[MCR] Rockies, Mt Edith Cavell, North Face, Main Summit

[Public Mountain Conditions Report]

I guided an ascent of the 1961 Becky/Chouinard/Doody route on the  
North Face of Mt Edith Cavell, August 2-5.

August 2nd we drove to Jasper and sat our a rainstorm eating lunch.  
By 13:00 the rain had stopped and we started up the rock approach to  
climber's right (north) of the Angel Glacier. We climbed four 5th  
class pitches. Good pictures and info are at:

http://www.mountainproject.com/v/international/north_america/canada/ 
105941738

We arrived at a bivy on the upper glacier, across from the route, at  
19:00. Running water available on the glacier all night.

August 3rd, we cramponed away across the glacier at 05:30 leaving our  
bivy gear stashed there. Good travel on firm summer snow to the  
bergshrund with one skirting around a large recent rockfall/landslide  
from between the Becky/Chouinard/Doody and the McKeith Spur (pictures  
below). Crossing the bergshrund was delicate, but straight forward.  
While I belayed my guest across, the only rockfall of the morning  
came down after the sun hit the face. It was enough of an event -a  
briefcase sized rock that bought down a bunch of smaller buddies- to  
scoot us over to the ridgeline proper (note that this is right of  
where most parties scramble up easier ground -but that scrambling is  
where the rocks come down). We felt much safer on the ridgeline  
proper, but the climbing is harder, ie; all low end 5th class. We  
took off our crampons. A number of pitches, and several short  
sections of step kicking up snow, bought us to the bottom of the  
"steep" crux buttress. We climbed on the true crest of the ridgeline  
and the first 10 meters were indeed the fine quartzite that I'd read  
about. Pulling through a small shale overhang at that point changed  
everything. The next 25 meters were loose, fractured, hard to  
protect, and felt serious. The situation is that a large flake of the  
mountainside is exfoliating here. At it's top the flake is separated,  
and leaning out, from the wall by one foot. I think that this flake  
will fail in the near future and create a major landslide, similar to  
the recent one described above. If I were to go there again today I  
would take a line 20-30 meters to climber's left (east) as drawn, yet  
counter-described?, in Selected Alpine Climbs in the Canadian Rockies  
(an old piton was winking at me from over there, yet there was four  
fixed pieces on the line that we did climb. I think it use to be the  
way to go before this exfoliation). Above that spooky, spooky flake  
the rock became the good alpine quartzite that I'd read about, and  
our line, and the one from the left came together at a  steep clean  
offwidth with flakes in it. We climbed two more pitches up this crux  
buttress.

Above we climbed a number of easier 5th and 4th class pitches,  
although always anchor to anchor. Above the last quartzite band we  
put on crampons and grabbed our ice axes and mixed climbed to the  
summit icefield. Three 60 meter pitches rising to the left to avoid  
the final shale band plunked us between what is left of the summit  
cornices at 24:00 (I started one small surface slough of snotty snow  
starting the first pitch when the sun was hitting the iceface  
obliquely at the end of the day). The top out involved some digging  
to get to firmer snow, and climbing by headlamp, but was quite  
straight forward. We stood on the summit in a cold breeze at 00:30 on  
August 4th. It was no place to stay so we followed the footprints of  
a recent East Ridge party that traversed off west towards the  
scramble route descent. I had planned on rappelling one of the ribs  
at the head of the Angel Glacier to retrieve out bivy gear. We passed  
the rest of the night scrambling towards that objective and lying  
down on our packs to shiver and doze.

Dawn saw me gazing down at my intended descent from the col 2 km  
eastnortheast of Cavell (overtop of a satellite peak on the  
ridgeline). It looked too big and committing from the top, or maybe I  
was just cold and tired. We traversed back over the satellite peak  
and descended the normal route to walk out the Astoria River. The  
rest of the day was spent sleeping and eating in Jasper.

August 5th we ate more, then headed back up to retrieve our bivy  
gear, which took us from 10:30 to 15:30. We were able to rappel the  
steep approach pitches with one 57 meter rappel, a 35 meter one, then  
some scrambling back north to a final 35 meter rappel off of a large  
tree.

Our rack: 2 x 60 m 1/2 ropes. A full set of stoppers; cams from  
finger to fist; 3 knifeblade pitons, 1x 1/2 inch angle, 1 lost arrow;  
3 ice screws (I'd take 5 or 6 if I went again).

Happy trails,

Barry Blanchard
Mountain Guide
www.barryblanchard.ca
www.yamnuska.com






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