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Date |
Ascent Time |
Complete Time |
| 1st Time |
07 Sep 02 |
2:48 |
1:25 |
07 Sep 02 - You can see Commonwealth Peak from the parking lot. You start by going along the
Burstall Pass trail. It's pretty wide for the first 3.5km, and you'll even find bike racks. After this,
the trail narrows, and you continue for just under 5 minutes, at which point, you go across a swamp.
Commonwealth Peak is the big peak in the picture. Behind Commonwealth is The Pigstail, and behind that in the
clouds is Mt. Birdwood.
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07 Sep 02 - Here we see Taco starting across the marshland. Perhaps it was just the time of year, but the
water/mud was about boot-top deep and lasted all the way across the valley bottom. You try to make your way to
the slope leading to the Pigstail/Commonwealth col. This was the first miserable part of the trip.
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07 Sep 02 - After reaching the base of the avalanche slope, we stuck to the right. This was some of the
worst bushwhacking I've ever been into. At times, I thought I was in BC. This was the second miserable part of
the trip. Eventually, we got out of the gully, and went further right into the trees. Here, things were much
thinner. The book suggested that there was a trail on the left side of the gully, so on descent we stayed over
there, but never found a trail.
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07 Sep 02 - Because we went far to the right on ascent, we ended up having to traverse scree slopes to get
to the col. This was all treadmill type scree, which is nice for going down, but we were trying to get up the mountain.
This was the third miserable part of the trip. By this time, I'm really hating the peak. For a peak that should take
5 hours round trip, I was not having fun. All we needed was rain to make the trip completely miserable.
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07 Sep 02 - This was kind of neat to see the different colours of scree on the way to the col. I wonder how
it ended up like this.
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07 Sep 02 - From the col, the scramble gets much better, although, I'd still only give it one star. The
route angles a bit to the right, then cuts back to the summit. There's a lot of scree in here, but you at least
have the option to stay on the rocks to give things a "difficult" feel. The scree in this section of the route
is about two inches of scree on slab. I busted my butt twice on the way down.
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07 Sep 02 - Once you pop up onto the summit ridge, the summit cairn is only about two minutes away.
Here we see Taco waiting for me up there. The summit register showed that Alan was there in 96, and then he came back
in 98. Why? Why would you want to do this peak more than once? We were the third party of the year to summit.
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07 Sep 02 - I have to admit that the mountain has some pretty nice views. You can see almost every scramble
of the Smith Dorrien Section of the book from this summit. You can also get a good look at Sir Douglas and the popular
French/Haig/Robertson ski traverse.
I'm guessing that a lot of my miserable outlooks on this mountain are a
result of doing the peak late in the summer. I suspect that if you catch this peak in late May, the swamp wouldn't be
so deep, and there would be snow to kick-steps up the scree. Of course, you'd still have that bushwhacking.
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