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GR576724 Attempt | 2010-10-30
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Note: GPS track does not include all trip data. I didn’t realize the battery was out. Also stats are based on as far as I went.
My attempt to an unnamed peak GR576724 west of Mount Whymper in Kootenay. Unfortunately this ended up failed attempt but I do believe it wasn’t because of the route, but because of snow condition.
I came up with 2 routes. One from Marble Canyon route (east slope) and the other is from Ochre Creek route (SW slope). As far as I could see from pictures I took from Vermilion, once I can get on ridge, it’s should be hiking up to the summit. My concern was if I could get on the ridge. Because trees were burned on east side and knowing bushwhacking under that condition is rather easy which I learned from Mount Ball trip, I decided to take Marble Canyon route.
I parked at Marble Canyon parking and followed Tokumm Creek trail for a while. As I got closer to a gully at GR595727 I wend off-trail and looked for a good place to walk across Tokumm Creek. I don’t know how high this creek can be, but at this time around it was only little higher than ankle deep. The gully is big and deep and I didn’t want to follow bottom of gully and get stuck somewhere as I couldn’t see entire way up, so I stayed south side of the gully. It was quite steep uphill but I didn’t find anything more than easy/moderate scrambling. By the way I suggest to above walking on a debris field at the bottom of the gully. There were zillion dead trees lying down, it’s real nasty to walk. After 500 m of this steep hill, terrain flattened and I could see the ridge I needed to take. In order to get on top of the ridge, I had to go up another uphill but this time it was much much shorter than the first one. As dry as south slope of Storm Mountain seemed, east slope of GR576724 had solid knee deep snow. Nearing the ridge top, terrain became scramble terrain rather than hiking terrain and that’s where I had trouble going up. Again it was only easy/moderate scramble but rocks were already covered by frozen slippery layer and gave me no grip. I probably took 15 min to clear out 2 rocks but there were like 50 more to go… So I decided to turn back.
With my limited winter scramble experience, I am puzzled. I have done some 5th class in winter but sometimes easy scramble like that day or when I attempted Old Baldy can be more difficult than 5th class… Anyhow I was quite disappointed because mountains were covered by snow and looked so beautiful. From top of GR576724 I should have be able to see Valley of the Ten Peaks and all other magnificent peaks around that area. Darn it!!
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