Alpine Lifestyle in the Canadian Rockies: Mt. Stephen, North Ridge III 5.7

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Mt. Stephen, North Ridge III 5.7

Mt. Stephen

Left parking lot at 0430h

Arrived at the base of the climb (the cable) at 0615h

Reached the summit at 1705h

Reached the town site of Field at 2100h

Asc 1950m

Approach: 1h45 Asc 490m

Climb: 10h40 Asc 1450m

Return: 3h55

This was the longest climb Pat and I have done so far. With just under 2000m of elevation gain from the parking lot to the summit it is quite an undertaking. A Canadian climbing icon named Barry Blanchard guided up the route in 2006 and climbed it over three days (bivied twice). One bivy was midway on the route and the other was on the summit. Another guide named Tom Wolfe climbed it in 2005 and had this comment: “True to its reputation as a Book of Lies standout, the North Ridge of Stephen (5.7, "III", 2000 m) is much more than the Selected Alpine Climbs guidebook makes it out to be: it's a longer, more sustained, more complex, and far more hazardous route than, say, the E Ridge of Temple (5.7, IV) or the E Ridge of Bugaboo Spire (5.8, IV). We would give it a solid IV/D.”

We packed a bivy sac with an extra sausage for the climb in case we needed to spend the night out but fortunately didn’t need it. The day started off with a 0300h alarm. We left our van along a pullout next to the Trans Canadian highway a few kilometres from the town of Field and started the short approach up to the base of the North ridge of Mt. Stephen. We lost some time by going up the wrong glacial moraine feature to the right while it was still dark. There wasn’t any moonlight to help with navigating. Once we noticed our mistake we ended up having to climb some unpleasantly steep moraine to get back up onto the correct line of approach. At the top of the moraine was a 50 m cable to pull on as we started the climb. A relic of the mining days? The small town of Field BC was a crucial part of the railway expansion out West. Mt. Stephen towering above Field had early prospectors and railway workers recognized the value of the area's natural resources and moved quickly to file mining claims around town (including Mt. Stephen). You also pass by the opening of a mine along the climb. We climbed up easy 3rd and 4th class terrain and crossed below seracs from the North glacier. After crossing over a waterfall run off and trending right for about another 300m we climbed more 4th class rock to reach the top of the ridge and a level bench on it. We started the technical climbing to the right of a rock pinnacle up the face of the ridge. We only pitched out 65m during the climb and it was the first section of rock above the bench to reach a gully. From the top of the ridge we kept simul-climbing to be time efficient and went left to bypass any difficult steps. This kept the climbing fast and easier. We encountered ugly loose rock three quarters up the ridge and had a 4 foot “boulder” cut the rope as it tumbled from a small nudge as I climbed by. Luckily it missed Pat but it was too close to laugh it off. He was a little shook up by it and didn’t notice right away that he was hit by a smaller rock that bruised up his knee. Not long after we encountered an iced up gully with snow on the left side of the ridge that lasted about 80m. There was hardly any rock protection and we didn’t bring any ice screws. It would have been possible to place screws quite easily. Not far after the gully we crossed over to the right side of the ridge and climbed an ugly and loose chimney. We kept right of the ridge and crossed over to reach another gully which brought us to the ridge top once again. From there it was a short scramble to the summit. To get down we chose to walk and down climb the scrambling route along the South West ridge. Pat held it together even after some frustrating tumbles in the scree and hoped his way down the never ending scree and steep trail back down to the town of Field. I walked along the highway for about 4km to fetch the van as Pat waited it out in town.