Crescent & Peppers Peak

Way back in the good ol’ days, I used to go months in the winter with no mountain activities whatsoever. The good thing with a break was that my family got a break from me being gone all the time on weekends. The bad part was that I’d gain a bunch of weight and lose most of my fitness over the 3-4 month absence. I remember doing spring trips to the Columbia Icefields with fit friends who weren’t so dang lazy over the winter months. That was always a challenge!

Most winters for the past 5-6 years I’ve managed to stay more active as my kids are now grown-and-gone and I find myself with plenty of free time to try to enjoy winter. I grew up in Manitoba and have a love/hate relationship with the dark Canadian months. Put it this way - I find myself fantasizing more and more about moving somewhere like Australia. 😀☀️

This winter has seen me take another long break from the mountains for various reasons. Thankfully I’m still in reasonable shape after investing in a Wahoo trainer and the Rouvy cycling app for my basement. 🚴 Despite enjoying the break, as the weather continued to be unseasonably warm in Alberta, I decided that Friday February 6th was a good day to break my mountain fast.

Thanks to a trip report by Cornelius Rott and a recent trip shared by Doug Lutz and Ephraim Roberts on Facebook, I had a destination in mind.

I’ve spent quite a bit of time in Bighorn Country in the front range Rockies between Ya Ha Tinda to the south and David Thompson Country to the north. There are some gorgeous “A” grade peaks tucked in this landscape, including Lost Guide, Whelk and Cheshire. There are also a bunch of solid “F” grade peaks in the Ram Falls area, including Corkscrew, Baseline, Old Baldy and others that beg the question of whether they are worth the long drive from Calgary - mostly they are not.

“Cresent” and “Peppers” peaks didn’t sound quite like “A” grade but they also didn’t appear to be “F”, so I decided to take the chance on a 3+ hour drive from YYC to get my hiking and scrambling mojo on for 2026. I avoided the corkscrew section of hwy 734 by driving slightly further north than usual and coming in via hwy 752 through Strachan, instead of hwy 591 through Caroline.

After finally completing the drive and a lengthy audiobook on Genghis Khan I was more than ready to start the long cutline march towards my two objectives - both visible from the large parking area just west of the road.

When planning for this trip I had a dilemma to solve. What footwear? 🥾 Normally I wear runners or approach shoes but I knew from Doug that I’d be on ice in Peppers Creek and possibly in snow on the peaks themselves. My icers were busted from my adventures on the unnamed glacier beneath Mount Castelnau and I was too lazy to replace them. I decided to try my Prairie Mountain shoes - a pair of Solomon Spikes.

I strode along frozen puddles and grass along a faded ATV track from the parking lot, debating whether or not there was more or less snow on my peaks than expected. I think there was slightly more. After a bit of wandering across open, likely swampy, meadows I came to my first cutline running SW.

Thankfully the snow along the first cutline was only ankle deep. There were also old tracks here although I couldn’t tell if they were human or bear. As I hiked, my spirits were high as a warm wind blew out of the west and birds and squirrels kept me company from the completely snow free forest lining the track.

This first cutline had some serious undulations at the start which had me worried that the whole approach might echo this trend. Thankfully after a few serious ups and downs it calmed down. The SW cutline ended in a swampy area where another ATV track joined from the north. Here I worked my way along a small creek that was frozen in some sections and partially melted in others. So far my spiked runners with their built-in ankle gaiters were the perfect choice for today. Unfortunately that wouldn’t last…

The open swampy area curved to my left until another cutline - this one trending SE, appeared. This would take me to Peppers Creek.

At first I was alarmed with the amount of snow the SE cutline was holding. Again, I was grateful to have old tracks to assist but the going got slow for a few hundred meters until things improved dramatically. Before I knew it, I was hiking on firm ground with barely any snow. This was awesome and slightly concerning at the same time.

As I continued along the partially dry cutline I worried about how dry the forest beside me appeared. It was only early February and I found myself sincerely hoping that this area of the Rockies gets a ton of snow over the next few months or we’ll be in trouble wrt to fire hazards soon. 🔥

Despite knowing it would happen, when the cutline started its inevitable descent towards a still unseen Peppers Creek I hoped it wouldn’t be too drastic. Thankfully it wasn’t. I followed a small side trail to my right before cutting through easy forest and into a surprisingly wide and open creekbed.

Although the creek was nice and open and the sky was nice a blue ahead, things were a little slow at first. My runners started showing their biggest weakness as I stumbled and bumbled my way up the rubble and unconsolidated snow in the open creekbed. They had ZERO support or stiffness in the soles. The ankle gaiters were nice in the snow though, and very soon the main reason for wearing them proved invaluable.

Before I knew it, I was striding confidently up pure ice sheets covering the creek edge to edge. My shoes were perfect here. It was interesting to see how the ice layered up and formed huge bulges that would be extremely problematic without some form of spiked footwear.

The section of creek with the bare ice was much longer than I expected. Eventually however, the ice calmed down and the creek was running water - something that I’m sure is rare for early February. I was happy to note that I had a running water source for exit if I needed it - even if it was a yellowish color. 😀

I continued up the creek before passing under what I assumed was my exit slope from Peppers Peak. I had asked Doug which direction he recommended I go and he suggested Crescent first with a traverse over Peppers. In hindsight this was a good suggestion. Just as the snow in the creek became deep enough to frustrate, it was time to ascend dry dirt and scree to my right out of the creekbed.

It felt great to be gaining elevation after a 2-hour, 7km approach. The ground underfoot was stable and quick to ascend. The spikes worked great on scree! Slowly my views opened up and the sun came out overhead.

As I worked my way up following Doug and Eph’s GPS track I had some regrets about not spending more time researching the route. This happens more often with me. I get lazy about researching the details and just convince myself - with no logic whatsoever - of how the route will be. Then I get there and my vision is W-R-O-N-G. Gasp! You are correct - this is fairly idiodic but it can also be fun. 🙄 It can also be another word or set of words that begins with an “f”. 🤬

As I approached a small buttress on the east ridge with an obvious by-pass on climbers left, my attention turned to the terrain above it. A fairly serious looking cliffband dissected the slopes ahead. There were no immediately obvious breaks that I could see. Hmmm.

I easily scrambled past the buttress, taking in the views back over the approach creek and over to Peppers Peak before turning my attention back uphill.

Because they did it in the winter and because Ephraim normally doesn’t engage with difficult scrambling, my vision of today involved moderate scrambling at most. As I poked around the cliffs blocking upward progress on the east ridge, I realized that Doug and Eph’s line was not going to feel very easy in my shoes.

I tried several different lines up the cliffs and didn’t love them. The spikes that assisted on ice, provided very little surface area on steep, dry rock. The flexibility of the runners also sucked for stiffer climbing.

I tried a promising looking line of snow up a steep crack but didn’t want to make a committing move at the top of it. Doug and Eph’s line similarly had a few steps along it that I didn’t love. With my regular scrambling footwear and dry rock this cliff would have been a lot of fun to ascend. As it was today, it wasn’t. I decided to look for an easier line.

Despite Doug confidently stating that there was “no way around” the cliffs, there most certainly is. 🙂I descended slightly before simply hiking around the nose and back up easy terrain feeling a little silly that I’d spent so much time trying a much trickier route.

After that bit of drama I resolved to be a little smarter with my route finding, especially now that I knew my shoes were undertooled for anything tricky. I made my way up to another set of cliffs granting access to the upper mountain but thankfully looking a little easier than the ones I’d just by-passed.

Views off the east ridge along the spine of the front ranges were awesome as the sun slowly broke through the morning clouds and lit up the landscape around me.

The upper crux was easier than the cliffband below, but still required caution. I should have donned my helmet but was up before I bothered thinking about it. Again - my shoes felt seriously undertooled for the job. There was pea gravel on the slabs here and the spikes didn’t grip it worth a dang.

I knew from Doug’s report (see? I did read it - just not carefully…) that there was more to come after this latest obstacle and indeed, there was. Nothing serious but the going was slow as I traversed the upper east ridge to the summit on large, shifting rubble and rock. Again - the shoes did NOT assist here.

3.5 hours from the car, I arrived at my first summit of the day. In a surprise to absolutely nobody, the winds were now furiously strong from the west.

I quickly signed the register before moving on in the stiff wind. It wasn’t actually cold but it was annoying. I was hoping that sections of the traverse might shield me a bit and this did indeed happen.

I wasn’t here to set elevation records or gain Strava KOM’s so I skipped the bump immediately along the ridgeline from the summit of Crescent Peak. I chose to follow an obvious sheep highway instead, which was lovely. The sun was warm and the sky was a deep winter blue as I started up the next bump along the traverse.

So far this day was going pretty darn good. The views were better than expected for such front range ramblings and the traverse felt quick.

Brown shale slopes combined with a brilliant blue sky and white snow made for a very scenic landscape as I fought intermittent hurricane force winds and calm, warm pockets of air.

By 13:36 - only an hour from the summit of Crescent Peak - I was already on top of the southernmost highpoint of the traverse. From here it was a straight line to Peppers Peak over another highpoint or two. Once again I started wishing I’d done more research. The route ahead looked obvious but not entirely straightforward. It wasn’t.

(Hilariously, I also didn’t know where the actual summit of Peppers Peak was since Doug’s track wandered over several high points. I assumed it was the furthest one. It wasn’t.)

After coming home and reading Doug’s Facebook report on his ascent of Peppers Peak I’m almost glad I didn’t research it too much. Once again, I was expecting a stroll along a ridge and instead I found myself with some interesting down climbs and small cliffs blocking my path. Once again, my shitty shoes didn’t inspire confidence overcoming these obstacles.

Eventually I worked my way down to another col before starting up a broad scree and slab slope under what I was hoping was the summit of Peppers Peak. Near the top of this slope I angled climber’s right on grippy slab before popping out on a high point.

I was hugely surprised when I spotted a brilliant pink register in the summit cairn just ahead of me. YES! For the first time in recorded history the summit was the first high point I hit. 🐐

I wasn’t surprised by the names in Ephraim’s register. I was a little surprised to see that Cornelius made a return to Peppers Peak in January 2026 via the NE ridge which he claimed was moderate scrambling.

(I also noted with surprise that there were TWO registers which felt like overkill for such a “B” class peak. 😀)

After snapping more photos of the now familiar scenes around me, I decided that I wouldn’t bother with the traverse to the south summit of Peppers Peak. It didn’t feel worth it in the cold winds now that I had already signed the register. Despite trying, there was no way to avoid the middle summit which would lead to my NW descent ridge back to Peppers Creek below.

I descended moderate terrain under the peak before traversing more moderate terrain to the next summit. This was more “scrambly” than I was expecting but with careful routefinding I managed OK in my crappy shoes.

Some more moderate terrain led to the middle summit. It was actually quite fun scrambling along here.

I was happy with Doug’s suggestion to do the route from Crescent to Peppers. I think that downclimbing the east ridge would have sucked a bit with the track I had. Downclimbing the terrain towards Peppers Peak was quite manageable with careful routefinding.

Despite making decent time, the day was getting long in the tooth as I turned my attention to the obvious NE ridge leading back to Peppers Creek. It was obvious that I’d be flirting with sunset due to my late start time of 09:00.

As expected, the NE ridge was a very quick and easy descent line into Peppers Creek. Also, as expected, daylight continued to fade at an alarming pace as I started the 7km hike back to the car.

There were no surprises on the return hike. Everything went slightly quicker and apparently days are getting longer so I had plenty of sunlight left as I started the annoyingly long drive home.

Overall this was a great way to spend a Friday in early February. Should I have been on snow sticks instead of spiked runners? Maybe. But I’ve learned over the years not to judge these things too harshly. I’ll take a nice wander in the hills over an office any day - no matter what is on my feet.