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Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
331 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2012 : 06:59 AM
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http://summitsearch.org/trip_reports/80-a-very-long-scenic-ascent-of-mount-jellicoe
I had an awesome time on this super long 19 hour day ascent of Mount Jellicoe. It was my first time on the Haig Glacier and the veiws were spectacular.
I met Raff and Kevin at 5am at the Burstall Pass trailhead. The weather was iffy on the Eastern side of the Smith-Dorien valley but the West side was looking like it would clear up, which it did. On the way up French Creek we followed the wrong track and ended up too high. This resulted in us having to ski/swim down thick trees to regain the creek costing us an hour. It was fun as soon as we got past the forest. The sun had come out strong and was causing a lot of loose snow avalanches on the East face of Mount Robertson. The recent storm snow was sliding off the previous melt freeze crust. It was kinda like watching a fireworks display. We stayed away from that face on our way up to the French-Robertson col. This was my first time on the Haig Glacier and I thoroughly enjoyed the scenery there. Mount Jellicoe's North face looked very intimidating. It was taking longer for us to reach it than we had hoped. There were many points when other people would have packed it up and left due to the amount of time it was taking and the avalanche concern. We decided to keep going and check things out. We avoided steeper avalanche terrain on Jellicoe by going further down the Haig Glacier before gaining the South slopes. We talked about various routes up the slopes and the avalanche concerns with them. We decided instead of skiing across the slopes to the East ridge that we would leave our skis behind and boot pack up a minor ridge in the middle of the South slopes. There wasn't enough snow on this ridge for avalanches to be a concern. I plowed away breaking trail up to summit ridge where I eventually lost steam. The summit ridge was gorgeous. Lots of big cornices on it. We protected the final section between the false summit and the true summit due to the extreme exposure. The final section turned out to be pretty straight forward and we felt comfortable on the way back to do it without pro. A superb summit view. All the big peaks had cleared up during our ascent leaving.
It took us 12 hours to reach the summit. We were hopeful that it wouldn't take long to get down. It took about 6 hours to reach the parking lot. The descent of the slopes on Jellicoe was reasonably fast. We couldn't really glissade any of it since the snow was too shallow in most places and there were cliffbands. Once back to our skis we decided to go directly to the Haig Glacier via slopes we avoided on the way up. The snow was freezing up and loose snow avalanches were no longer a concern at this point. It took a good hour or 2 to reach the French-Robertson col. The snow wasn't great on the ski down. The top was a breakable frozen crust. Only really large turns were possible on the glacier. We tried to follow the creek down the forest but there were some open sections that we couldn't pass and we ended up carrying our skis around them. I was pretty beat, so I took a caffeinated energy gel (my secret weapon). After that I was feeling pretty good. We eventually gave up on sticking to the creek and put our skins on in order to follow our uptrack. After this it was straight forward to get back to the parking lot. I had just enough caffeine to make it to Canmore and get some sleep. |
Edited by - ecoulthard on 05/16/2012 07:00 AM
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974 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2012 : 07:05 AM
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| Nice!! i was thinking about climbing this sometime. I love the haig glacier,i want to get up and camp out there for a night or two. |
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Edmonton, AB
Canada
468 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2012 : 08:30 AM
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Very impressive finish Eric! I love this area, the core of K-Country. I couldn't imagine how long it would take as a snowshoeing trip...
I might gonna do this peak in the following summer, but from Turbine Canyon / North Kananaskis Pass side, to avoid glacier travel if I cannot find partners. That's even longer but if I'm in good mood and physical condition I will give it a shot. Jeff has a good TR about that direction. |
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Kamloops, B.C.
Canada
157 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2012 : 08:43 AM
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| Great photos. Loved the panorama shots on the glacier and the peak. A long awesome day from the looks of it. |
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Calgary, Alberta
Canada
1198 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2012 : 09:24 AM
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| 19 hours!! Ouch! |
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Calgary, AB
52 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2012 : 2:08 PM
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Cool trip, congrats!
Kinda hard to tell from your photos, but I was just wondering if it would be possible to ski (or snowboard in my case) from near the summit if conditions were stable enough?
I remember admiring the views down the Haig in this direction when I did the French/Haig/Robertson, but I wasn't trying to scout a line.
Also, what type of pro did you use between the false and true summits? Just snowstakes or some rock pro too? |
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Edmonton, Alberta
Canada
331 Posts |
Posted - 05/16/2012 : 2:59 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by sauerboarder
Cool trip, congrats!
Kinda hard to tell from your photos, but I was just wondering if it would be possible to ski (or snowboard in my case) from near the summit if conditions were stable enough?
I remember admiring the views down the Haig in this direction when I did the French/Haig/Robertson, but I wasn't trying to scout a line.
Also, what type of pro did you use between the false and true summits? Just snowstakes or some rock pro too?
You should be able to ski down from the start of the summit ridge. It has a big slope on it you can see in one of my photos of the South slopes.
We used slings on a few rock horns for our our protection. |
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A Very long Scenic Ascent of Mount Jellicoe
