Gap Peak to Mount Fable

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Gap Peak
  • Location: Canmore
  • Activity: Scrambling
  • Height: 2,440 m (8,006 ft)
  • Elevation Gain: 1,940 m (6,365 ft)
  • Distance: 25.0 km / Loop (15.5 mi)
  • Avg Steepness: 8.8°
  • Estimated Time: 9-14 hrs
  • Technicality: Advanced
  • Fitness Level: Athlete
We parked our car at Grotto Canyon Creek parking lot. Our route was reverse of what Kane's book says. So our first peak was Gap Peak then Mount Fable.

It was little confusing to get to Gap I found. First of all we weren’t sure where the trailhead was. We followed Grotto Canyon Creek trail until we hit the first drainage. Bob Spirko’s track went father to west but Ali wanted followed east side of the drainage while I wanted to follow west side because we weren’t sure if this drainage will be deep that if we stay on wrong side, we cannot get to Gap. If following west side of the drainage didn’t work we could still easily get to Bob’s track. So we went separate ways. My way eventually merged to Bob's but it wasn’t a perfect trail. Soon we regrouped with Ali but according to them their route wasn’t perfect neither, so I guess it really didn’t matter which way.

Once near above treeline, and scree slope began, we defiantly find a trail. The trail lead us the first huge rockband where the trail went both left (west) and right (east) (page 3). Here I misread my GPS and decided to take right. At this point it made sense because trail was there and right side was protected from strong wind by the rockband. We walked beside the rockband and once we turned around a corner I saw something I didn’t want to see. The rockband kept going all the way to the summit. So I didn’t want to keep going all the way up hoping maybe there is an easier way up behind the summit where we can’t see. It’s almost becoming my karma lol, we needed to do an extra difficult scramble to get up a weakness of the rockband (page 5). After the rockband we quickly got up ridge top and followed it to the summit of Gap Peak.

The crux of the day (beside the off-route difficult scramble by mistake) was the ridge from Gap to Fable near Gap (page 10). It was narrow and there were exposed sections for a while until we lost elevation and ridge leveled out. After that we followed widened ridge until last slabby terrain to the summit of Fable.

For descent we followed Kane’s route. We went down scree and found a good trail and followed it all the way to the town. We only had one car which was parked at Grotto Canyon, we had to walk extra 3.2 km on highway to pick up our car.

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This is were we merged as one group again and where scree started.

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The rockband which divides the route. According to Ali there was a cairn to direct to left. I totally missed that one.

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Walking along the band.

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This was the only weakness I could see what was doable scrambling up the rockband. This scored 1 f@#k from Aga, several f@#ks and few Jesus from Wil.

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See this is what I mean. This rockband was a serious one. I wonder how many people followed the same trail we followed and ended up going back.

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Gap Peak in sight.

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Mount Lougheed behind Aga.

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The ridge to the Fable. It's a long ridge but I felt it was shorter than how it looked.

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Going down this narrow ridge started right at Gap was the on-route crux.

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Looking back the peak. Aga and Philip appears as dots in middle of this ridge.
(Photo By Ali Shariat)

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This is second difficult section after scrambling up this slab, there was exposed ridge to walk for short distance.

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Exposed part.

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Actually you can stay below the slab if you don't mind losing little bit of elevation.

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Looking back this long ridge.
(Photo By Ali Shariat)

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Still more to go, however Fable certainly looks much bigger from here.

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Line is pretty much stay on left side of this face.

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Scrambling up slab. Certainly I don't want to do this in snow condition despite it's only technically at most moderate.

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Panorama from Fable summit. There are so many peaks but unfortunately not easy access to these peaks.

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Group pic from left, Ali, me, Aga, and Philip.
(Photo By Ali Shariat)

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Time to go back.

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Before on the road, I needed to refuel at a gas station.


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