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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
11 Jul 03 |
4:30 |
1:45 |
This was an overnight trip, where Paul and I planned to do Mts Stanley, Beatrice and Ball.
We got a nice early start, bushwhacked up Haffner Creek for a few hours, then eventually came to
the very last set of trees before you enter the bowl below Beatrice and Ball. The ground
was soft here, there was running water, and it looked like the perfect place to set up camp.
After camp was established, I took this picture of our first objective... Stanley Peak.
Our plan would be to circle around the shoulder of Beatrice, then cross the bowl between Stanley
and Beatrice, the scramble up to the summit. The gully shown with the arrow is where we ascended.
This is much different than the route shown in Kane's book, and we believe it might be a first ascent
route, but given its lack of technical problems, I wouldn't feel comfortable in claiming it.
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Here we see myself making my way around the shoulder of Beatrice. How do you like those red boots? When I'm
at the summit, I try to click my heels together three times while saying, "I want to go home". While it might work
for Dorothy and Toto, I find that I'm still at the summit.
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Cutting across the bowl just before reaching Stanley involves about 100 ft of height loss. Here we see
Paul making his way into the bowl.
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I'm guessing that the bowl is seldom visited, simply because there would be no reason to go into it.
The scramble route on Stanely is much closer to the highway, and the popular route on Stanley is the
north face. The only reason to go this way is if you were trying to get Stanley and Ball at the same
time. And most people who bushwhack their way up Haffner Creek would only be interested in Ball.
Nonetheless, here is a picture of the bowl.
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One of the advantages of visiting these seldom travelled places is that you find neat things. Here I
am with the skeleton of a mountain sheep's head... complete with little horns. I left it sitting on
a rock if anybody is interested. The bowl gets a lot of avalanches, so I'm guessing the young sheep
died in an avalanche. All of the bones where laying in a pile, so it didn't appear that a bear had been
eating it.
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Once past the bowl, we started to ascend the snow gully shown in the first picture. Unfortunately, the
snow was very soft and we were in search of firmer ground. Here I am hiking up to the ridge on the left
side of the snow. The rock was much more solid up there.
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Once above the initial snow gully (which was great for coming down), the rest of the way was just
picking your way up the scree slopes. Because of the soft snow, we had more route finding than
the normal person. If it was dry, you could just ramble up that direction.
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This is looking back down our route. If you look closely, you can see Paul making his way up the hill.
Our route to this point came up from the left side of the picture. I believe Roberto Pavesio's new route
came up the gully on the right side of the picture.
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The top of Stanley is snow capped, and when you reach the snow slopes, you know the summit is near.
Here we see Paul making his way to the summit.
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Ta-da. We've reached the summit via a possible new route. Behind Paul, we see Mt. Ball, our next
objective. Also, Paul's helmet isn't on straight. You'd think I would have mentioned that to him
before taking his picture. Oh well.
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