Monday, July 02, 2007

Mt. Glendowan (July 2nd/07)





















Here are some photos from the scramble I did a couple of weeks ago up Mt. Glendowan with James Y., Mike V. and Elise.

We followed the route description from Andrew Nugara's recently published book, More scrambles in the Canadian Rockies. We ended up doing a bit more bushwhacking than we bargained for, and the scrambling was actually quite difficult in parts on the way up. Rather than descend the same way, the group decided to try following the ridge over towards Newman Peak, and following the Goat Lake trail out. I was sort of against this idea, because we could not actually see the entire ridge and there was a lot of elevation loss. My fear was we'd get over to the other side and we'd be hooped by a big cliff or something.

There was one dicy area we had to downclimb with loose material on ledges, but it worked out pretty good. The climb back up to the other ridge was not bad either, although it was hard to tell from afar.

It was about an 11 hour day. Not bad for 2 peaks on an unknown route! We also saw a bear on the way out and could not scare it away by making noise. It looked like a medium sized black bear, and was creeping through the woods just minutes down the trail from the parking lot. We drew our bear spray and bear bangers and walked parrallel past the bear, who we could hear in the woods. He seemed intent on ignoring us.

At the trailhead, there was a sign warning of a dark grizzly that had been spotted in the area. Mike and Elise saw a bear- most likely the same one- just a few minutes from the Redrock Canyon parking area as we drove up in the AM

.http://trevorhelwig.blogspot.com/2007/07/mt-glendowan-july-2nd07.html

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