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Date |
Ascent Time |
Descent Time |
| 1st Time |
23 Jul 05 |
incomplete |
incomplete |
| 2nd Time |
06 Aug 05 |
2:40
from car |
3:00 to
Fist Summit |
Mt. Smuts is definitely not for the faint of heart. It's a serious undertaking. In fact, my personal opinion is
that it is an alpine climb rated Alpine II 5.3. I do not consider it to be a scramble. With that's said, let's
continue. This picture shows Mt. Smuts as seen from Commonwealth Peak. The left red line shows the ascent path,
which follows a well worn trail from the parking lot to Smuts Pass. After we finished the climb, we traversed
along the base of Smuts over to the The Fist. This is shown by the other dotted line.
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This is from our first attempt, and you can see bad weather coming in. Basically, the route starts by going up
a major scree gully, then hoping onto the ridge about half way to the summit.
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Here we see Blair and Vern heading up the scree cone, which gets you into the main gully.
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Once you are in the gully, stick to the far right edge. There are slabs here where you can not only avoid the scree
but you can also check the grip on your shoes. You'll need it once you're on the ridge.
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This is looking back down the scree gully from the point where you jump over to the ridge.
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Again from our first attempt, this is Vern on the ridge.
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On that first attempt, we only got about 60m up the ridge before we turned back. The wind that day was really
strong, and we were getting pushed around. This ridge is no place for a windy day. I would say that you should
carry a rope on this scramble. While you probably wouldn't need it for ascending the ridge, you'd definitely
want one if you decided to turn around. Many of the holds are friction holds, and you probably don't want to be
downclimbing that. This is Vern rappelling on our first attempt.
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Now for the ridge. These pictures will all be foreshortened. Basically, you go up the right chimney, then cut left
onto the ridge.
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This is looking back down from the base of that same chimney.
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While I was taking the above picture, Blair took off and climbed up this section. You can barely see him at the very top.
I would have had a picture of Vern, but he was so far ahead of us, that we gave up chasing him down.
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Finally, I'm starting to catch up to Blair. Still no signs of Vern.
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There's Vern. The final summit ridge is fairly easy... especially given the stuff we just experienced.
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Well, it didn't take long for Vern to disappear again. He's near the summit at this point. You can see
Blair (yellow pack) just in front of me.
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Here we see Vern waiting patiently for us at the summit.
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Summit views were fantastic. Here we see The Spray Lakes over Tent Ridge. In the distance is Mt. Nestor,
the only scramble I've got left to do in the Smith Dorrien section.
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Looking to the west, you see Assiniboine. In the foreground, you see Blair sitting on the summit.
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One of the main goals of this trip was to place a memorial for a member of our online scrambling group (the
RMB Peakbaggers). Van Belliveau mysteriously fell off the summit after signing the register and leaving
his pack at the summit. The text on the left is from the Calgary Herald. We built a new summit cairn beside the
main summit cairn. While the main cairn contains the register, the cairn on the right contains this memorial.
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Getting back to the views, here is the view to the southeast. The first peak is Birdwood with Sir Douglas in
the background.
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Now for the descent. We followed the north ridge to the far end, where we found a gully marked by a cairn.
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The descent gully is a steep, loose chimney that requires lots of stemming. Basically, you put your hands on opposing
walls and push out. Getting into the gully is the hardest part.
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Here is Vern comnig down the descent gully. You really want to be the last (top) guy coming down this gully.
There is a ton of rock fall.
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Eventually, the gully ends, and you turn left. You traverse ledges for about 200m until you can easily go down
to the scree slopes below.
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This is looking back up those descent scree slopes. From the point that this picture was taken, you can either traverse
scree back around to Smuts Pass or descend to the Birdwood Lakes, then come up 20 ft to the pass. I recommend descending
to the lakes. It's just easier.
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After bagging Smuts, we continued on to bag The Fist.
Click here to go to our second scramble of the day.
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