A Wall of Stone

Mt. Yamnuska

Exshaw, Alberta

November 1, 2009

51°07′25″N 115°07′00″W

 

Mt. Yamnuska from trail.

The nice thing about Mt. Yamnuska, is that the scramble route is generally widely regarded as a year round route.  For this reason it is often visited in the winter and in th shoulder season by people looking to take advantage of nice days.  It is this reason exactly that I opted to co-lead an introduction to scrambling session as part of the University of Calgary Outdoor Adventurers.  The cold start to October had many thinking it would be a cold winter, however by mind-October the temperatures had started warming up and by late October, temperatures were back into the high single digit positives.  The forecasted temperature for this day in Calgary was 8C and sunny, which ususally puts the summits of the front ranges around freezing.

This trip started like all others.  We left the University of Calgary at 7:30am and after about 50 minutes or so were parked in the Yamnuska parking lot.  As we geared up with our helmets, poles and microspikes, we confirmed that we were taking the east to west route and being an introductory outing debriefed all members on what to expect.  We explained that the east to west route, albeit slightly harder, is much more fun and is an actual scarmble as opposed to a scree hike and includes descending scree as opposed to ascending it.

 

Typical trail through trees

From the parking lot we headed to the trailhead about 50m down the road just past the boom gate.  This is a very broad trail that in warm weather can be quite busy as hikers, scramblers and climbers all share the first portion.  The warmer weather the few days prior had melted ont he lower trail making the hike through the trees up the ridge quite uneventful but nice as this traill can get very slippery in winter and shoulder season.  The trail rus mainly through trees, however, about half way up the ridge the path clears and provices a nice vista of the mountains to the south such as Barrier Lookout, Mt. Baldy, Midnight Peak and Mt. Lougheed to name a few.  It also provides a good view of the prairie to the east. This area is a good excuse for a short break on a nice flat rock.

First break on flat rock

From here, the trail continues gaining elevation and twists towards the base of the steep walls.  Once above the treeline we were staring the rock face straight on.  Here we had to stop and layer up as the wind was picking up.  As we all put one windbreaking layers and heavier warmer layers.  This is where the hiking trail ends, directly in front of us is a chimeny about 5m (15ft) in height.  This chimney is an easy scramble with good holds but the snow did make it a bit more slippery.  It is also a nice break from the forest hiking we had been doing for about the past hour.  Once we went up the chimney one at a time, we were all standing on the backside of the mountain, the view was now blocked to the south, but the view to the north had opened, we were also now finished with conventional hiking and in the realm of off-trail hiking and scrambling.

The chimney

In clear conditions (no snow), the backside of Yamnuska is covered with criss-crossing trails through the scree.  On this day there was only a fine dusting of snow and most the well worn trails were still visibile.  We chose the trail that headed up towards the ridgeline traversing the backside of the mountain.  This trail leads to a spectacular viewpoint at the crest overlooking a sheer cliff.  This is a very airy spot to stand and more than the fair share of scramblers have succumbed to vertigo and had to step back.  We stopped brefly for some photo ops, but seeing as the view is similar to the flat rock we passed through the trails, we didn't stay long.  After a short stop we continued towards the summit, the trail is mostly the same scree that traverses a few false summits before we got to the crux. 


The crux of Yamnuska is a narrow ledge that you have to walk along.  This ledge is approximately 20m long and about 2' wide, but there is a chain that is anchored to the wall in several locations that makes this crux easier for those that choose to use it.  On busy days or in large groups, this is where you bottleneck as people are usually slow going across this.  There were some members that were nervous about this, so we decided to pair our group, we put strong/experience scramblers with weaker/newer scramblers with the pair with the weakest scrambler going last to show it is secure.  This was the slowest section as a few times people had to be coached across.  Overall, this is actually a fairly easy section, but the 30m vertical below the ledge can really give some people cause for concern.

Once past the crux, there is a little more scrambling where we droped elevation to get back on the trail.  The snow was piled here and it made the rock a little slippery and slower than normal, however, since everyone had already done the crux just prior, confidence was running high and members.  After this there is a little more traversing and within a short period of time we were on the summit ridge.  The summit doesn't offer a spectacular view, however, it does provide a nice juxtaposition of the prairie running into the mountains and you get a good view of the mountains to the South.  Personally I prefer the view to the North as there is little evidence of civilization and the view is more natural.  The temperature on the summit was a little above freezing, this allowed for a little longer summit stay than most late shoulder season summits usually permit.



Summit shot

The descent trail trail finishes the traverse and is quick as it descends the scree you have been ascending.  As we came down we showed people how to "plunge step" and "scree ski".  This is a quick way to descend.  We had to stop "scree skiing" for the part of the trail that traverses under the huge looming cliffs.  This is sort of awe-inspiring and really puts perspective to how small we really are.  After about 10 minutes of traversing below the behemoth, the trail descends directly down the scree slope.  Using our GPS, both Moritz and I ran down as fast as we could, seeing who could reach the fastest speed.  My GPS clocked me a top speed of 26.8kph (this is more than 10% faster than Usain Bolts 9.58s 100m run in 2008 - granted he wasn't running downhill with the help of gravity).  This goes to show how fast you can descend, the only problem is you have to ensure that you can control your speed as it is quite easy to lose control, which could lead to serious injuries.  Running this speed down a scree slope is not recommended by me at all.

Rajiv descending scree

This is a good location to learn and try "scree skiing" as it is generally a really safe environment.  In fact, Yamnuska is often regarded as one of the best scree skiing descents in the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies.  I personally feel it ranks right behind Nigel Peak.  The trails through the screen are so big they are actually visible from kilometres away as you can be standing on Wasootch Ridge and see them relatively clearly.  These routes are also prominent linear features running directly down the screen and are easily seen from the highway. The scree trails quickly reenter the trees and begins and after about 25-30 minutes of hiking we were back at the trailhead where we delayered, changed out hiking boots to more comfortable footwear, debriefed, had a few snacks made dinner plans and headed back to Calgary.

 

Some other pictures from the trip:

 

 

 

Start of the crux

 

Summit view to the north

 

Summit view to the south looking towards Wasootch Peak, Mt. Bogart etc.