On August 21-24, four members of the ACC Edmonton section traveled to the White Goat Wilderness Area to scramble the remote Mount Willis and Mount Stewart.
To get an early start on Thursday, we spent Wednesday night in the DTC area at Wildhorse Creek campground. It was awesome to have a fun night getting to know the group and enjoy a nice meal around a campfire.
Thursday morning, the group was in great spirits, and the weather was very supportive of how we felt, bright and energizing.
On the way into Nigel Pass, we were warned about a mama grizzly and her cub on the trail. Although we observed many signs of root grubbing and some scat on the trail throughout the trip, we did not have any encounters.
The hike towards the Cataract Creek area was very rewarding. After Nigel Pass, we enjoyed a very serene valley and hike along the Brazeau River, beautiful mountains on either side, rock gardens and boulder hopping on the way and some meadows and green pastures which hosted a herd of sheep on our way out.
Shortly after descending Cataract Pass, we found a very cozy spot that we called home for the next 4 days. The valley is extremely beautiful, and you can soak in nature to its fullest extent!
On Friday, we scrambled Mount Willis, a route that took us through Cline Pass and the two beautiful clear blue lakes at the pass. We ascended towards the ridge to the rocky col west of the lakes.
The ridge traverse was exciting with breathtaking views on both sides of the ridge. Sections of the ridge did get the heart racing and that added to the fun of this scramble. The route is a must do; it has awesome views and a few challenging sections to make the summit a good reward.
On our return, we decided to use a more direct descent to the valley in the hopes of a quick and easy descent on scree. The hopes proved unfounded. This direct descent turned out to be much more taxing and time-consuming. The slope was marked by unstable large rocks, and we spent all our energy and water navigating and jumping over them. In future, recommendation would be to traverse back and descend the same route as the ascent.
All in all, Mount Willis is a perfect scramble with rewarding views and engaging routes, a must do trip for all those who love going a little remote but don’t want to step into technical climbing.
Next day, we attempted Mount Stewart via the south-east ridge. The approach took us on the Great Divide Trail through the thick forest along Cataract Creek. The recent rains made the forest lush, and the mushrooms had come out in full, with some remarkably large specimens observed right by the side of the trail. The Great Divide Trail itself is well-maintained and clearly marked thanks to the wonderful volunteers of GDT, one of whom we met on our hike.
As a group, we decided to explore a new route, to minimize bushwacking on the ascent. This turned out to be a positive decision with a very delightful approach to the S-E ridge with minimal exposure and technical section on the rock bands.
The scrambling itself was gaiter-shredding, foot-bruising, and tiring, with a lot of exposure to rock fall (especially near the false summit) with not much in the way of views. Earlier in the day, we had decided on a turn around time and just 150 meters from the summit we decided to respect that decision.
On our way down, we again decided to explore a new route, one with less exposure as the group was tired and everyone could brag a little about their blisters and scrapes. We decided to traverse downwards another half a km and then take a direct route down towards the bush using an avalanche run-off. This added few extra kilometers to our overall return, but we managed to return via the easiest descent route. Our goal was to avoid bushwacking in the dark and as the route was never explored before, we wanted to give ourselves extra time. The joy of joining the GDT was exceptional. We felt we were back to the camp already, but with another 4 kms to go, we did not waste anytime and rushed to get to the camp for a hot dinner. Returning to the tent felt SO GOOOOOD!
Sunday morning, we wrapped up our camp, had a lovely morning breakfast with the team and set off towards the trail head. It was difficult to say goodbye to the valley we called home for these wonderful days. But then, we weren’t really saying goodbyes, were we? We were saying see you next year!
Picture credits: Sarang, Vladimir and Hannah.
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