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282 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2012 : 1:04 PM
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I first got the idea for this trip from a day trip scramble to Victoria Peak back in September 2010. The trailhead sign for Victoria Ridge shows the Victoria Ridge trail but also states the possibility of going all the way south along connecting ridges to Avion Ridge in Waterton Park. When I got home, I began studying contour maps and sure enough, there is a ridge system that goes south to Avion Ridge. Next came the fun part of working out logistics. Given I had not done any of the peaks (except Victoria Peak) in the area, I was hoping to find a way to do this traverse all the while reaching some summits in the process.
I organized a trip to do this high ridge traverse last Thanksgiving 2011, however, our timing was off by a few days and a solid 3 ft of snow during the week leading up to our trip made our trip a no-go. So, this trip was an immediate goal for 2012. I figured July 1st weekend would be perfect.
Surprisingly, we could only get a group of 3 to do this trip. Most people I invited had other plans already. Fair enough I guess. The first major obstacle for this trip is the trailhead car shuttle. Being a point-to-point traverse a car shuttle is required. And it is a rather award one at that. You start at the Victoria Ridge trailhead south and west of Pincher Creek then finish at the Red Rock Canyon trailhead in Waterton. I got some help from family. My brother-in-law agreed to drive up and leave my van at Red Rock Canyon and so we eliminated the car shuttle saving us about 2 hours of car shuttle driving.
Friday night (29 June). We left Calgary for the trailhead and simply camped out at the trailhead so we could get an early start.
Saturday (30 June). We started hiking at about 9am. Andrea, Aga, and I. Of the three of us, only I had done the first peak (Victoria Peak from Sep 2010) but I decided I would do it again with Andrea and Aga. You start heading up the slopes after 3 or 4kms of walking. The route is described in the guidebook and 4 hours later, we were standing on Victoria Peak’s summit staring at the huge traverse that lay ahead of us. Our next goal was twofold: reach the saddle and intercept the Victoria Ridge trail and then the apex of Victoria Ridge itself. It is a long ridge walk to the saddle but very enjoyable over varying terrain. After 2 hours, we arrived at the saddle for a nice break. Here we met a fellow hiker coming down from Victoria Ridge. We then continued on up over the false summit of Victoria Ridge and over what the Bivouac website describes as Kensington Peak to eventually reach the apex of Victoria Ridge. To be quite honest, there was no immediate thrill in reaching this point. The views did not change at all but it was I guess nice to be on our 3rd summit of the day. Our next objective for the day: reach Bovin Lake. I did not take note of the time to reach this lake from Victoria Ridge summit but it did involve some more pleasant ridge walking. We encountered some brief spitting of rain but nothing more. It was a nice sight to finally see the blue waters of Bovin Lake. And certainly not the usual approach to this lake. Typical access is via the Bovin Lake trail. We found a good slope to take us down to the lakeshore where we then found a suitable place to pitch our tents. We were a little tired after 11 hours of ridge hiking and scrambling. To our surprise we had the lake to ourselves that night.
Sunday (1 July). Our objective today was straightforward: scramble Drywood Mountain. We contemplated several ways but finally settled on hiking down the Bovin Lake trail to scramble the peak by way of Nugara’s route description. Again, the guidebook describes the route very well and 3 hours after leaving the lake, we were on the east (true) summit of Drywood Mountain. The weather began to turn on us and it poured quite heavily for a good hour as we began our traverse of Drywood Mountain to reach the west peak. This involves a loss and gain of 500m. Thankfully the weather system moved on and good weather took its place. The traverse of this peak was good and there was no cairn marking the west peak, (we did not feel like we should build one). Once we saw Bovin Lake again, it was time to descend from the ridge. We were reluctant as the views were just too darn good. Aga, our third companion declined Drywood Mountain in order to have her blisters heal. We eventually decided to go down and rejoin her. Guidebook says 7 – 10 hours for this traverse so I was expected close to 10 hours but we managed just over 7. Our second night camped at Bovin Lake was good. A group of 6 or 8 were now camped at the other end of the lake. We also had a quad visit the lake which surprised me. How nice that a quad can drive up to an alpine lake. A brief 45 minute spell of rain made us flee to our tents but after it subsided, we cooked our supper. I was very impressed with Bovin Lake, it was much lovelier than I imagined.
Monday (2 July). Our third and final day was to finish this amazing traverse and enter Waterton Park from the north. Leaving Bovin Lake, we took a trail (old cut line) up to a saddle NE of Loaf Mountain. We regained the ridge system here. We followed the ridge up to a shoulder directly west of Loaf Mountain. We dropped our packs and Andrea and I ascended Loaf Mountain. Aga waited with our packs. From the west side, it is mostly a hike to the broad plateau interrupted by a short easy scramble to gain said plateau. About 500m of nearly flat hiking, led us to the cairn marking the summit of Loaf Mountain. Given Loaf Mountain is second in height in the general area (after Mt Glendowan), the views were great! Some low swirling clouds interrupted views here and there but overall, a grand summit view. We surly could have stayed up there longer but knew we had 3 more summits, a lot of ridge traversing, and Aga waiting for us so we signed the one register we found on our trip and headed back for our packs.
Our next objective was the summit of Spionkop Ridge. The ridge system conveniently took us over this summit so no additional detours were necessary. We had to lose more elevation (an ever increasing theme on this trip) and gain it all back to reach Spionkop summit. To our surprise, there was some moderate scrambling for 100 or 200m just below the summit. The rock was crumbly and rotten so we had to be extra careful. The view from Spionkop was good too. The peaks of Waterton appearing closer and closer. A very tiny cairn on this summit suggested to us that it may be seldom climbed. We took a substantial break here to rest our legs. The 3 of us even did leg stretches to try and stave off leg muscle issues. Our highlight here has to go to a bald eagle that was apparently sitting behind us on a rock and then suddenly took flight right in front of us. Awesome!
Next was Newman Peak. More pleasant ridge walking brought us to Newman Peak. Should note that while on Spionkop, we observed two people at the Newman Peak summit, even saw them descend towards us. As we passed each other, we recognized each other from this site. Steven Song and Eric Coulthard. Small world. We didn’t linger too long on Newman Peak and descended to the Newman/Avion Ridge col marking our entry into Waterton Park! The fun continued with Avion Ridge. We left our packs at the col and hiked to Avion Ridge. We had a nice 20 minute powernap on the summit and enjoyed the outstanding views. This was our 4th summit of the day. We passed a couple who asked us where we came from and were quite impressed when we told them our story. We again passed Steven and Eric on our descent from Avion Ridge to arrive at the col. A much needed snack break was enjoyed before leaving the high ridges of Castle and Waterton for low valley trails. The trail down to Goat Lake was still choked with snow but we managed okay to find our way to Goat Lake from the col. It became apparent that from Goat Lake, the objective was Red Rock Canyon and NO stopping until we get there. Upon arriving at Red Rock Canyon after 11.5 hours, we were all quite tired, hot, and hungry. I dropped Andrea and Aga at their car at the Victoria Ridge trailhead. I left them and proceeded home not without a stop at A&W in Pincher Creek. Best teen burger and poutine ever!
Other notes from our trip: We finished our wonderful 3-day traverse at Red Rock Canyon and what an awesome weekend! This has to now be a top 5 trip, maybe even a top 3! I highly recommend this trip. While there are several ways to tackle this route, we liked our idea. We enjoyed spending the two nights at Bovin Lake and including Drywood Mountain which worked well for us on our second day. I tried really hard to include Pincher Ridge but did not feel I could comfortably squeeze it into 3 days. I also did not feel like ridge hiking the 14km roundtrip to include Mt Roche. So, will do these peaks later.
Water sources can be an issue high on the ridges. We did come across a couple snow patches with pooling water along the ridge if we needed to top up but certainly not as reliable as a lake or river. I think our satisfaction from this trip came from finally doing this trip as planned and perhaps knowing that probably very few if any had previously done this trip as noted on the Victoria Ridge sign.
We noted one really good spot for a camp, that being below the summit of Victoria Ridge on the north side and before topping out above Bovin Lake. Some nice flat grassy spots, where there was a snow patch with pooling water. This spot would work well should you not want to use Bovin Lake as a camp avoiding the several hundred metre loss and gain to the lake itself. The trailhead sign says a good place to camp is at the first saddle coming up from the valley trail. No water sources here except for the melting of lingering snow patches in early season. So, best be done early season if wanting water sources.
The weather overall was good for us. The winds were very tolerable which had us worried at the start since this is an area notorious for strong winds. There was the odd strong thrust but overall very tame. In fact, the wind was non existant at times.
Here are some fun numbers or facts from our trip:
Total overall elevation gain: 5150m
Distance covered: 59.2km
Peaks summit’d: 9
Time spent in the forest: very little
Time spent high on mountain ridge: lots
P.S. I am having difficulty adding photos again, will try again soon…
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Edited by - jeffs78 on 07/03/2012 9:15 PM
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Edmonton, AB
Canada
464 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2012 : 4:14 PM
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Nice to meet you guys up there.
Eric and I successed on the "Newman Peak to Mount Anderson Big-8-Epic-Loop-Traverse", 3700m elevation gain in 43km distance. We got down by 1AM, and I drove all the way back to Edmonton, no sleeping last night. |
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Lethbridge, Alberta
Canada
30 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2012 : 10:52 PM
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Nicely done and great trip report.
Steven, you definitely need to post a trip report of your Avion to Anderson loop! |
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over the hills and far away
Canada
708 Posts |
Posted - 07/04/2012 : 04:21 AM
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| The type of trip that makes me jealous. Looks awesome! Congratz on pulling it off. |
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 Trail running, bike hucking, fast packing, beer drinking collector of pine cones on a day pass
AKA
Dances with Trees
Forest Gnome Cabin
Canada
13015 Posts |
Posted - 07/04/2012 : 04:27 AM
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| Nice trip! |
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High River, (just south of Calgary eh!), Alberta
Canada
1697 Posts |
Posted - 07/04/2012 : 09:17 AM
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Impressive trip Jeff. Lucky with the weather, where the wind blows small rocks around at times!
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Calgary, Alberta
Canada
1186 Posts |
Posted - 07/04/2012 : 09:44 AM
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| It would be interesting to see your route on a map. I know Andrea sometimes takes her GPS, did she bring it along with her? |
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282 Posts |
Posted - 07/04/2012 : 11:38 AM
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Clayton, yes we did luck out. Wind gusts can get fierce up there.
Marko, Andrea did take her GPS which is where I got those elevation gain and distance numbers from. I admit that I am still old school and still carry only map and compass. I never did find a map which covered the entire area to my liking so I printed off a map from Natural Resources website. It worked fine. I scanned it to a PDF document but I can't seem to upload it. |
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| Engor
Intermediate Member
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Calgary
838 Posts |
Posted - 07/05/2012 : 6:11 PM
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| Very impressive trip! I'm glad you pulled it off, Jeff. |
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876 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2012 : 3:36 PM
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| Inspiring trip, I enjoyed the particulars of your description too. |
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Stanwood, Washington
USA
313 Posts |
Posted - 07/06/2012 : 9:04 PM
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| very cool trip. Those high country thru trips are always the best. |
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calgary
32 Posts |
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Castle to Waterton High Ridge Traverse
