, prior to their main peak, to head up a small tower and risk having to leave some rap cord.  Chances are they needed some shots for the day. Just behind the notch is a very long drop down the east face.  A rope would have been prudent.  If they had already done the main tower, chances are decent that they may have climbed this and other minor pinnacles during their outing.  I'll work on the geometry of the shadows to try and better pin down the time of day (see comments).

     Onto the "real" sisters

The first of the sisters (sunlit tower) from the south

Sister 1(...I think) from the north.

Sister 2 (...I think) from the north.

X

Sister 3 - no shots

X

Sister 4 no real shots (looked like there was a good 4th class chimney on the north side)

Sister 5 from the north.

Sister 6 as seen from the 7th sister's summit.  Rough cairn visible.

Sister 7 (our summit) from the north.

Lineham Notch

Last weekend while out hiking up Lineham, we noticed a very nice snow coluoir on the east side of Lineham Ridge. It is close to the start of the trailhead. The upper section looks quite nice.

The cornice is gone, and it should still be in shape this weekend. If you go, send me pictures!

Anderson Peak

On June 18, 2005, Dave Stephens and I scrambled Newman Peak and Avion Ridge. On the way out I noticed the dominating North Face of Anderson Peak and I thought to myself, “I’d like to try and climb that”. I had no idea what kind of an obsession I was creating but it was one that would leave me frustrated, humbled and elated. I would dream about climbing this face…..but sometimes I would wake up dreaming about falling off of this face.
June 25 2006
Dave Stephens, Trevor McMillan and I scrambled up the East Ridge with the idea of climbing the East Ridge to the summit. We ended up climbing up the South Face to the summit ridge. At the top of the ridge I peered over to have a look at the North Face and it was impressive and it fanned the flame of my growing obsession.
June 23, 2007
Brett Wiesser and I decided to go explore the North Face. We climbed the East Ridge to tree line and dropped over to the climbers right to large coulior visible from the Red Rock Canyon parking lot. The couloir was filled with snow so we put on crampons and had a fun climb to the notch. We then scrambled up through the rock steps through some serious 4th class scrambling. We finally roped up for an easy 5.3 pitch to a bench. We moved over to the climbers left about 20 meters and climbed a 55 meter, 5.5 pitch to another ramp. Here we were confronted with a daunting face. After a long while as to where the route needed to go, we moved to the climbers left about 30 meters, drove in two knife blades at about knee height for a belay and prepared to climb. Either one of us got more than 5 meters. Humbled, we prepared to rappel. Four rappels got us down and we headed home.
July 21, 2007
Brett and I headed back for retribution. The couloir was dry so we had some fun scrambling up to where we roped up the first time. We climbed this 5.3 pitch, did the 5.5 pitch and arrived at our previous high point. We clipped into our pins that we had left last time, organized our gear and I headed up determined not to intimidated. The rock was fairly good, pro was quite good but it was sustained. I kept telling myself that it was only a 5.6. I climbed a little higher. Some of these holds were pretty thin. I came to a bulge that was pushing me out to get over it. I kept telling myself that it was only a 5.6. I kept going wondering where the heck I was going to get a belay. The crack finally kicked back a bit and led into a wide chimney. Finally at 58 meters there was a 6” ledge to stand on where I could set up a belay. As I was setting up an anchor I realized that I could sit under a small roof off to my right. I set a clove hitch into my anchor and slid over to my seat, drove a pin into the roof, clipped in and more or less breathed a sigh of relief. I belayed Brett up. We decided that was enough. We rappelled down to our belay station. This time we followed the ramp around to the east to see if there was an easier way to get off without all the rappelling. Sure enough, about 150 meters to the East, one short rappel to another ramp and another 60 meters got us to some easy scrambling.
September 10, 2007
I managed to talk a good friend of mine, Jim Everard, into coming down to Lethbridge and try climbing this amazing route I had found. We camped in Chris’s back yard in Waterton and got up early enough for a 6:20 am start. We climbed through all the stuff that Brett and I had climbed. When we got to the final pitch that Brett and I had done, Jim took over the lead. I think he was surprised at how sustained it was. Once I had arrived to the belay, we reorganized the gear and I took off for the next lead. This was about a 30 meter, 5.6 pitch. This brought us to a nice ledge and a prominent dihedral that is visible from the parking lot. It looks like one of the statues from Easter Island, so we named this rock “Easter Rock”. This was good quality limestone. Solid and steep. We walked around trying to figure out how we were going to get up. Around to the right was an off width crack that was slightly leaning out. I tried this several times until I had nothing left and got nowhere. We moved back around to the front and Jim decided to try another crack on the front of the face. He did a nice job in a very awkward crack. I was really unsure what to rate this pitch but we decided on 5.9, 30 meters. By the time we got this pitch in, we were both tired, worried about running out of daylight and worried if we were going to be able to get off o.k. We decided to bail. We drove in a couple of pins and rapped off to the bottom of Easter Rock, drove in two more pins and rapped off to the top of the 5.9 pitch. When we went to pull the ropes they got stuck. Fortunately we still had both ropes so Jim prussiked back up, freed them and we finished our rappels and headed home. I admit, as glad as I was to be back on solid ground I was still really frustrated. I would spend all winter dreaming about this route. Sometimes dreaming about falling off of this route.
August 02, 2008
Jim and I headed back for another try. This time we would bivy up on the ridge at tree line. That would save us a couple of hours in the morning and 2000’ of height gain.
We met at the Kilmorey in the pouring rain. Lousy forecast…..it was supposed to be 0% POP. We decided to post pone until the next day. The following afternoon things were looking up so we headed up the ridge. This time we decided we would scramble up the East Ridge as high as we could go and see if we could scramble around on goat trails to the start of our first 5.9 pitch. We crawled into our sleeping bags that nite under beautiful star filled skies. When we woke up the next morning the weather was definitely changing. We grabbed our climbing gear and headed up the ridge well aware of the building cloud and the upslope winds. When we had scrambled as high as we could we stopped to ponder the weather. We both decided that the weather was changing and a storm was blowing in. We dropped our gear and quickly followed the ramp around towards the North side to see if it would get us to the start of the first 5.9 pitch which we discovered that it did. Both very frustrated we headed back to our climbing gear and then back to the bivy site and then home. We got soaked on the way out and witnessed one hell of a lightning storm on Anderson. Was I ever glad that I wasn’t on that face right then. It looked like this route was going to have to wait another year. As it turned out, Jim phoned me a few days later to let me know that there was a chance that he could swing another trip out this way in a couple of weeks. There would be another chance.
August 17, 2008
I decided to take Dave Mulder with me to drop some gear ahead of time at our bivy site and maybe climb a pitch or two just to give Dave a feel of what it’s like in the alpine. We didn’t start very early and when we headed up the ridge the temps were about 35c. We dropped some gear off at our bivy site and scrambled up the ridge as high as we could. Once we got to the ramp there was a huge black cloud building up over Anderson. I thought for sure we had another lightning storm building up so once again we turned around.
August 24, 2008
I met Jim as planned at the Red Rock parking lot at 4:30 pm. We were on the trail at 5:00 and at our bivy site at 7:15 pm. We were on the trail at 5:40 am Sunday morning. We headed up the ridge to the lower ramp and cut across to the first 5.9 pitch. We climbed through the next three pitches to the top of Easter Rock. We were now on new territory and not really sure what to expect. I took the next lead. This pitch went at a 60 meter, 5.7 on horrible rock and poor to average pro. The pitch ended up in a chimney with a lot of loose rock. Jim took the next lead. This was a 50 meter, 5.7 pitch on horrible rock and poor to average pro. I was beginning to wonder if it was worth continuing however I took the next lead, a 60 meter, 5.6 on better rock but average pro. The end of this pitch got us to the upper ramp which is the base of the summit cap. The direct finish went directly above and I figured it at a 5.10b with a roof to pull through. We opted to follow the ramp around to the east for an easier finish. We found one directly above the East ridge. The finish was a 100 meter, 5.4 to the top of the buttress which is the end of the technical climbing. The rest is a scramble to the summit. We arrived at the top at 6:00 pm and were back at the parking lot at 9:00 pm that evening. A 15 ½ hour day. It felt good to finally put this baby to rest. We graded the climb a III 5.9. The rock varied from exceptionally good to exceptionally poor. The toughest parts of the climbing offered excellent pro where the easier parts of the climb had poor to average pro.

Mt. Custer

Took a friend from Toronto out climbing this weekend. We left early Saturday morning from Cameron Lake and hiked up towards Summit Lake. At the top of the hill we turned and followed the ridge over towards Custer. From the Summit Knob/Custer col we hiked around the east flank of Custer and headed up towards Herbst Glacier. We found a nice place to have lunch and put on our crampons and begin the slog up. I was amazed at the amount of snow there yet. When Dave and i did it a couple of years ago the rock steps were fully exposed but this year the first one wasn't even visible, the second one only had 5' sticking out above the snow and the third step had about half showing above the snow. There's only one crevasse that i'm aware of and it's completely covered with no signs of any sagging anywhere. Once on top of the glacier there's one rock step up to the summit ridge. The summit block has some fun scrambling. We climbed up the north side of it to the summit. Assuming that everyone who climbs signs the register, there was one summit last year from some americans, one in 2005 from Dave and i, and i think the previous summit was either 2003 or 2002. It's one of those peaks that doesn't see a lot of ascents. By looking at the register i would say only one or two ascents a year. We bivied on the summit ridge and watched a very active lightening storm somewhere over to the east. We woke up Sunday morning to see the valley bottom below us covered in cloud with only the peaks showing above. It was quite a sensation because by looking down all you could see was the top of the clouds as far as you could see but when you rolled over and looked west you could see the valley bottom. The cloud cover only went as far west as the continental divide. On the west side of the divide the visibility was unlimited but east of the divide all you could see was the cloud cover in the valley bottoms for as far as you could see. We enjoyed watching the sea of clouds while we had our morning cup of coffee and breakfeast. We then packed up and did the traverse from Custer over to Forum Peak and then down to Cameron Lake. It was an excellent weekend with stunning views and i'd highly recommend it for anyone that want's to put in a good weekend.

Crumbly Fun

Went out for a little alpine fun on Turtle mountain the other day with my buddy Aaron. Climbers right of the Frank slide is a small gullythat leads up and hangs a right to a tree island which in turn leads to the ridge below the north summit. I noticed the line a few winters ago as some snow melt had froze on the rock bands creating a thin ice line. Worried about the snow in the gullies I put the route off. Free of snow now I figured that it would be a fun line for summer time. We were not able to finnish the route as the last gully that leads to the trees proved to be far to commiting for us. So if anyone feels like climbing rock that looks like stacked pick up trucks with fridges glued to the tail gates, I'll give a brief route description.

Park at the Shell station in the town of Frank.

Follow the river to the east, contour around the beaver dam until you reach the power line clear cut.

Go up the clear cut, when you bench out head east on a quad trail. This quad track turns to single track and leads across the bottom of the cliffs and gullies of turtle.

Follow the trail and bush wack until you enter the slide its self, up track thru the slide and look for the water worn gully to the imidiate right of the slide.

Scramble the first 20m of gully.

You will end up in a tiny ampitheater with a black watermark up the middle and a crack system to the left.

Climb left hand crack for 45m 5.6ish. Scramble the last 10m into the gully.
follow the gully up towards the red ampitheater.

Once in the next ampitheater look around and see if you got the guts to climb any line in there and then chicken out to the left like we did.

About 15m around the ridge to the left are two pitons that we used as a bottom station. from here head up the corner system over a small wave like slab and up the next corner, around a roof and belay from a good vertical crack below some loose fridges and big screen T.V.s. the next pitch will head up and over the loose kitchen appliances, follow the weakness to the top of the buttress. First pitch was about 45m, 5.6ish rotten and scary. Just dont step on anything or grab anything and you'll be O.K. the second pitch has about 30m of climbing but its another 15m to a slingable boulder on the ridge and its about 5.4ish rotten and scary.

From the ridge head up the gully sticking to the rock on the left. The gully bottom is slab covered in loose scree.(eeeck). The gully will eventually hang a Right and thats where we stopped. There are some lines heading up but no obviouse weaknesses and the rock looks like crap.

To get out of the gully we scrambled down until we could traverse west into the trees. we rapped 50m down a slab and into the next level of trees and headed more west. Watch out for the lower cliffs as they are big and come up fast thru the trees. Two gullies over or so we were able to down climb thru the cliff bands eventually heading down and west thru the trees and ending up on the traversing trail.

We brought a medium sized trad rack and a set of 60m double ropes which seemed adequate. A few knife blades would definatle help the cause.

Have fun, hope the mountain doesnt fall over while your up there.
Chris M

Crandell Knife Edge

A few years ago I whipped up a short video of a trip up the knife edge ridge on Crandell. Looking at it now, it seems pretty lame, but I thought I would post it anyways. The ridge is quite nice even in wintery conditions.

Mt. Anderson

This board has been pretty quiet lately. Either everyone is working or everyone is out playing......
On June 25, Dave, Trevor and myself climbed Mt. Anderson. Mt. Anderson is the prominent shark fin peak you see from the Red Rocks Canyon parking lot. We hiked up the trail towards Blakiston Falls for about 20-30 minutes to where the trail comes closest to the south side of the east ridge of Anderson. From there we bushwacked for about 20 minutes and soon it started to thin out. We kept climbing up the slope until we reached the top of the east ridge. From there we scrambled up the east ridge proper on intermittent goat trails. The first set of rock buttress's can be scrambled through by following goat trails up a short scree gully and at the second set the goat trail goes around the left side up through several rock steps and back up to the top of the ridge. If you were to continue up the east ridge from here you would have to break out the ropes however we opted to follow a rock ramp to the climbers left which took us over to a coulior that still had a lot of snow in it. We scrambled up this as far as we dared and then broke out the ropes. Near the top of this gully there is a ramp that exits to the climbers right which would avoid the next cliff but it also avoids some really nice climbing with reasonable protection. At the top of this gully it turns into a scree slope up to the next cliff band. This cliff band, although not very high, is quite long with superb rock and riddled with cracks all the way along. It was a climber's "route de jour". We climbed a really nice line just slightly to the right of the gully we had just climbed. At the top of this cliff band we moved to the climbers left to another coulior loaded with scree and extremely poor rock. Trevor aptly named it "Chaos Gully". Just the movement of the rope would set off rock slides and while setting up the belay i had a close call with another rock slide that came from above. The next pitch angles to the climbers right and the rock quality definitely improves. Once on top of this it's mostly fourth and fifth class scrambling to the outlier summit on poor rock again. From there it's an easy hike to the true summit, about 1/2 hour. We then hiked down the southwest ridge and back up to the top of Lost Mtn. Once we had soaked up the views we hiked back down to the col between Anderson and Lost and began a long descent down the south facing avalanche slope to the Blakiston Creek trail and back out to the Red Rock parking lot. I can't remember exactly but i think it took us about 12 1/2 hours. Dave will have some pictures up on his website soon if he hasn't already. All in all it was a good climb and one that i've been eyeballing for sometime now.

Buchannon Ridge - Swedish Gully

Buchannon Ridge - Swedish Gully
Originally uploaded by cgoble72.

A couple of years ago I wandered up the narrow gully with a Swedish exchange student. As it was late winter there was a lot of post holing. We made it up past the notch before avy conditions started to get worse. It was quite a nice, though low angled route. The gully narrowed quite a bit, making stemming the best option for getting around bulges.

Right now the top face doesn't look to be in shape. The bottle neck also looks a bit rocky. However the lack of snow means the upper face isn't the avy hazard it usually is. Also the early season means the cornice up top is not present.

The approach for this climb is pretty easy. We went down through the trees just past the Lineham turnoff. There is an old cut there. Cross the creek and scramble up by the small creek. There really isn't much brush to worry about. The snow at the base of the route did take a while to ascend. We bailed off to the climber's left to descend through the thin trees.

Mt. Custer

Dave and i did Mt. Custer Saturday via the Herbst Glacier. It's a fun route, probably goes at an alpine iii -5.4. Nothing to difficult but with some fun exposure. We were both surprised at how much smaller the glacier was this year compared to last year but we still needed crampons and an ice axe to get by the one upper section. Most of the rock is pretty decent but the rock on the first two cliff bands was excellent. The first cliff band is a very compact Red Argillite and the second rock band is very compact, excellent quality Black Diorite. Really fun scrambling and climbing. Once on the summit ridge you have to pick your way through the remaining gendarmes over to the summit block. From there you follow the ramp to the climbers left which takes you around to the south side of the summit block. From that south side pick your way carefully up to the summit. The views at the summit are stunning. The last time the summit register was signed was 2002 but the dampness is taking it's toll and it really needs to be replaced. When we descended we cheated and made two 30 m raps off the summit block back to the ramp on the south side. You can downclimb this part but because we had the gear it was a lot quicker to rap than down climb. From there we picked our way back to where we first topped out on the summit ridge. We contemplated trying to follow the ridge back to Forum Peak or descending the way we climbed. We very quickly decided that it was quicker to go down the same way we came up. 5 more intermittent raps and downclimbing had us to where we could scramble the rest of the way out. Total hieght gain is 5800' and about 15 hrs round trip. I would highly recommend this route. It was well worth the effort. Dave will have a trip report and pictures on his website shortly.
(www.dave-stephens.com)

Yarrow-East Ridge

A good fun alpine route with some fun exposure.



Head south of Twin Butte about 5 km(??) to Spread Eagle Road. Turn west until you come to a "Tee" junction and head south to the end of the road. Park here and hike the fence line south to the top to the hill and turn right (west) and head for the big hill in front of you trending slightly right. Once on top, just follow the ridge until the scrambling ends and the climbing begins. We took two ropes but all our climbing was done in 30m pitches to keep the rope drag down so it would be very feasable to do it with one rope. The rock was a little manky in a few places but the whole route took good protection with good belay stations. The whole route mostly followed the ridge or the left side of the ridge with one place staying right of the ridge ( it's pretty obvious once your there). The final summit pitch we climbed on the right side but you could walk around on the right side to the Yarrow/Spread Eagle col and scramble the final pitch. From the summit, we descended down to the col and then turned right and carefully headed down the north face picking our way through the cliff bands. As you get near the bottom you'll see a cattle trail. If you stay on this cattle trail it will take you around to the front side of the ridge to the ascent route. From there just follow your tracks back to the vehicle.
Dave has some good pictures on his website for those interested (www.dave-stephens.com)
We put it at an alpine 3 5.6.
The whole route went clean, no pins!!!
We used:
Three long slings
Two medium slings
Hex's (very useful)
Tri-cams
Nuts
#.5, #.75 and #1 cams
6-8 quick draws
Have fun........

Spring Couloirs

The couloir on the south side of Crypt Lake

With the warm temps over the last few weeks, people may be getting the itch to put their ice tools to use. While the north facing climbs still seem to be in excellent shape, don't count on anything south facing being in. With that said, there are a number of spring couloirs that may start to look more promising right now.

The prominent col on Spread Eagle peak arround Mt. Yarrow has had many a climber's eye.

The numerous snow col's facing the road on the Chief Mtn. highway some into shape during heavy snow years (problably not this year). They are all pretty similar in difficulty. The main challenge is the bottle neck through the rock band.

The prominent gully on the north side of Buchannon ridge is pretty nice. The bottle neck is much narrower than it looks. However, the angle is pretty low. Just watch out for the large amount of terrain that funnels into it.

The col' on the south side of Crypt lake is also another good one when the trail opens.

Iceberg notch is another popular gully. There are quite a few old pins in on this route. Some of the bulges get quite overhung late in the summer. Of course there is a 3rd class scramble just off the face to the right! The steep rock on the left has always had me eyeing my rock shoes.

So what else is there?