Harrison, North Couloir 2025

 Mt Harrison, July 13th, 2025 - 3359metres

Synopsis: 3.5 stars, The North Couloir is a 50 degree obvious couloir and is a great day out with good conditions. The drive in is a bit of a crux however the approach is somewhat straight forward (thanks I believe to Foresty Forest and the ongoing popularity of the 11,000ers). We descended the SW Face which I would have trouble recommending however the couloir itself and the stunning area make up for it in spades.

The weekend setup nicely for weather which is a bit unusual this year and we had our sights on Harrison. Plans were made and Pete and I headed out of Banff 1:00 pm on Saturday thinking of a potential bivy at the end of the road and an early start Sunday. Perhaps showing a lack of judgement on my part, we headed out in my 4x4 1 ton dually and camper. A 2.5 hour drive put us at the turnoff to the Whiteswan Lake Provincial Park road and we essentially followed Bill Corbett's straightforward directions. Only once did we back up to ensure we were heading in the correct direction however the kilometer signs helped greatly.

The last turn to Bull Creek Road is where it got interesting, a lot of 4x4, getting out to ensure we could make it, and Pete getting out to move live trees out of the way. It took 3 hours driving from the highway turnoff to the end of the road and roughly an hour of that was on the Bull Creek Road. Having said that it's a great spot with water 5 minutes down the well cleared path and the camper made for a pretty luxurious bivvy.

There was another group from Calgary ACC lead by Simon that we knew were planning on the SW face route Sunday and they had arrived before us. Given Simon had been in the year before he had some much appreciated beta on the early going, which included going straight across the first water crossing in the dark and no need to bush whack.

We were up at 3:30 and out the door just befgore 4:30. Apparently there used to be a sign at the trailhead but it's gone, having said that the start of the trail is pretty obvious as long as you don't take the double track straight up from the camp. 5 minutes in we went straight across a creek and I wished I had brought a pole (later Pete was kind enough to lend me his second pole, which I thoroughly abused). Along the way there was plenty of evidence of much appreciated chainsaw work, some rumours circulating that Foresty Forest had recently been in the area.

At a couple of points in the dark we had to backtrack to catch the proper trail and in pretty quick order popped out of the bush and made it to the waterfall biv site in an hour and a half with not a lot of elevation gain. Once we cleared the forest we were treated to a glorious sunrise.

Up beside the waterfall the views opened up with the SW Face route straight ahead and the Couloir obvious above to the left. Both routes are pretty obvious from here and shortly they diverge as we climbed up towards the couloir.

It took us roughly another hour and a half to go from the waterfall to the start of the snow climbing. As we approached the snow Pete led the way up some interesting blocky formations with a lot of water flowing. I missed the opportunity to refill water bottles and really hydrate as there wasn't a lot of water from this point until late in the descent.

In the photo above you can see a rock outcrop near the top of the couloir, what's less obvious is that there was an ice patch to the right of it that turned out to be the crux of the day. 7:30 am found us gearing up for the snow after gaining roughly 700 metres of elevation. Given the conditions we were a bit late in the day and I would recommend bivvy near the waterfall for an earlier start (or obviously getting up earlier).

There was roughly 100 meters of elevation to be gained on the snow before entering the couloir itself which took us half an hour on pretty relaxed terrain. At one point Pete put a foot through what may have been the 'shrund but that was the only evidence I could see of one.

At 8 am we started up the couloir itself and went from a tool and a pole to two tools. The snow was initially good but a touch soft, however as soon as we gained a bit of elevation and got out of the sun it firmed up nicely and made for great step kicking up the neve. We gained elevation pretty quickly and enjoyed the movement. The couloir zigged and zagged a bit with a couple of narrower parts and in spite of the rocks on the snow we didn't get much in the way of rockfall.

2/3 of way up we found a bit of a moat under the rocks to the right we could get into for a full pack off rest and snack, a real luxury!

Further up the angle finally kicked back a bit and we eventually got to the ice patch we had seen from below and thought we could get circumvent easily, which proved to be incorrect. During the ascent I managed to wet 2 pairs of gloves right through and thought of my japanese fishing gloves which work great for wet ice climbing, sitting in a drawer at home.

Pete kicked himself a platform below the prominent rock feature in the gully and I went out to test whether we'd be good soloing. Just as I was out 8 metres and realized that it was thin wet snow on ice the sun hit the top of the couloir and a bit of a sluff hit me head on. Not really a threat to knock me off however it did keep it real. I built a screw/ice tool anchor and threw a rope down to Pete, he then passed me for another 8 to 10 metres and put in his screw and belayed me up. We did this 2 more times playing leapfrog before returning to good snow and I built the final anchor in the ice on the right next to rock. After bringing up Pete we then ditched the rope and soloed to the top.

It would have been much more comfortable with a couple more ice screws and my ice climbing crampons, maybe even an abalakov hooker. For not being an ice climber Pete certainly rose to the occasion in somewhat stressful circumstances.

We made the top of the couloir at 12:30 pm and the summit at 1. Great views and a very different perspective of other high peaks in the rockies given our location. It was Pete's 12th summit of the season, nice work for mid July! Simon and party had made it up the SW face and bagged the summit ahead of us and were working their way down while we were on top.

We descended the SW face route however if you managed to get up the couloir without having to pitch it out I'd highly recommend retracing your steps. If it wasn't an 11000er I don't believe the SW face would get climbed much given the rock quality. After making our way along the ridge a sharp left turn took us to the gully of despair. Picture pretty much the worst scree gully you've seen in the rockies and you'll have the pleasure of downclimbing 300 metres of it, although to be fair there was some snow that helped near the bottom.

Once most of the way down a pretty well packed trail lead to the right to enter the first of three bowls that need to be crossed. We pretty much followed somewhat of a trail and good cairns on the entry/exit point to the next bowl.

Along the bowls there were some not badly packed trail in the scree and some not so good where it was washed out. A couple of scrambly bits on loose rock along the way kept things interesting. Big country! Well placed cairns at the entry and exit points of the bowls helped.

We finally broke out on the shoulder of Harrison on the lookers right of the Couloir route near the col and then it became pretty easy sledding back to the end of the road. Do note that Gaia shows the SW face route well however it's track for the north couloir is way off, luckily doesn't really matter as the couloir is pretty obvious.

We traced our steps back to the vehicle at roughly 5 pm for a 12 1/2 hour day. I had a bit of a piano tied to my ass (fortunately not a grand, more a mid sized upright) and Pete would have been a bunch quicker on his own. On the way back we did get a fresh perspective of the north couloir route, a real beaut!

We undid the procupine protection and were quickly on the road. Coming out, it took us 2 1/2 hours driving to the highway. Thanks Pete for a grand adventure!

Hungabee 2024

 Hungabee, August 18th/19th, 2024 - 3491 metres

Synopsis: Hungabee is a tough one to give a star rating. The rock isn't always as bad as the reputation, in fact the scrambling up the "indistinct rib" after the traverse was a lot of fun and the airy ridge up high was a highlight. Not sure I'm in a hurry to go back but happy to have climbed it. As often the case the bivy site was fantastic!

Paul organized the biv permits and bus pretty easily, $44 each and a seat on the 3:30 pm bus into Lake O'Hara on Sunday. There had been some snow up high on Friday night however everything up high looked dry driving in and the parks people backed that up so game on!

With overnight packs loaded, we made our way around Lake O'Hara and up East Opabin Trail which joined part of Yukness Mountain Route before breaking off towards Opabin Pass after passing the gorgeous Hungabee and Opabin Lakes.

We stopped to fill up with water at Opabin Lake and pulled out the filter just in case. On the way up to Opabin Pass there is a small glacier to cross and some soft snow beyond, crampons helped and it was easy to dodge and weave around the obvious crevasses higher up.

Not unexpectedly, the rock up to the col past the snow was rockies scree at it's finest. Although we found firmer bits once we passed the col (and the campground closed due to bear activity sign laying in the rocks) and turned up towards Little Opabin. 

It's another 200 metre elevation gain to Little Opabin and down 30 metres on the otherside to a great biv site at roughly 2750 metres with plenty of snow handy. In all it's a 760 metre elevation gain to the biv site and it took us 4 hours at a pretty leisurely pace. 

The biv site was a very cool place with a full view of the route, Wenkchemna pass to the south along with Neptuak and Deltaform poking out behind. We were treated to a spectacular full moon and clear skies overnight, the wind even died down.

We were up at 5 am with enough light to make our way just after 6. The forecast was for strong winds but it was calm and cool first thing. The photos in Jones's book and online gave a pretty clear indication where the rising traverse starts just near the top of the initial black band in a bit of a scoop in the ridge and we followed the ridge up slightly to the left. Easy scrambling on pretty good (for the rockies) rock lead to an obvious trail breaking off to the left after little more than 200 metres of elevation gain up.

We followed the raising traverse, with a number of well placed cairns and pretty loose rock up to what we thought was the "indistinct rib" and started up. The scrambling on the rib was good with somewhat solid rock and low 5th class moves for the first couple of hundred metres. There was a large black splotch on the step face to climbers left as we ascended a bit which looked to be where the large not so permanent snow patch used to be.

We carried on working our way just to the left side of the rib, do note that the lower part of the rib made up the largest chunk of the vertical elevation gain of the day. Obviously if and where you put on the rope varies wildly however when we got to where we roped up we could see down and to climbers right to the cairns and where the original West Ridge route goes. Looking down on it you could see why Larry's variation is the standard route now.

From that point we pitched out a short pitch, scrambled a bit and then pitched out 4 more to the top of the ridge. For gear we had a small rack with 5 cams and a handful of medium nuts along with 5 alpine draws and that was the right amount for Paul and I. We passed rappel anchors that appeared to be in good shape mostly usings pins and used some as anchors. Mid fifth class seemed about right with one stiffer section that we didn't see a way around.

I was lucky enough to lead the pitch up to the ridge, which was spectacular and just over 3300 metres. We were happy that the summit block didn't look nearly as intimidating as it did in some of the photos we had seen.

Before committing to the ridge we could see the trail traversing to the right into the lower parts of the summit block, however from our vantage point it looked pretty scrappy where the climbing would start further along so we stuck to the ridge. Paul and I left the rope on and slung a knob along the way. Paul then belayed me from the bulge ahead through the ridge further on finishing just past the alcove 3/4's of the way up the yellow band. Great fun, fairly solid rock and llloooottttt'''sss of exposure! 

Right about then we could see two climbers catching up, it ended up being Haldon and Darren who were doing an impressive job soloing what we just climbed. They caught us up at the summit.

Just past the alcove there was a slung rock set up for a rap anchor and I used that and Paul lead up the top of the yellow band and through the black band near the climbers left. The yellow ground went easily but there were a couple of moves mid fifth grade with good gear in the black band. That left us on the upper ridge just short of the step across. Having climbed Front of the Pinnacle at Bon Echo a long time ago and having the benefit of wingspan it's actually a bucket of fun, having said that I would have had a pants full without the benefit of a rope. Just past the step across was a solid rap anchor which I used to belay Paul across, we then left the rope and scrambled to the summit.

Big grins all around! It took us 6 hours from the biv site, obviously with a fair amount of roped climbing. In spite of it being windy and cool mid mountain, the summit was sunny and fairly calm. Spectacular views all around, especially towards Valley of the 10 peaks.

After half an hour of snacking and enjoying the view, we headed down. My plan was to use the rap anchor just before the step across which I though would take us close to the block 3/4's of the way up the yellow band that I had used as a belay station and then rap down to the beaten in trail that bypassed the sharp ridge back to where we attained the ridge itself. It largely worked although with a 60 metre rope we can some down climbing that I would describe as loose and unpleasant on the yellow band.

In the photo above you can see Paul partway along this pathway, along with Haldan and Darren on the summit ridge. Having descended that way I was glad we didn't choose to go up it. Pretty scrappy.

We intended to rappel down our climbing route but I got sucked into a line just climbers right. It went although primarily on slung blocks, no pins until the end (the piton hammer remained pretty much unused). The series of rappels involved rapping, then scrambling skiiers left to find the next station. It worked although we were working our way further skiers left than we had realized.

After 5 raps down the ridge we ended up on some chossy ground with two single piece, older rap anchors. We backed one up and rappeled over a short grey band which I realized later was part of the old west ridge route. We were still above 3200 metres so too high for the traverse back to the original ridge on the black band but we traversed to the south first, realized what was going on and traversed to the north (climbers left) across a couple of gullys to terrain we recognized and started to down climb. Once we were on the "indistinct rib" and recognized the terrain it was a matter of down climbing on somewhat solid rock to the traverse. It was further down than expected, but we kept an eye on the altimeter and finally found that cairns and packed trail that lead back at close to 3000 metres elevation.

After that it was pretty straightforward descending. Once at the lower ridge we tended to stay slightly climbers left of our route up on looser but more moderate ground. We did run into a number of dodgy rap stations but ignored them and carried on. There's a large rock blob on the ridge itself that is a great landmark.

Given the number of raps higher up and the hunting back and forth for the correct descent line, we were a full 6 hours coming down as well. Which obviously left no chance for catching the last bus down from Lake O'Hara at 6:30 pm! Even with quick packing and the Opabin scree being much easier on the way down, we didn't make it back to Lake O'Hara until dark and a hell of electrical storm caught up to us. A bit of a memorable, wet evening ensued.

A grand adventure, glad to have done it.

South Gully, Narao Peak 2024

South Gully, Narao Peak, 2974 metres - June 6th, 2024

Synopsis: 4 stars, South Gully is a 50 degree couloir on the NE side of Narao Peak and proved to be a great day out. The approach was straightforward but interesting, the area below the gully was one I hadn't been into and offered a great view of Popes Peak and surrounding mountains. Fun, straightforward climbing up the gully as we had supportive snow the whole way. I now realize that you can see much of the lower part of the route and bowl itself from highway 1 east of Lake O'Hara

Paul and I parked by the western end of the old closed highway 1A from Lake O'Hara to Lake Louise and were heading east at 4:40 am. A quick trip on blacktop to the Ross Lake turn off and headed towards Ross Lake. It was nice and cool as we actually had an overnight freeze.

At Ross Lake we mistakenly took the trail heading to the ridge route on Narao and back tracked to the Lake itself. The correct trail is a bit faint and follows the edge of Ross Lake around to the far side. We then gained elevation through snow wherever possible followed by fairyly easy ground. Below treeline we did get sucked into being too far climbers left and bushwacked a bit to gain the trail, Gaia has a correct trail through this area.

We then pulled out mountaineering axe and crampons for the long snowy traverse to the left to gain the bowl. We were lucky enough to have a decent overnight freeze so it was straightforward which was a good thing as there are consequences to a slide through here.

Once the bowl is gained it's pretty straightforward to the base of the route. It was great to be in an area that I hadn't visited before. Pope's peak and the north couloir was straight ahead and an interesting view of Mount Whyte to the left. Well into the bowl we veered off the Divide Mountain Trail and headed towards the NE slopes of Narao.

Both the South and North Gully's come into full view and we discussed which to pursue. The South looked the most interesting and given it's a Chouinard route the decision was made. The sun had started to make an impact although we were afforded some shade from passing clouds. We stopped to gear up near the bottom of the fans below the gully at roughly 8:30 making it a 4 hour approach (albiet with a couple of navigational errors).

The photo above shows both options well, the South Gully being on the left. Climbing the fan proved to be a sun baked hot affair although we took solace in the fact that most of the gully itself was still in the shade and nothing was moving. Once in the gully itself (and yes, why it's not called a couloir is beyond me) the snow continued to be supportive and the rope stayed in the pack.

There is a bit of a rock pinch point 2/3 of the way up however it passed easily on the right and the pitch eased off a bit until the very top. We both used two axes of various types and there was a short bit of front pointing however the bulk of it was good buckets. From time to time we had a bit of spindrifting down the middle however it was easily avoided.

The South Gully ends very close to the summit and we were on top right around 1:00 pm, into a howling wind that reminded us to watch for cornices along the ridgetop. We huddled in a wind scoop under the summit to add layers and grab a quick snack but it was no place to linger.

The descent wasn't that straight forward however we started off following the Narao Peak Route on Gaia which was helpful and after toughly 200 meters dropped down from the ridge following snow slopes below. The travel was good although we stayed above a cliff band before dropping down to the obvious bench.

At this stage the decision was whether to follow the bench feature to the north and rejoin the old 1A or take a trail straight down to the Lake O'Hara road. We chose the latter and my sense is that it wasn't the best option. I wouldn't recommend it as the trail get's very faint and was slow going. Having said that eventually we broke out on the Lake O'Hara road and followed it back to the car. 

All told it was a 13 1/2 hour day with 1320 metres of climbing, a great outing in a great setting. In the right conditions I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.