Epiphany Peak — explor8ion

At around 2200 hours on July 19 2024, Rockies explorer extraordinaire Doug Lutz stood on a peak deep in David Thompson Country in the Job / Cline PLUZ that he dubbed “Epiphany Peak” after confirming it had no official label. It would take over 2 years for anyone to follow his footsteps and the “anyone” would be myself and Mike Mitchell.

When I first saw Doug’s report I wasn’t that interested in the peak. He completed a massive 2-day trip that saw him traverse the entirety of Vision Quest Ridge, descend into the Whitegoat Creek valley and then tag both Epiphany and Bright Star Peak with an anemic alpine bivy in between all the action. This all sounded too damn exhausting for little ol’ me and I dismissed it out of hand. And then, for some reason, I took another look and realized I was somewhat interested after all.

Reason #1 was that way back in 2017 Mike Mitchell and I had attempted Bright Star Peak from the Mount Stelfox col and failed miserably due to very complex terrain. Seeing that Doug found a 4th class route from the east side of the mountain made me think we could get redemption. Reason #2 that I took another look was when I realized that Epiphany was not only higher than Bright Star but Doug accessed it via some impressive pinnacles that I first spotted in 2020 on a day trip to Hangman Peak with Dr. Phil.

I’ve followed many of Doug’s interesting and inventive routes over the years and they rarely disappoint - although sometimes they are quite challenging. Doug doesn’t seem to possess the same “fear gene” that I do on complex, loose, scary Rockies terrain. 😮 It’s been a long time since I did a trip with Mike Mitchell so it was nice when he agreed to meet me at the trailhead for an attempt at both Epiphany and Bright Star in a long day. It turns out he may have forgot to ask me for more details on the trip. 😀

You know it's a complex route when there's this many colored dots and text on the route map.

After an uneventful early morning drive, I met Mike in the parking lot at 0800 and within a few minutes we were marching up the familiar trail to Whitegoat Creek.

It was awesome to get out with Mike again - he had lots to talk about having just completed a trip up Mont Blanc in June. Apparently he also ate his wheaties because he set a furious pace up the wide, recently maintained trail. We both noted that the trail had undergone recent work, including a new path leading to Whitegoat Falls.

It didn’t take long and we were in the mess-of-a-trail that leads up Whitegoat Creek. It was always a little jangled up thanks to floods and avalanches but this year it was even more messed up than either of us expected. We were talking so much that we often missed the best route on approach - often ending up following bits of trail and cairns leading off the most traveled sections.

Every time we didn't pay enough attention we got off the optimal line in Whitegoat Creek.

Despite messed up sections, there is a good trail climbers right of the creek for a lot of the approach.

Eventually we realized that whenever the trail traveled out of the creek we could find it on climbers right in the forest. Whenever the terrain narrowed, the trail would most likely vanish into the mess of a creek until it widened again. More than a few times one of us would reset by deviating back into the bush and finding a good track back.

It took us almost three hours to work our way up the creek to steep hard pack rubble slopes leading up to very intimidating looking terrain high above. I had Doug’s GPS track and immediately questioned just how straightforward the rest of our day was going to be. The slopes directly out of the creek were the worst kind of terrain.

Concrete hard dirt with just enough loose rock embedded within to cause someone in runners serious pause. Stiff soled boots or approach shoes are one thing for this type of nasty terrain, but spongy soled runners - even ones with Vibram soles - don’t like it one bit. In this case neither did their owner!

Much further up the creek now - the towering pinnacles are visible ahead.

My runners couldn't follow Mike up this crap - not a great start of the off trail section.

I suspected that just ahead the terrain up to my left would get substantially easier and thank goodness it did! As I ascended slopes to climbers right of the gully holding Mike, I stumbled on a strange contraption that I strongly suspect was a sheep trap. Likely used for tagging and tracking the many sheep that frequent this area.

I continued up easy scree and dirt slopes well out of the manky gully that Mike was in. Doug’s track was up this gully but I vastly prefered the softer ground I was on. I found two more sheep traps / pens higher up the slope.

One of the sheep traps / pens I stumbled upon. Doug's ascent gully obvious at left here.

Views back down Whitegoat Creek. Mike in the gully at right. My runners and I both hated that terrain.

As we continued up to obvious pinnacles towering over the landscape, I was confused by Doug’s GPS track. Because I was out of the drainage on softer ground and because I was climber’s right of the gully, I was gazing up at a different ascent line than he took. A picture is worth 1000 words so hopefully he doesn’t mind me using his photo as follows.

Doug's photo with his red arrow showing his ascent line vs. my green arrow showing where we went. He must have been tired not to see the obvious ramp and much wider gully that we ascended. 🙂

Ascending closer and closer to the complex pinnacles sitting atop the initial ascent slopes.

Doug is a great route finder, so I am surprised he didn’t spot an obvious but sneaky ramp leading to a massive rubble gully under the largest pinnacle climber’s right of where he went. Looking at his photos on Facebook, he eventually found a great rubble gully leading to the other side of the initial ascent ridge so his route must have worked out but it looked complex and intimidating to me.

As we ascended, Mike joined me on easier slopes out of the gully and agreed with me that the ramp / gully I was keen on looked very attractive compared to any other routes. I agreed that I’d check it out and let him know what the lower part of the route looked like from within.

Taken much later in the day on descent, this is the view of the sneaky sidewalk feature granting access to the huge rubble gully.

Looking back down the ledge (R) at Mike ascending it. Obviously it's much steeper than this WA shot looks.

Without delay, I ascended a straightforward sidewalk feature leading into a massive rubble gully. I couldn’t see the top from where I was but it all looked very promising so Mike followed me up.

Looking up the huge rubble gully from the top of the sidewalk ramp feature that got me into it.

Looking down rubble gully at Mike ascending it. Obviously it's much steeper than this WA shot looks.

The next 30 minutes were spent in a very loose, very steep rubble gully that threatened to cliff out at any moment but somehow did not. We had to be extremely cautious with our ascent - injury by rockfall was a real possibility.

The gully is massive, steep and LOOSE. A brain bucket is required as are light feet to avoid kicking rocks down.

Mike starts the traverse towards a still distant Epiphany Peak rising above him.

Just as Doug had with his gully, I finally topped out and breathed a sigh of relief that we made it unscathed. Then I almost vomited when I saw what still lay ahead - and unlike Mike, I was expecting exactly what I was looking at! 🤮

At the top of the rubble access gully looking west at Bright Star (L) and Epiphany Peak (R). There is still a LONG way to go folks! (Not to mention a LONG way to DROP.)

As Mike joined me atop the gully, he first stared and then asked, “WHERE is Epiphany?!” Somehow, despite me informing him that our day would be over 2500m of height gain between Epiphany and Bright Star, he missed the fact that an ascent of Epiphany also involved many hundreds of meters of height LOSS on approach. Oops. Sorry bud. 😯

I consoled him by letting him know that I wasn’t considering Bright Star as realistic anymore given that it’d taken us 3.5 hours just to reach the top of the approach gully and we were both feeling the effects of heat and smoke. I also assured him that Epiphany was the higher and more obscure of the two peaks and therefore more worthy. He wasn’t entirely convinced but agreed to keep moving one foot in front of the other for now.

The next few hours were more interesting and engaging than they deserved to be considering that it involved a long traverse, a steep descent and a lengthy ascent - all in thickening smoke and heat.

We decided that the best line towards Epiphany would be close to the cliffs.

Going too high resulted in some tricky traverses and scrambling.

I descended this steep slab (L) with a classic crabwalk but returned above it.

As we slowly worked our way along a set of cliffs towards Epiphany, we tried to stick as much as possible to various sheep trails in the rubble. We had Doug’s track but even so, the route up Epiphany’s east and SE flanks looked more than moderate to us. As we worked our way down towards an obvious gully splitting the east slopes, angles eased and route possibilities opened up.

Our ascent line is somewhere directly up that face at center.

Making our way down from the high col with is already oos at c-r here.

Getting closer to the east gully / face.

After one final scramble into yet another manky gully below the east end of our mountain we finally started up the damn thing. On ascent we took advantage of snow in a steep gully, taking care with obvious snow bridges and moats.

Nothing about this route is as straightforward as I thought it would be. Even crossing this manky gully near the bottom of the east slopes was a PITA.

Mike starts up the lower east face in a snow filled gully that is much steeper than it appears here.

As the snow ran out, the gully we were in got a little too steep for our taste so we deviated to climber’s left on a mix of slab and scree. The terrain never got more than easy to moderate with careful route finding.

As I neared an obvious line of low cliffs guarding easier SE slopes to the upper mountain I once again wondered about Doug’s GPS track. Doug stayed under the cliffs until almost the summit, while I spotted a pretty easy line through them and took it. This put us on slightly firmer terrain and allowed us some easier scrambling on the upper sections with less loose rubble and scree and more slab and larger rocks.

Ascending through a line of low cliffs to the SE summit ridge.

Mike exits the east face to the SE ridge with Bright Star in the bg.

Find Mike on the SE ridge. Bright Star looking smaller now.

Finally, almost 6 hours from the parking lot we stood on the summit of Epiphany Peak. I’d like to say our views were astounding, but they were not.

The reality of scrambling in 2026 is that your odds of smoky views are likely 50/50 in July, August and September. The views towards Hangman Peak over the Littlehorn Meadows were quite sublime.

Summit views north (L) and east (R) to Hangman Peak.

Views south (L) and west (R) over Coral Creek into the Job / Cline core area.

Mike approaches the summit. Bright Star Peak at distant left.

A telephoto of the top of our huge access gully at mid photo.

Hangman Peak sits in a gorgeous area of the front range Rockies.

We spent some time at the summit, enjoying a cool breeze and the limited views we had. There was no chance we were going to tag on Bright Star Peak - we both felt like we’d had enough heat and smoke for one day and we had many hours to go yet.

Views of our return route to the top of the access gully from the lower east face of Epiphany.

Mike bottoms out of the east face / gully and prepares to ascend back to the top of the access gully.

Ascending back to the access gully was annoying but we took our time and things progressed as they usually do.

Returning along fun terrain under the cliffs.

In general we stuck right next to the cliffs, over steep ribs and gullies.

I was feeling pretty good on this particular day and didn’t find the height losses and gains that annoying. Of course, I was also expecting them which helped. 🙂 It was a huge relief to hit the top of the access gully and we carefully descended it back towards Whitegoat Creek.

Starting our descent into Whitegoat Creek.

Back along Whitegoat Creek with the pinnacles a distant memory already.

We found a more efficient route down into Whitegoat Creek than we’d used on ascent (further skier’s left) and made short work of it. Soon we were back on easy terrain, following ribbons and cairns.

Chatting about life and philosophy helped pass the time and within 11.5 hours of leaving, we were back at the parking area.

One last look back as we exit Whitegoat Creek.

Surprising green in a land of greys and browns.

Reading this report might sound like I didn’t enjoy this trip very much but that isn’t the case. It was a hot, smoky day which did take at least 1-star off the enjoyment factor but overall I loved the interesting route to Epiphany Peak.

Sure! Whitegoat Creek is fairly messed up and the hardpack terrain, scree on slabs and height gains and losses won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. But that tends to be the exact type of trip that I prefer for some strange reason.