Back, Mount (+ Tipperary, Cradock)

I knew I could make it around him. Wietse was sitting on the end of a simple bridge over a tame upper Spray River, enjoying a water break. It was a warm summer day, the kind of day that you don’t want to end. A cool breeze in our faces with warm sun on our necks and the endless trail snaking its way gently down the Spray River Valley as it descended from a now-distant Palliser Pass far behind. As I stepped onto the bridge to get to the other side for my own seat in the sun, I suddenly felt myself slipping. I desperately reached out to grab the bridge deck as I plunged over the side and into the river below! Splinters from the rough bridge plank burrowed deeply into my left hand as I caught myself from literally taking a header into the shallow water below. Dang it man! What was happening? Why was I so off balance today?! I laughed at my own clumsiness but there was frustration buried there too. There was indeed a reason for this uncharacteristic sloppiness on my part. But that reason is going to have to wait dear reader. First there’s much adventure to be had!

Intro & Premble

This tale diverges in both scope and scale from many of my others. It might appear like a typical smash-n-grab like so many of my other adventures over the years, but this particular odyssey extends over 329 days from September 27, 2024 all the way to August 22, 2025.

It involves over 3500 meters of total height gain and over 125 kilometers of travel through the backcountry of Banff and Height of the Rockies parks. This tome includes success, failure, elation and dejection. It imparts warnings and wisdom, the zeal for adventure waxes and wanes. Approaches become egresses and egresses become long cold nights without shelter or gear. You might want to grab a favorite bevvy or two and settle in for this read — it’s gonna reflect the epic itself in both length and locution. You’ve been warned.

For many years now I’ve read and reread and then perused yet again, Rick Collier’s various reports and sub-reports and somewhat hidden reports from a small corner of the Canadian Rockies in British Columbia’s Height of the Rockies Provincial Park. On his first trip to the area in July 1991 with Bob Saunders they managed to bag 7 peaks in the Belgium Lake area. Oddly for Rick, he repeated Back Mountain in July 2004 on a trip that was initially meant to ascend mounts LeRoy and Monro He managed only Mount LeRoy, and that one barely. (He got his revenge on Mount Monro in 2005 with an ascent via the east face with John Holmes.)

Sometime over the years, Wietse joined my obsession with this area and we both focused on the trio of peaks Rick ascended from Back Lake — mounts Back, Tipperary and Cradock. We were interested in others too, Queen Elizabeth, Williams and Leman but those were always planned as add-ons to the other three, if anything.

First Attempt - September 2024

Finally, in late September 2024 we went for a serious effort at the peaks towering over Belgium, Back, Palliser and Tipperary lakes. Alas, as we pedaled towards the Spray River Trail leading to Palliser Pass there was fresh snow covering the peaks in every direction. This is the risk of a late September ascent. We wanted fall color at Palliser Pass, but we didn’t want fall conditions on our peaks. The forecast for the next few days was bright and sunny so we took a chance and set off up the trail from the bike drop. Much later, we both admitted that we weren’t feeling it already this early in the day — something that would become obvious as the hours ticked slowly by.

Late September is a gorgeous time of the year to be hiking up the Spray River valley. We marveled at the transition from deep forest to open, willowy alpine flats with views of Mount Sir Douglas and Leval stealing the show. Slowly the kilometers passed by and finally at around 11:30 we were passing by a surprisingly shallow, weedy Belgium Lake and heading towards Palliser Pass. As we crested the pass we nervously noted Mount Back’s impossibly steep and snowy NE face looming high above us now. For a while already, we’d been commenting how the whole area was somehow much more complex and “tight” than we were expecting from Rick’s reports. Now, as we ascended a good trail from the pass up to Back Lake everything ramped up yet another notch in terms of grandeur.

I’m unsure why Belgium Lake gets so much love compared to Back Lake. Belgium is shallow and surrounded by a weedy shoreline while Back Lake is a classical deep blue alpine lake with a gorgeous waterfall feeding into it. Maybe it’s simply because the main hiking trail and GDT go right past Belgium Lake that it gets all the love?

In any case, we took in the sublime scenery at Back Lake and felt our mojo increase dramatically as we set up our tents and prepared for the rest of our day. We were now definitely feeling it as we set off with light packs around the lake, headed for Mount Back. And this, of course, is where things started to get very interesting and somehow also very, very confusing. When reading Rick’s first report from his team smashing peaks in the Back Lake area he writes;

“We hiked through the meadows surrounding Back Lk, then ascended the cirque to the S (under Back Mt) where we met two climbers from Cranbrook (Bill Hurst, age 63, & Larry Farmer), who had come up from the E after abortive efforts on Sir Douglas. Easily over snow and glacier to col W of objective (referring to Mount Craddock).”

This terse report implies that they found an easy route up through the terrain east of Mount Back and up the Tipperary Glacier to a col between Mount Craddock and Tipperary. I drew up the following on a satellite image from reading it and we spent a lot of time discussing the 3 problem areas as we spotted them from space.

Problem area #1 was looking dicey right from the start. The frustrating thing about it was a lack of any detail from Rick on ascending the obvious steep gullies / cliffs on Mount Back’s east ridge. Zooming into the area didn’t help — it only made it look even more complex and more deserving of more detail from anyone traveling up it. There’s a small hint buried in Rick’s 2004 report from his second ascent of Mount Back.

“Some of our party did not feel optimistic about descending our ascent route, and the snow couloirs I recalled having glissaded in ‘91 were now melted back to expose cliffs in their midsections.”

Unfortunately with all the beta and multiple reports from the same area, and the simple fact that Rick’s party did not repeat Cradock and Tipperary in 2004, this small detail from another era didn’t make it into my 2024 plans. I knew that in 2004 Rick’s party ascended the NE face of Mount Back directly and that they used a completely different exit due to the complexity of this face, but I was pretty sure that if we could ascend Rick’s 1991 line we could also descend it. My real question should have been, why did Rick not descend his 1991 line in 2004 from Mount Back, since he obviously used it 13 years previous? Back to the quote above — “cliffs in their midsections”. Somehow we missed that detail when making our own plans in 2024. Problem areas #2 and #3 were slightly less concerning but I wondered about the glacier and another comment from Rick regarding the team’s descent of the NW end of Mount Tipperary in 1991.

“We made a steep rock/snow descent from Tipperary to a broad col between this peak and Back…”

What does “steep” mean in this context? Considering the word “easy” used to ascend the Tipperary Glacier to the upper col, the use of the word “steep” was more than a little concerning.

This is what it’s like to plan a trip into an area with very little modern beta. It’s not easy! There is absolutely no guarantee of success either, although I will admit that I forget this little detail sometimes. I tend to get very lucky with routes in the Rockies and I guess with over 1000 ascents, I also have a good nose for finding hidden routes and pathways in complex terrain. Despite our misgivings we started up the hardpack terrain SW of Back Lake, passing a very unique waterfall along the way. Once above the waterfall my camera stayed warm taking photos of the beautiful fall landscapes below. Mount Queen Elizabeth and Mount King Albert rose steeply behind us and a cool wind whipped into our faces making the area feel remote and unforgiving.

As we turned uphill towards problem area #1 our mojo tanked again. It looked impossible! We even discussed trying the NE slopes above us to the right but they were caked with snow and looked pretty horrid (little did we know at the time). We kept going — determined to get our noses into things before backing off. It was only around 13:00 and we loathed the idea of descending to camp already.

Alas, as we got directly under the cliffs and chutes that Rick ascended in 1991 we quickly realized two things. We weren’t climbing it in today’s icy, snowy, freezing cold conditions. We were on an old glacier and the terrain underfoot was horribly unstable and manky, making the odds of ever ascending the chutes almost nil. They simply were not a viable scramble route and even as an alpine ascent, they’d be very technically challenging due to slabs and near vertical alignment. CRAP! What now?! As we slowly descended old moraines towards Back Lake we discussed our options. Remember when I wrote that we had diminished mojo already way back at the bike drop? That baditude was now coming to bear fruit, unfortunately.

Queen Elizabeth was an obvious choice for that afternoon but it was still covered in rime and snow and just didn’t look that easy in its current conditions. It might melt off tomorrow but again, it also might not. With hours of daylight left, we did not feel like sitting at camp in a cold wind for 9 hours before going to bed. And what for? It’s not like the main route was going to improve much the next day. As we know now, even the cliff route on Mount Back would have been terrible with any snow or ice, so thankfully we didn’t try that.

Did we care enough to hang around for 24 hours? In hindsight we probably should have, but that’s not what happened. Instead, we made the dubious and uncharacteristic decision to pack up camp and walk back out — all the way to the bikes and from there the parking lot! Yes. You read that correctly. We were going to exit from Back Lake the same day we approached. With backpacking gear. A 55km, 14+ hour day with NOTHING in the way of peaks or objectives to show for it. Damn son! This was more than a little depressing, I’m not gonna sugarcoat it.

The next 4.5 hours were pretty silent as we walked kilometer after kilometer to the bikes from Palliser Pass. The worst part, by far, was that the afternoon turned sunny and warm and by evening much of the snow on surrounding peaks was melting off already. Dammit. I was second guessing our decision on the entire exit but the dice was rolled and it was what it was. We weren’t turning back. Darkness closed in around us as we got to the bikes and once again it was a pretty quiet exit back to the parking lot, arriving there after 20:00 hours in warm temperatures.

Despite a great round of golf at D’arcy Ranch the next day, I couldn’t help but look towards the mountains as we walked the scenic course. A clear blue sky showed gray peaks rising into the heavens and it bothered me deeply that I wasn’t on one of them, preferably high above the Spray River Valley near Palliser Pass. I warned you about this, remember? It’s going to take a while to spin this tale. Go grab another cup of coffee and come right back, I’ll wait.

Second Attempt - Doomed to Repeat?

Fast forward 329 days. We were back! With new plans and new ambitions, we were more determined than ever to make the summits that we were denied almost a year earlier. This time we had new route lines drawn up on the trusty ol’ Google satellite map. This new plan avoided 2/3 of the 2024 route’s problem areas. Trying to read between the lines of both of Rick’s trip reports and using our own first hand observations from the year before, we thought we had it figured out.

Despite the NE face of Mount Back looking very steep and intimidating, we both felt it was doable. Rather than count on descending back down this face at the end of the day, we would take the same exit Ricks group did, through an escape col east of the Tipperary Plateau and very obvious on Google Earth. Unfortunately there were some less obvious route choices from there. From Rick’s 2004 report,

“We traversed to the SE down the snow, with a fine view back N and through delightful meadows and down to a small col at GR 142156. This was something of a blind exit, and we could have been badly scuppered by any of the several sets of curtain walls we had to get down; but all had escape routes — - one was a long snow slope above a frozen lake and a second involved a traverse to the left (NE) through horrendous willows.

At about 6300′, we started traversing in earnest NE along a wide bench that — quite fortunately — continued with intermittent goat trails for over a km atop a set of intimidating cliffs. With persistence we finally reached the N end of the cliffs and descended a boulder field to a meadow through which ran the trail, the only further difficulty being the need to cross the braided Palliser river on a tangle of willow branches.”

Something about the “6300 feet” and “a km atop a set of intimidating cliffs” didn’t sit well with us when looking at the various maps we had but what could we do about it? I threw together some ideas and routes based on the descriptions and we decided that we’d manage one way or another. We’ve done enough route finding in the Rockies that if a large group could do it in snowy conditions, we should be able to do it when warm and dry. Best laid plans…

Just as the year before, we biked to the Palliser Pass Trail and after locking the bikes to a nearby tree we started the long march into Back Lake. Should we have driven the Albert River FSR like many others have done over the years to shorten the foot approach into this area? Maybe. We had no recent beta from it and when calculating total driving time from YYC compared to a direct bike ‘n hike there wasn’t much difference.

We seriously considered a shorter route over Burstall Pass, but when factoring in the extra height gains we demurred back to the flatter but slightly longer walk. Being a month earlier in a very wet summer, everything was much greener than the year before. Cool forests slowly gave way to warm, sunny river flats and once again the kilometers and hours slowly ticked by one after the other.

Four hours into our day the trail got steep as it led to Palliser Pass. We hiked around the weedy shores of Belgium Lake, taking in the soaring peaks above, including a still distant Mount Back and Queen Elizabeth directly overhead.

As I watched Wietse hike to the oddly assembled signs marking Palliser Pass and the border between Banff National Park in AB and Height of the Rockies Provincial Park in BC I was struck by how tiny he looked in the terrain. This happens all the time in the Rockies, but for some reason it is extremely noticeable here. The peaks are somehow steeper and the terrain tighter than other places. Rocky flanks are covered in huge curtain wall cliffs and old, dying glaciers. When I considered it, all the peaks I’ve climbed in this area have been steep, exposed and extremely friable. Despite hoping for cleaner lines on our target peaks, what were the odds of that?

From the pass it was a short but steep grunt to the gorgeous environs of Back Lake and the delightful, protected bivy site located at its NE end in a stand of thick pine trees.

I’ll admit, it felt more dramatic than it should have as we set up camp under familiar pine boughs in cool shadows, tucked out of the heat of the summer sun. It couldn’t be helped given what had occurred less than a year before, but with perfect weather and dry mountains there should be no more drama this time around. If only!

Little did we know it as we blew up our sleeping mats, but once again we would not get to enjoy our protected little camp in this corner of paradise. Once again we would be denied our comfortable, warm sleeping bags. This time, however, it would not be due to a lack of mojo or failure to summit but other factors would come into play.

Feeling desperately familiar, we shrugged into our day packs and started out along the lakeshore, headed for the unique waterfall at its far SW end. The waterfall is angled onto a solid slab of rock and makes the whole alpine bowl between Mount Back, King Albert and Queen Elizabeth echo with its splashes and swirls. I could have sat near it for hours in the warm sunshine. There is an argument to be had that I should have done exactly that, instead of what we did next.

We made short work of the slopes above the lake and were soon angling directly towards the intimidating NE face of Mount Back. Wietse had been commenting since Palliser Pass that, “it looks bloody steep” and he was not wrong! Even better? As we approached steeper slopes, still far below an upper cliff that had no obvious breaks, we discovered the true horrifying nature of this slope. Just as I had on Mount Beatty a few days earlier, this was going to be a high-consequence, low-amusement game of “tip-toe up concrete dirt with embedded rocks” sort of adventure.

At this point in the story I should address something that will come up eventually anyway. The issue of timing and planning. Why oh why were we tackling three remote, obscure peaks on the same day as our 25km approach to Back Lake? Why not simply tackle Mount Queen Elizabeth or Leman and keep things reasonable? Simply put, the numbers weren’t that awful or unreasonable for us. We’ve put in long days in the hills many times over the past years.

Our route from camp to camp was only around 13 to 15 kilometers of distance and 1500-1800 meters of height gain to tag the three peaks. Plugging that into our trustworthy formula we couldn’t make it more than around 6 to 8 hours of time, tops. That gave us an extra hour of daylight and even allowed us to exit the final few kms in the dark if we absolutely had to. We had our headlamps packed — it’s not like we weren’t counting on some unseen complications, we were just very confident that our math was sufficient to account for them.Back to the unbearable terrain we were now inching our way up on Mount Back’s NE face. This was the first unforeseen complication and unfortunately it was right out of camp. Arg. How many more of these could our timetable handle?

It’s hard to explain how, but the incredibly loose, incredibly hard, incredibly steep terrain from the back of the lake to the lower cliffs took us well over 1.5 hours to ascend! That is simply ridiculous. I had to check the track 3 times in Gaia before I could believe it. That’s the equivalent of an entire slow lap on Prairie Mountain — up and down. Wow.

The reason it took so long was the slow pace we had to take in order to keep things safe and reasonable. The dirt was so hard and the route so manky that we didn’t have a choice. On our way up the slopes we had great views back to the lakes of Palliser Pass and also to the steep cracks and chimney that we attempted the year before. There was no obvious scramble up that section from what we could see. Finally we approached the first cliff band and started scouting around for a break — there were a few options.

I tried the first obvious route — a steep crack with a huge boulder overhanging it. At first I thought I might sneak under the massive rock ala Mount Avens, but alas, this wasn’t an option. Next I tried beside the boulder but it was a very exposed step with a death fall if anything shifted — and everything on this bloody slope was ready to shift. Wietse decided to follow a watercourse that was coming down just out of sight to climber’s right and before long he was shouting back that it was “looking good”. Yes! He managed to exit via a steep, wet, moderate line that finally got us above the NE face with views to a small cliff guarding easy summit slopes but looking vulnerable in several places. Rick’s team had more snow than we did and didn’t want to tackle the cliffs on return. There was no way we were descending the concrete dirt we’d just come up, but the cliff itself wasn’t that intimidating in the snow free conditions we had.

As we ascended normal Rockies terrain (what a relief), I noted a relatively easy escape line to our left that would avoid cliffs just under the summit and a huge lingering patch of snow to the easy SE slopes of Back. We made the traverse, once again tip-toeing across some annoying concrete mud/dirt and sneaking under the overhanging snow to finally top out on easy scree slopes.

Our views of the bowl containing Back, Tipperary and Cradock were stunning! Unfortunately so was our total time spent getting to this place. It took us over 2.5 hours from Back Lake to the easy SE slopes of Mount Back — far longer than we’d planned. As we tried to set a pace to our first summit of the day, I kept looking nervously back over at Tipperary and Cradock. Our next two peaks didn’t look quite as straightforward as I’d hoped — especially Cradock was looking a little fiercer than I needed it to at this point. Over 3 hours from our campsite at Back Lake we topped out at the 3009 meter summit of Mount Back to stunning views in every direction.

The Royal Group featured prominently on our summit panorama but of course, Mount Cradock really stole the show with its north glacier. Unfortunately there was no sign of Rick’s or anyone else’s register in a lightning blasted summit cairn.

After enjoying the views for as long as we dared, it was time to descend the easy SE slopes leading down to the bowl and our access to the next summit — Mount Tipperary. Originally when planning these three mountains, I was hoping to ascend the north glacier directly to the Tipperary / Cradock col in order to avoid going all the way to Tipperary’s summit twice — once on approach to Cradock and then again on the way back over.

When looking more closely at the terrain on Google Maps and thinking about it while planning our 2025 trip, I wisely decided a bit more height gain was worth more than struggling up a dying glacier. Now, looking at how steep and complex that north glacier looked I was very glad for that decision. We were both carrying lightweight crampons just in case it was a viable descent route but now we both knew we weren’t going to be using them on this trip.

Views down to the Albert River valley and the FSR snaking its way along it far below were stunning from our position as we slowly but surely picked our way towards the west ridge of Mount Tipperary. Views of Cradock and Tipperary were also stunning, if somewhat intimidating. Thankfully, unlike the popular WWI marching song the mountain is named for, it was NOT a long way to Tipperary, but a relatively short one.

Only 35 minutes from the summit of Mount Back, we found ourselves starting up on easy scree to a small col between Tipperary and a false summit to the west. This was good! We were back to positive thoughts on exiting before dark, but I did find myself looking at my left wrist more often than usual, pondering all the unknowns still ahead.

It was 16:00 hours as we started slowly up the east / moderate west ridge of Mount Tipperary. Rick mentions a “steep descent” down this ridge and we were not doubting it as we made our way up it. Never difficult, the ridge was certainly steep enough but there were many options to keep things reasonable and the views to the Royal Group just across a deep, wild alpine valley to the south kept us distracted. Queen Mary, Prince John, Prince Henry, Prince Edward, Prince Albert and of course, King George were very impressive rising out of the summer haze beside us. (For a good read, see Rick Collier’s account of his FA of Mount Lockwood, located just west of our current position.)

We topped out at our second summit of the day only 20 minutes after starting the west ridge, just over an hour from the summit of Mount Back. That was the good news. The slightly more concerning news was our views to the third planning summit of the day — Mount Cradock.

As soon as we crested Tipperary and looked at Cradock’s west ridge I knew we were both scuppered and screwed on this final peak. Dammit! How come nothing could be easy and straightforward on this dang trip?!

A vertical cliff, at least 100′ high clearly block any direct ascent of the west ridge ahead. Even it we could somehow overcome that obstacle, there was no clear line to the summit from atop it either. How in the heck did Rick and his group get up this terrain, his description of it being so dang nondescript?!

“Easily over snow and glacier to col W of objective; good scrambling up quartzite for 60m, then a traverse around to S and easy couloirs to summit.”

I didn’t remember anything about “quartzite” and Wietse remembered it as “granite”. I knew there was no granite in this range but now we wondered aloud if the “60m scramble” was up the cliff.

Anyone who has spent time reading Rick’s many reports on Bivouac, knows that there are more than a few times when words like “good scrambling” can mean “solid 5th class free soloing” — especially trips from the early 1990’s which this one was. Especially when these trips are with hardcore climbers such as Bill Hurst, Larry Farmer and Bob Saunders! Ah crap. What to do now? We didn’t have time to think about it too long. The hours were ticking by relentlessly and we had a long way to travel before dark.

It would have been way too easy to turn back at this point. I couldn’t do it. We were here now, we weren’t ever coming back. I told Wietse that we should get our noses into things before giving up and he somewhat reluctantly agreed. I had a feeling that there might be an escape around the cliff off the nose of the west ridge to the south. It was only on coming home and rereading Rick’s “traverse around to S” that I realized his group closely followed our route. A moderate scramble down loose, toothy terrain brought us onto shifting blocks of quartzite.It was already 16:50 as I started a hail Mary traverse from the Tipperary / Cradock col, heading up and climber’s right, south of the west ridge direct.

Nothing looked obvious and finding a scramble route was feeling extremely remote at this point. It’s hard to explain, but it is remarkably difficult to keep putting one foot in front of the other in situations like this. FAR from a guaranteed summit and FAR from camp with light fading quickly without, and hope fading just as quickly within. I started up blocky terrain to a huge overhang I could just spot high above on the south side of the mountain.

And just as we’ve experienced countless times in our beloved Rockies, every time we poked our noses around a corner or popped over a steep couloir, another route presented itself ahead, tempting us further and further along. After ascending under and past the immense overhang, we continued a rising traverse south of the west ridge and across a few steep gullies.

By 17:30 I knew we were going to make our third peak of the day. Steep, but relatively easy scree covered slabs led to the upper summit ridge and finally the 3030 meter summit.

Wow! Views were now getting familiar, but still impressive in the dying afternoon light. Our first summit register also presented itself in a fragile Gatorade bottle. Jay Lund and Glen Jackson from Canmore left a note with no date (confirmed their ascent was on September 2 2018 from Jay). They ascended from the Albert River FSR over Mount Tipperary and I suspect it was either this year or the last. I knew at this point that we’d be exiting at least part way in the dark — it was 18:00 and there was no way we would be back at camp in under 3 hours. But we’d do our best to try.

A somewhat slow and careful descent led back to the Tipperary col where we had to reascend that peak via familiar, loose terrain.

Thankfully, we could take advantage of some loose scree gullies on descent of Tipperary’s west ridge but it was still 19:30 before we were finally starting down scree covered slabs to a depressingly distant escape col. This col was huge. We’d spotted it already from Mount Back and were desperately hoping that it would be a quick and straightforward hike just below Cradock’s north glacier to attain it. It was NOT quick. It was NOT straightforward. Arg.

Descent from the Back / Tipperary col was quick and easy. Once we got further along towards the escape col things took a turn — and as usual it wasn’t a turn for the quicker or simpler. Formerly glaciated terrain is always more complex than you hope it’ll be. This was no different. Nothing was particularly difficult about it, but every time we thought for sure that we had a straight shot to the col, we encountered another valley or another dip in the landscape, or another pebble strewn slab traverse.

The sun was rapidly descending behind us as I snapped photos of towering cliffs off the NE end of Mount Cradock. Waterfalls 100’s of feet high cascaded from the glacier above and ran down a long valley towards unseen Tipperary Lake. One of my planned exits was out of this incredible alpine valley but it took us so many kms out of our way that we dismissed it as a viable route. Finally we started up steep scree slopes to the col — yes, we were once again going UP to go DOWN.

I could not believe my ears when Wietse yelled down to me that once again there was more height loss before the col! W.T. actual living F. was happening?! Sure enough — I popped over a ridge and yet another small dip prevented direct access to the now-looming col. GDMT!! This wasn’t even funny anymore.

Finally, finally, finally at 20:30 we found ourselves looking down at a gorgeous alpine lake from our exit col. It had taken us a whopping 60 minutes to travel only ~2.5 kilometers from the Tipperary / Back col to our escape col and we were not lollygagging along the way. Ultimately that is what bit us in the proverbial keister on this particular adventure — everything took so much longer than it should have.

As I’m sure you’ve sensed by now, there was simply no way we were going to beat the dark before hitting any sort of official trail anymore. With only a maximum of 30 minutes of daylight ahead of us, things got a little desperate.

There was literally no time to lose as we dashed and stumbled down annoying, shifting rubble to a gorgeous alpine lake nestled under the massive escape col. Sunset on Mount Sir Douglas, Monro and Leroy across the Palliser River valley was both beautiful and terrifying. My only hope at this point was that we’d descend through enough complex terrain to allow us to continue a relatively safe descent in the dark, via headlamp. But let’s face it, it was an extremely faint hope.

Given what we’d already encountered with respect to complexities, we both knew that we weren’t even close to home-free at this point yet. Rick’s escape route was far from a clear, straightforward account and what we were seeing was already confusing when we tried in haste to reconcile our visuals with our memories of his report. From our vantage above the lake, we could spot two potential “traverse ledges” — one was high above and the other was far below us. But were we low enough at this point? Was it worth the risk of ascending yet again and then traversing above cliffs in the dark to try to find an exit? I much preferred continuing our descent, so I led as quickly as possible down to the lake and started a traverse on annoyingly loose rubble above its north shore.

I was racing at this point. Photos don’t show how dark it was as I desperately hiked down a ridge east of the lake to a vantage that I was hoping would present a more direct exit and avoid any ledge traverses in the dark.

Wietse was far behind me at this point but I was absolutely determined we could still make an exit to camp work. I thought we’d have some light until 21:30 and I was delighted to see a clear line down the stream from the alpine lake to a somewhat worrying lower cliffband far below. I started quickly down, yelling to Wietse that we should continue our descent as quickly as humanly possible. I quickly realized that it was a losing battle — there was no way we’d have enough light to travel until 21:30. It was only 20:55 when Wietse caught up to me and we donned headlamps.

Still moving quickly, we descended atop another set of cliffs, this time covered in annoying willows and avalanche debris in the form of broken and bent trees. Dang it! Light continued to fade rapidly as we scouted a way safely down. I thought if only we found a way down this last obstacle, we could bushwhack our way to the Palliser Pass Trail via headlamp. First we tried skier’s right. An annoyingly smooth slab prevented easy descent — I could see easier slopes about 20′ under me, but couldn’t bring myself to test fate on the steep, featureless slab. A slip wouldn’t be fatal but it sure wouldn’t tickle either and would likely result in something broken. Not worth it. We went to our left.

Before long I found myself desperately thrashing willows on one side while my headlamp shone over a wet cliff directly below! Yikes. This was also #notworthit. It was now 21:30 and pitch dark. I mentally shrugged and then simply gave in to the situation. I struggled back across the top of the cliff towards Wietse. “We have no choice, we are staying the night”, I told him. He was in quick agreement and we started preparations for our very first unplanned alpine emergency bivy.

Here’s where we get into another discussion about choices and consequences. This time it’s not about biting off more than we could chew — that had obviously now happened. This time it’s about gear choices, going lightweight and dietary consequences. Immediately on knowing that we were spending the night high up on a mountain with an unplanned bivy I regretted some of my earlier gear decisions. I’d left my rain pants back in the car since there was virtually no chance of rain in the forecast and mine are heavier and bulkier than I’d prefer. That was annoying more than anything else — they would have been a nice layer to have but weren’t critical. Much worse, was the decision to leave my down jacket back in my tent at Back Lake! Wietse brought his along, for some reason I did not. There was no excuse for that, other than not thinking straight I guess. I knew immediately that I was going to regret that little brain fart in the hours ahead.

What really worried me, however, was the fact that I’ve been on OMAD (One Meal a Day) for a long time now and that meant I had not had any food yet today. That wasn’t the big deal (I’m used to that), the far bigger deal was that I also didn’t have much food along with me. Since I never eat until supper, I don’t bring much food during the day — only a bare minimum for emergencies. I had 4 granola bars but would this be enough to get me through the night and back to camp the following day? I guess I was about to find out.

Those are the not-so-great decisions I’d made before getting myself stuck on top of a cliff for the night. I made a few really good ones too — arguably enough to balance out the bad. Firstly, I did have my warm fleece and had brought my heaviest Gore-Tex jacket rather than the UL one I was planning to bring at first. I also had a warm merino wool toque and warm, thick gloves. My ultralight pack has a seating pad as a back rest — this ensured protection from the cold ground overnight. The best decision though? Back at home already, for some odd reason, I’d added an extra fire starter to my emergency kit and made sure I had a working lighter. THAT particular decision was the real kicker in the end!

Another good decision in hindsight was descending as far as we did out of desperation. We now found ourselves near running water, on a fairly large and protected ledge and surrounded by plenty of dry(ish) firewood thanks to previous avalanches over the years. Despite getting ourselves good and stuck in a fairly serious situation, we weren’t going to die from exposure. The night forecast was clear and calm (thank goodness) and the weather pattern was warm. We fully expected frost overnight at our elevation, but figured a nice hot fire would protect us. We set about getting a small site ready for a long night ahead.

I tried not to think about it too much but how the heck was the next 9 hours going to go? We have a hard time sitting around at the best of times, but now we were stuck with nowhere to go and no choice but to sit there. We had to save our phone batteries, so no audio books or music to entertain and no video or photos of the incredible night sky. We gathered some rocks and made a small fire ring before getting a fire lit. I knew from my many canoe trips that once we got a bed of hot coals going, the wood didn’t have to be very dry to keep burning. The first hour was spent getting the driest wood burned into a glowing bed of hot coals. I knew we’d have to babysit the fire all night or it’d go out quickly and this proved true. At least it gave us something to do.

It’s hard to describe the next 8 long, dark, quiet hours. Wietse is a good partner to get stuck overnight with. He didn’t freak out, we both just accepted our fate and dealt with it as best we could. Nobody got too excited or showed too much anxiety. Since he was warmer with rain pants and a down jacket, Wietse managed to stretch out beside the fire and catch some z’s. He even snored a few times which made me more than a little envious. With my thinner layers I pretty much had to lie on top of the small fire in order to stay warm!

I got burned by more than a few embers — I was that close. But it worked. I stayed warm and only shivered when leaving the fire to collect more fuel — then I got serious chills that caused some concern. And there we lay. Mostly not saying anything at all, lost in our thoughts and dozing off and on to the cheery crackle of the fire. Our watches and phones were turned off to conserve batteries for the next day so we had no idea of the passage of time. The only way we could tell that the hours were ticking by was the slowly shifting patterns of stars high above in an inky black sky.

I ate one granola bar and had some peppermints in my jacket that were a nice little surprise. It was very hard not to turn my watch or phone back on to see what time it was but I forced myself not to. Finally, after what felt like many hours I couldn’t take it anymore and turned my watch on for a brief look while Wietse snored beside me. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the time — 03:30 hours! YES. Only another 2.5-3 hours and we’d already have morning light! That was a really good moment. I turned my watch back off and settled in closer to the small, hot flames.

It took a while but finally the stars started to fade and low light appeared over Sir Douglas. As we shifted and tried not to shiver in the colder morning air we realized it hadn’t even reached freezing overnight. How lucky were we? Now we just had to find an escape and execute it on next to no sleep and no food.

As usual, on hindsight after getting home, we realized that we were still on Rick’s route where we overnighted. Rick mentions,

“This was something of a blind exit, and we could have been badly scuppered by any of the several sets of curtain walls we had to get down; but all had escape routes — - one was a long snow slope above a frozen lake and a second involved a traverse to the left (NE) through horrendous willows. At about 6300′, we started traversing in earnest NE along a wide bench that — quite fortunately — continued with intermittent goat trails for over a km atop a set of intimidating cliffs. With persistence we finally reached the N end of the cliffs and descended a boulder field to a meadow through which ran the trail, the only further difficulty being the need to cross the braided Palliser river on a tangle of willow branches.”

His “long snow slope above a frozen lake” was our descent from the upper col to the alpine lake. His “traverse through horrendous willows” was where I was in the dark, thrashing atop a cliff before we gave up for the night. Alas, we didn’t have this description along (I only brought the other trip report on my phone) and still thought that the “wide bench” was now above us, not below. In hindsight we likely would have been scuppered by lower cliffs even if we had managed to overcome the one we got stuck atop in the dark.

Rather than piss about trying to descend, we decided to gain height back to the benches we’d spotted above and try traversing our way back to camp. As day slowly broke around us — a stunning summer day — we trudged back upslope until we were at the height of the alpine lake with a grassy bench stretched out heading north atop cliffs below. Somewhat annoyingly, we could also clearly see an exit line over the cliffs that blocked us on the right hand (south) side that bypassed the slabs. Crap. Funny how much daylight helps with routefinding eh?!

We were committed to trying the traverse in front of us now, so we kept on slowly ascending, hoping to heck that this was Rick’s exit line and would work for us too. (Of course, we now know it wasn’t Rick’s line — uh oh.) But you know what? It freaking worked! Believe it or not, we crested a rise above a small alpine tarn and spotted an easy scree descent line past it. I guess today was the opposite of yesterday. Today’s unknown routes were all going to work out just fine and we were A-OK with that. We were now solidly on a line I’d mapped out on Google Earth and it looked pretty decent on the Gaia satellite map I had thoughtfully downloaded before leaving home.

Our moods improved with each subsequent landscape feature we discovered as we followed the thin red line on my phone, traversing down and north along cliffs and curtain walls and down rubble slopes to the valley floor, still far below us.

One last, huge avalanche slope led finally off the cliffs towards a small unnamed tarn and Palliser Lake. PHEW. WE MADE IT!! Some last short stretches of bushwhacking and elevation gains and losses around the beautiful, calm lake and we were stumbling our way up the trail towards Palliser Pass.

From the pass it was a short, familiar hike up to Back Lake where our tents stood silently under the trees — once again unused by their idiot owners. It was a quiet hour or so at camp, making much needed cups of coffee and slowly packing up camp for a long exit ahead.

There was a brief, frustrated conversation about nabbing Mount Queen Elizabeth but we both knew that wasn’t happening. We didn’t have enough food for another night even if we could have stayed, but neither of us felt like more peaks. We might be stubborn but at some point even we know when it’s time to leave a peak for yet another day. At 09:45 under a brilliant, warm summer sun, we turned our backs on a now-familiar, small corner of mountain paradise that had somehow twice thwarted us a good night’s rest and shuffled our way back down towards Palliser Pass.

The rest of our exit was a familiar, long march covering ~20 kms to the bikes and another 6 kms from there to the parking lot. It took us almost 5 hours to hike and another 30 minutes to bike under a hot sun and clear blue skies — perfect conditions for scrambling but not for us.

We had many hours to ponder what had happened and what we could have done differently but in the end we chalked it up to another adventure — one with an unexpected twist. Given the length of trips we do and the lack of modern beta, quite frankly it’s hard to believe this is the first time an unplanned bivy has happened to either of us. In the end we nabbed our primary peaks and survived an interesting night on the side of a mountain somewhere, next to a warm fire. Adventure sometimes results in a good story and now we certainly have a good one. ;)

It could have been so much worse, the thoughts don’t bear words. One very clear takeaway for me is to pack those rain pants and that down jacket — even if it’s a warm day with no bad weather in the forecast.

I ended up eating a total of 4 granola bars and 8 peppermints over 32.5 hours and 70 kms of travel over three mountains and 2.5 kms of height gain — arguably not an optimal amount of calories but OMAD still suits me somehow. It took me a few days to recover from this ordeal but soon I was ready to start planning my next trip. Ironically it would involve the exact same parking lot and the exact same bike approach only 7 days later, but that is a tale for another day. I think I’ve probably taken more than enough advantage of my readers attention span with this one.