A Castle and a Pass

Healy Pass and Egypt Lakes

I don’t get a chance to spend as much time in the mountains as most of the Summit Post community. The reason for this is simple; I live in Manitoba. Each summer I make the long drive out to the Canadian Rockies. This year I went with my wife. For me the climbing highlight of this trip was undoubtedly climbing Bass Buttress on Castle Mountain with Dow Williams. I will get to that part in a bit, but first I’ll describe the emotional highlight.

Our trip began (after the long drive) with a little backpacking adventure. My wife and I started at the Sunshine Ski area parking lot and hike into Egypt Lakes. The trail follows Healy creek for about 8 km and then continues up to the Healy Pass. For the first 7 km or so you are in a forested valley with the sound of Healy Creek keeping you company. Suddenly you emerge into an alpine meadow. It’s striking. Snow draped peaks all around, particularly Two Cairns Peak, and the meadows are a carpet of flowers. The trail meanders through the meadows until you reach Healy Pass. From the Pass you can look back over the meadows you have just crossed, and as a bonus you can see Mt. Assiniboine in the distance. To get to the pass you hike about 10 km and gain 2200 ft of elevation. I was very proud to see my wife standing at the top of the pass. While this may not seem like a noteworthy achievement, it was just over a year ago that my wife had a severe neurological attack and a few months later was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis. The future was filled with uncertainty. The sight of her at the pass was special for me. After some photos we descended 1500 ft in 3 km to reach the Egypt Lakes campsite. We spent the night and hiked back out the next day. We saw a lot of wildlife, but more importantly we able to enjoy hiking together again.

Castle Mountain - Bass Buttress Direct

We met Dow for lunch on July 11th in Canmore. We were going to decide what we (Dow and I) were going to climb the next day. Picking a climbing objective with Dow can be a challenge as he has pretty much climbed everything in the area. I was hoping to do an alpine rock route as I have never had the chance to climb a multi-pitch alpine route before. Dow knew that I was interested in climbing a route of Castle Mountain. Seeing as he had already climbed Brewers Buttress and Eisenhower Tower he suggested that we attempt Bass Buttress. I was intrigued and agreed to give it a go.

My wife and I were camping at the Tunnel Mountain campground in Banff. As I left the tent at 4 a.m. I noticed that a female elk was grazing about 15 metres from our tent. Anyway, I walked to the campground entrance where Dow picked me up and we got to the Castle Lookout trailhead just after 5 a.m. We made good time up the well graded trail that leads to the lookout. From the lookout we took a relatively rough climbers trail that was easy to follow. After a while we reached a gully that can be climbed to the Goat Plateau. The Goat Plateau is a large plateau that runs all around Castle Mountain and is a striking feature from the road. To climb the gully there are a series of cliff bands that make up the first bit of hands-on climbing of the day. I thought this first step bordered on 5th class climbing, but I think Dow considered it to be 4th class. At the top of this step there was a bolted rap station, which we used on descent upon my request (Dow would have downclimbed this). After this step there is some more scrambling up some 3rd and 4th class terrain until you reach the plateau. Once we reached the plateau we put on our harnesses, combined our necessities into one pack and stashed the other pack. We walked by the ACC hut that’s up on the plateau. Many parties reach the hut the evening before they climb, but we decided to do this as a day trip. At this point we were pretty much beneath the route and we already gained 3500 ft of elevation.

We walked from the hut area, up the talus covered slope, and reached the corner that was the start of the route. We did the direct start which elevates the climb from 5.6 to 5.7. Dow led the entire climb in fine style, while I was getting used to climbing 5.7 with a relatively full pack. The first three pitches brought us to the top of a buttress feature that is clearly visible from the highway. The next series of pitches were on the face on the other side of the arête. Pitches 4 and 5 were fairly steep, but the holds were good and the rock was solid. At the top of the 5th pitch the belay ledge is small and airy. It was a cool place to look over the Bow Valley. Up to this point the route was pretty obvious and Dow had no trouble finding the belay stations, most of which had pitons. On the 6th pitch you have to traverse the ledge to the right (facing in) and the climb and easy ramp back to the left. Dow climbed straight up above the ramp (now right above my) and angled slightly right. He realized that we needed to go further left as the next pitch would take us to the left of a HUGE roof. He plugged in a piece and downclimbed about 10 meters and climbed angling left. He quickly made his way to the belay station and brought me up. This pitch was the mental crux for me. I had to climb to the right to clean the piece that he placed and then make a 20 m traverse with no protection above me. I climbed carefully realizing that a slip would mean a big pendulum fall. This was also the first really exposed pitch of the route. I was relieved to reach the station. The 7th pitch brought us around the roof to the huge ledge that was on top of it. This pitch was probably the most exposed pitch of the day. We traversed the big ledge (8th “pitch”) and ate lunch at the base of the 9th pitch. The views from the ledge were amazing. The weather was perfect, well maybe a little warm. I enjoyed my lunch, taking photos and of course Dow’s company. He is a confident and efficient climber. One pitch (40 m) I got to the next station and realized that he had only placed two pieces. After our relaxing lunch we climbed the 9th pitch which had a squeeze chimney. I learned that squeeze chimneys and packs don’t get along well. The view from the belay station at the top of the pitch was gorgeous. The last pitch was fun. The first half was a staircase and the last half was a nice corner/chimney.

After topping out we switched back from our rock shoes to our approach shoes and traverse to the west (felt like NW). After trudging through the snow we made our way to the descent gully. We scrambled down the scree filled gully until we reached the series of cliffs that make up the bottom half of the gully. There were four fixed rap stations (I think 3 were bolted) that brought us back to the Goat Plateau. We traversed back to the gully that we climbed on the approach. After reshuffling our packs we down climbed the gully to the bolted rap station I mentioned earlier and rapped down to the climbers trail. After that it was just a hike out. We gained 4600 ft to reach the top of our climb and our car to car time was a little under 13 hours. It was a fantastic experience; a great climb and a great partner.

The rest of our time in the Rockies was enjoyable, including a little bit of sport climbing around Canmore. I am always sad to leave the mountains, but I have started planning for next year. Mt. Louis? Hmmm………..

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