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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
01 Nov 98 |
N/A |
N/A |
| 2nd Time |
24 Jul 99 |
6:10 |
5:30 |
| 3rd Time |
05 Nov 00 |
N/A |
N/A |
05 Nov 00 - Everytime I do Aberdeen, I like to get a 0400 start. That means getting up at 0315, which means I'm
better off sleeping in the vehicles in the Lake Louise parking lot. This is where the three of us (sleeping in
two Blazers) were sitting around drinking brandy and tea the night before. It helps you to get to bed early.
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24 Jul 99 - Mt. Aberdeen sits off from Lake Louise behind Mt. Lefroy. The climb is relatively easy, with a
short approach trail. The top of Mt. Fairview offers a great view of the entire route up Aberdeen and Haddo,
as seen here. Chris and I met in the Lake Louise upper parking lot at 0400, and we were on
the trail by 0410. Using head lamps, we made our way up to the Fairview/Saddleback col in 1:08.
From the col, we took the trail which headed toward Mt. Fairview.
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01 Nov 98 - Once you reach the Fairview/Saddleback Col, you can see Haddo and Aberdeen. Despite this picture,
Aberdeen is actually the higher of the two. After about five minutes, we branched off
to the left and contoured around the slopes of Fairview and eventually dropped down into Surprise
Valley. We crossed Surprise Valley, went up the moraine and arrived on the side of the Aberdeen
Glacier in a total of 2:30. I was suffering from strep throat, so my energy level wasn't
near it's peak and that slowed us down.
We belayed each other up the lower glacier, but in hidesight, we should have just solo'd the climb.
It probably would have saved us 30 to 45 minutes. After reaching the top of the lower glacier,
we pressed on, crossing a couple cravasses, each about a foot wide, without any problems.
Slowly, we made our way to the berkschrund, which was in two cravasses about 2 feet wide and very
deep. From the 'schrund, we went up a steep, snowy gully to reach the Haddo/Aberdeen col. From there,
the ascent was simple. The ascent of Haddo looked to be just a flat walk, but since we did
Aberdeen first, we didn't have the time to do Haddo.
We reached the Aberdeen summit at 1020. The temperature at the summit was 1.9°C with cloudy, snowy,
and windy conditions. It was getting late to be on top of this mountain (1030) so we decided not to do Haddo.
We also agreed that descending the lower Aberdeen Glacier wouldn't be too difficult, and it would save us
from a very long walk back up from Paradise Valley. The snow was already getting very soft, so we needed
to get off the mountain as quickly as possible.
 24 Jul 99 -
We saw a party of 7 just below the 'schrund turning back, so our plan was to catch up with them
and rappel the lower glacier together. We did just that. The other group was part of the Grant MacEwan
Mountain Club. Anyway, the rappel took four 60 meter rappels until we were
able to reach the snow on the side of the glacier. From there, we ate a quick lunch and returned
to the car via the Fairview/Saddleback col. If you look closely at the picture, you can see a few of
the people still on the rappel.
Everything considered, it was a good day.
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05 Nov 00 - This is from the 05 Nov 00 attempt. Here we see Rob and myself just past the fairview/saddleback,
when the objective first comes into sight.
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05 Nov 00 - Here we see Haddo with Aberdeen in the background as the sun comes up and starts to provide
warmth to the valley.
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05 Nov 00 - Here is more of the approach. Notice how much snow we had to stomp through.
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05 Nov 00 - After getting up the final moraine before getting onto the glacier, you have a really good view
of the lower glacier. Of course, now we are back in the shade (being on the east side of Surprise Valley).
Despite a lot of snow in the valley, the lower glacier doesn't hold snow very well. The upper part does though.
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05 Nov 00 - After we realised that we weren't going up, we decided to rap back down. Here we see Rob and
I at the top of the rap anchor. John just started his rappel, but stopped to take this picture.
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05 Nov 00 - Here we see myself going down the rap lines.
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