Bath Peak

One of my favorite areas of the Rockies is Yoho National Park. This should not be a huge surprise to anyone who’s visited there before. (Also, I have many “favorite” areas of the Rockies so there’s that 🙂.)

After scrambling the incredibly fun and even more incredibly scenic Wolverine (Auditor) Peak in 2022 I thought I was pretty much done with the Sherbrooke Lake area. Previously I had been up Paget Peak in 2007, Mount Bosworth in 2008, Mount Niles and Mount Daly in 2009, and Mount Ogden in 2017. Finally, in 2024 I skied the Ogden Benches with Wietse and really thought I was done with the area.

Imagine my delight when Devan Peterson posted a snowshoe scramble route up yet another high point overlooking the Bath Glacier to the east and Sherbrooke Lake to the SW - appropriately dubbed, “Bath Peak”. I was stoked to have another reason to go up something in this relatively small and tight valley and immediately planned it out.

I was planning a pretty aggressive 2-day trip with Dr. Phil over the following two days and had cycled “Road to Nepal” (80+kms, 900m gain) the day previous, so I didn’t exactly bound out of bed early. The stats didn’t scare me much, I knew this would be less than 8 hours and likely quite a bit less than that. I arrived at an empty Sherbrooke Lake trailhead at 0800 and started off on a somewhat beat up lower trail.

Thankfully after a short stretch of tree root hell (too much runoff and not enough trail drainage) the trail conditions improved dramatically and my pace, mood and gait improved along with it. After less than an hour I was looking out over the always scenic Sherbrooke Lake, including very dramatic views of Cathedral Mountain to the south.

Thanks to a late spring melt and tons of added rain already this year, the lakeshore “trail” was even less idyllic than usual. A few places had me almost in the lake but I managed OK.

Today was a strange day. I was in my light mountaineering boots instead of my usual trail runners. Why? Two reasons. Firstly, I thought there might be snow clogging the upper mountain and second, I wanted to try them out with insoles this time. (Remember my Noyes South Peak debacle?) I figured a short(ish) day was the perfect test for boots - it turns out I didn’t need them but the insoles sure felt better than without. Duh. 😀

After hiking almost the entire length of the “trail” around the east side of the lake, I started to look for Devan’s ascent line (I had his GPX loaded up in Gaia). At this point I was happy about the lack of forecast smoke in the air, but a little apprehensive about the ascent line. Since Devan had used snowshoes and had snow the entire way up from Sherbrooke Lake, I guessed that I’d have to suss out my own route only based loosely around his - especially at the bottom. I was right.

I started up a relatively open slope a little bit before Devan’s track, hoping to avoid avalanche debris that I could see in the gully ahead. Unfortunately, my route only worked on a very part-time, very limited basis. I forged ahead anyway, up a mix of open(ish) vegetated slopes and tight Christmas trees, always hoping for less whacking ahead.

It didn’t take too long and I was traversing more open avalanche slopes with views down to the lake and promising a more open descent than my approach (more on that later).

After a short, rising traverse I was back in the forest, but this was much more navigable than lower down and presented no issues. The day was turning out to be gorgeous. Unsurprisingly for this area, my views were stunning as they continued to expose more and more of the Rockies behind me.

As I picked my way up relatively easy SW slopes, I continued to be south of Devan’s track. Finally, as I broke tree line towards my peak, I merged closer to his line and started on the upper mountain.

Despite being in a huge snowfall area, the southwest slopes I was on were either snow free or rapidly becoming “summer snow” - firm and fast travel but not too firm either. I didn’t think I’d need my crampons anymore and could see that the upper gullies were all snow free.

Speaking of the upper gullies - this is where Devan had indicated the crux. It took a bit of fussing around for me to realize the route, but the essential move was getting into the easiest looking gully before traversing climber’s left into what looked like more complex terrain.

I’m not sure where Devan’s ascent line went but that terrain certainly looked more than “moderate” to me from above it as I scrambled up the left side of a steep ridge rather than under it on climbers right as he had.

Moderate scrambling with some delicate route finding (I left cairns for return) led up to the summit and within 4 hours of the parking lot I was taking in the stunning views over the Bath Glacier and Sherbrooke Lake.

After searching in vain for a register and taking way too many photos of the sublime views it was time to return. I followed my cairns back down the moderate upper route before merging back to my ascent line through the upper forest back to the huge open avalanche / rubble slopes leading down to the Sherbrooke Lake Trail.

Still south of Devan’s line I started down hardpack slopes to rubble below. Devan’s line looked horrible with recent avalanche debris scattered along it.

My chosen route had its own issues but worked out well thanks to my choice of footwear for today. Hardpack rubble and loose rocks and boulders conspired to cheese grater me but I managed to stay upright for the most part to the bottom of the slope.

Thankfully the ‘whack to the trail was very short and soon I was back in warm sunshine. I was surprised to be in gloves and a toque for part of the day - it was much cooler here than the 25 degrees Calgary was enjoying. I didn’t mind. I don’t like scrambling in hot weather anyway.

Unsurprisingly, I hadn’t seen another soul so far in my day but started to run into hikers along the lakeshore “trail”. One gentleman asked where I’d come from when I caught up with him and his hiking partner. He didn’t really understand my answer but did indicate that the trail past the lake towards Niles Meadows was overrun by a huge pile of avalanche debris and basically unpassable. I’m not sure this is the case but I wasn’t shocked given the spring avalanches we had throughout the Rockies this year.

As I descended quickly from the lake to the parking lot I came up on a group of 4 hikers waiting to pass a small black bear. I took out my bear spray and told them confidently that “no bear attacks have happened on groups of 5 adults” and marched the group quickly past a very unconcerned bruin.

I arrived back in the parking lot 7 hours after leaving it. As Jim Halpert would say, this short, very scenic day trip left me smiling and satisfied. And it should do the same for most dedicated Rockies scramblers. 🙂