Outdoor Video Magazine

Part I of this trip report of my Mt President mountaineering trip can be found here.

So from the saddle between Mt President and the Vice-President, it is around another 40mins up steep snow slopes with some rock to get to the summit. The route is not particularly exposed, with the ridge being fairly wide, but the snow is steep and there is a large cornice on climber’s right that needs to be avoided. I was a little freaked out at this point, but I am bad with heights and it was my first mountaineering trip. From the summit, the views are fantastic. Great views of Yoho Valley and parts of the Iceline trail can be seen. Numerous peaks can be spotted and identified if you know your stuff, and you can still see the gorgeous Emerald Lake waaaaaay below. When I was there the true summit was considerably lower than a huge ridge of snow that provided the real highest (if not solid) point. You can see some braver souls than I venturing along this ridge, where a fall really would have been bad news.

Our descent was long and tedious, especially when we got back on the rock/scree. We belayed down the one really bad section, which greatly elongated our descent time, and dark was descending as we crossed the streams and got back into the forest. My feet were really feeling the pain of being soaking wet from sweat in plastic mountaineering boots for 17 hours at this point! We finally made it back to the cars in total darkness just after midnight, putting our total trip time at just under 20 hours. Wow.

The food and beer tasted AMAZING when we got back to camp! Needless to say we slept in late the next day, and all ideas of a short scramble were thrown out of the window, and we headed straight back to Edmonton. Luckily we got back just in time for me to go climbing at the wall at the University! woohoo! A good way to end a fantastic weekend.

Length: ~18-20km
Height gain: ~1800m
Effort: Very high
Hazards: Rock fall on loose scree, glacier travel, some steep snow, rock/ice fall from above.

I think I mentioned that I took the Summer in the Mountains course with the Edmonton section of the ACC (Alpine Club of Canada) recently. Well, I immediately signed up for my first mountaineering trip with the ACC, an intermediate excursion up Mt. President (3123m) in Yoho National Park via the not so often travelled Emerald Basin approach. The peak is more often summit-ed from the Stanley Mitchel ACC Hut, which is much shorter and offers much less elevation gain. However, the leader of our party had an attempt from that side foiled by a cornice earlier in the year, and felt our route had a better chance of success.

Leaving from Edmonton after work on Friday night, we arrived at a full Kicking Horse campground just outside Field, at around 9pm. We found space on the overflow campsite however. We pitched tents and had a last bit of sustenance as the last golden rays of sun caught the mountains across the (loud) highway from us before crashing at around 11pm, ready for our alpine start the next morning.

Up bright and early at 3.30am we were all raring to go. OK, so we were actually all dead tired and not in the mood after a night of traffic and trains thundering down the valley. We made the short drive to Emerald Lake,, and hit the trail at 4.40am as the sun was starting to light the sky. An easy stroll along the trail to the end of the lake, we then took a path at the second junction you encounter, putting us on the Emerald Basin trail. This quickly started to rise steeply through trees until it flattened out and gave us the first views of our approach. Dropping down through thick brush into the head of the valley, we forded the many small (-ish) that flow down into Emerald Lake. Some rough boulder-hopping later we ready to embark on the more technical part of our climb. Deciding to fore-go the narrow snow gully on the left due to potential rock-fall hazard we ambled up steep, hard scree and took a loose rock gully on the right. After a few slips and some nasty rock-dodging we roped up for a short, steep section where fall consequences could have been dire. This slowed things up considerably as we were belayed up one at a time.

Through more rock and scree on steep slopes, we slogged on towards the glacier where we roped up into two teams and put our crampons on. It was then a long, slow trudge through some BEAUTIFUL scenery of blue ice-walls, airy waterfalls and huge rock-walls with the backdrop of Emerald Lake glowing green behind us. The going was on not-so steep snow slopes, with no exposure or real danger other than crevasses.

We reached the saddle between the President and the Vice-President to find a couple of guys descending to Stanley Mitchel and another team just arriving from that direction, proving the route had been in OK condition. They had set off some FOUR hours later than us…proving the added length of the Emerald Basin approach!

And this post is way too long already, so go to Part 2 of Mt. President to read more!