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Mount Remus | 2011-10-23
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I think I am getting tired of early start which I have been having this summer. It seems every time I decided to go solo, I start very late. This time wasn’t exception. I left my mansion at 10:00 am.
Little Elbow:
The distance of bike ride was 8.3 km on Little Elbow trail, just like Kane’s book says it took about 45 min. However I am not sure where the difference in distance came from. The book says 6.6 km…? Anyway you will see a blue bridge (waypoint “Blue Bridge”) after 2.4 km. It was rather easy to tell where to stop. Trail became ups and downs from the blue bridge, but near the ascent gully trail became flat and there was open space on creek side (page 2).
Ascent:
Fording Little Elbow River was no problem. It was only little higher than ankle deep (page 3). I found ok trail going up while I was below treeline, but as I went up trail became faintly and kept loosing it here and there. I pretty much followed Bob Spirko’s track which I believe is Kane’s optional descent route. By looking at direct route, I wasn’t sure if it was easy enough to go up with snow. The direct route certainly looked more difficult. So I was more than happy to follow Bob’s scree route all the way up the ridge top (page 4).
Summit Block:
Here I had to make a decision whether I should go for chimney or do north side route. The chimney route looked certainly quicker (page 14). Hike up to the chimney and scramble up the last part. On the other hand, north side route was little steeper and longer than I was hoping. Make things worse there was drop down below. I didn’t like the idea of going up the chimney and find out it is too difficult and force to get down then do north side, so I decided to just do the north side route.
Despite I only find one moderate move right at the bottom of the north side route, terrain was continuously steep all the way up and sliding wasn’t an option for the snow condition I had (page 10, 11). Crampons made this part easier for me.
Outlier:
On the way back I also went to a small peak at the east end of the ridge (page 17). Nothing major. Moderate scrambling and it only 50 m up from ridge.
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