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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
24 Jul 04 |
Incomplete |
Incomplete |
| 2nd Time |
27 Aug 05 |
7:45 |
6:45 |
All of these pictures are from the first attempt.
Mt. Custer forms the southern border to Cameron Lake in Waterton. Unlike most mountains in Waterton,
there is no easy way to the summit. The easiest and by far the most popular route in the connecting
ridge from Forum Peak, which is shown on the extreme right hand side of this photo. Blair and I decided
to try the rarely ascended Herbst Glacier on the left (NE) side of the mountain. All we knew of the route
was "glacier to 40 degrees".
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This is a better picture of the Herbst Glacier, which is really in three pieces on the left side of the mountain.
As you can tell from this photo, the glacier has a couple of rock bands on it. Climbing through the rock bands
is fairly easy (maybe 5.3). For the upper glacier, you can actually stick to the rock on the left and
scramble almost to the notch below the red dot on the photo. That notch is where we got to before retreating.
Above that notch is one pitch of 5.9 or 5.10 climbing.
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Our approach route had us going to Summit Lake, then south across the international border and up Mt. Custer.
Blair and I have crossed into the US a few times at this location, but we've never seen this border marker. So much
for using "I didn't know" as an excuse.
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The US/Canada border is marked by a cut-line. This is looking east along the cut-line. Kind of neat huh.
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Coming off of Summit Knob, you've got to descend quite a long ways before you are at the base of Mt. Custer.
From there, you follow the red dots to a prominent ledge that goes to the left, and circles around the north
ridge. Our original intentions were to gain the north ridge, because from this vantage point, it appears
we would be able to access the Herbst Glacier, but due to wet rocks, we weren't able to gain that shoulder.
Instead, we traversed along the ledge. In hindsight, this worked great. Had we of gone up the north ridge, we would
not have been able to intersect the glacier. Traversing the ledge turned out to be the best option.
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Here we see Blair scrambling up some of the wet rocks with water pouring down.
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This picture was taken from where the traverse (seen above) takes you around the mountain. We dropped down onto
the glacier and made our way up the mountain.
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After you traverse the ledge, you have to drop down a little bit to get onto the glacier. Here we see Blair making
his way down. In the background, you can see where the ledge comes out.
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Here we see Blair scrambling up through the first rock band. We took our packs off for this rock band. Blair went up,
then dropped me a 10m 6mm cord, which I attached the packs to, and he lifted them up.
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Here we see Blair starting up the middle part of the glacier. The glacier gets steeper the higher up you go.
The upper part of the glacier is the steepest.
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This is looking back over the north ridge with Cameron Lake in the background.
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Here we see Blair approaching the top of the middle glacier.
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Blair ascends the second rock band, which leads to the upper glacier.
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On the left side of the upper glacier, you can look down on Lake Nooney and Lake Wurdeman. Blair and I have had
some nice ski trips into that area.
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This was taken on the way back down. Just another final shot at Mt. Custer.
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