Isola & Monad Peak — explor8ion

Ever since snowshoeing and hiking up Monola Peak in extremely strong winds and a fair amount of snow back in 2012 on November 18th, I had a trip filed away in the back of my mind that would entail both Isola and Monad Peaks to the south and west of Monola. After a stretch of incredible late fall weather in the Canadian Rockies which saw me bag around 7 peaks since the end of October, I was ready to give this trip a shot. Raf Kazmierczak was looking to hike up Monad Peak, so we agreed to team up for this one.

Looking at the northerly route line, note the cutblocks we took advantage of after descending the easy west ridge of Isola towards Monad Peak.

I met Raf at the 37th street parking area along Hwy 22 at the late hour of 07:30 and we enjoyed a nice chat (mostly about his successful ascent of Mount Bryce this past August) before arriving at the trailhead along the Livingstone River. Back in 2012 there was a nice bridge across the river, allowing us to drive a few kilometers up the road that parallels Isolation Creek on its north bank. Alas, the bridge was not there this time. I’m not sure if it’s permanently gone thanks to the 2013 floods or if it’s a seasonal bridge, but judging by the conditions around the crossing, I think it’s best if you don’t count on it being there. Raf and I weren’t so easily dismayed by the lack of a bridge, however. There were two trucks and a hunter’s camp set up on the far side of the Livingstone River, so we knew there had to be a pretty easy crossing for 4x4’s and there was. Slightly downstream, we found a good crossing and Raf proceeded to drive across the river with no issues whatsoever. As we were scouting the river crossing, I had noticed two hikers heading up the road on the opposite side. They must have been the owners of the car parked on the near side and were likely the group Raf had told me would be on the same route as us this day.

We managed to knock 2.5km off the approach road by driving across the Livingstone River and up Isolation Creek.

Excellent! Avoiding wet feet was already worth it, but now that we were across, I encouraged Raf to keep driving! I knew we’d made it quite a way up the road back in 2012 and hoped we could at least knock a couple of km’s off the boring approach road in the truck. The road was in excellent condition. I figured it wouldn’t take long to catch up to the folks I’d seen hiking up the road, and sure enough! Soon we were pulling alongside Geoff and Lisa. We offered them a ride and they (literally) piled in the back of Raf’s truck, on top of his bike, which was jammed in there. About 2.5km up the road, we arrived at the top of the same hill that stopped us driving further in 2012 and decided to stop. On hindsight it would be possible to drive about 1km further, but it was hardly worth it, considering the ascent slope of Isola was only about 500m further up the road anyway. After a brief discussion it was decided that Raf would bike up the road and take his time to the summit of Monad while Geoff, Lisa and myself would first bag Isola before joining him. Any decisions about tacking on Monola Peak would be dealt with later in the day.

Hiking along the ATV road above Isolation Creek on our approach to Isola.

The first hour or so is this. Easy enough hiking in open forest.

It was pretty cool meeting Geoff and Lisa, I’ve been reading about their various Rockies exploits on Facebook for a while. Both of them are Kiwis, and we had a fascinating and very engaging discussion as we tramped our way up the fairly open forest on Isola’s southeast slopes. It turns out that our discussion dove-tailed very nicely into the discussion the two of them had started on their drive to the mountains that morning, and yes, it did involve Donald Trump - but not as much as you’d think.

The signature dark rocks of the area as we approach the summit in strong, cool winds. Don't be fooled by Geoff's shorts - it's pretty chilly.

At the summit now, Monola at far left, Monad at center. Click to view our approximate traverse route towards Monad.

Isola is a hike to the summit. There is no scrambling whatsoever on the southeast slopes. There were tiny pockets of thicker forest but nothing to worry about. Geoff was optimistic in shorts, but even Lisa and I were in t-shirts until we arrived at more open slopes and started getting wind blasted from the west. Layers were donned and we continued up to the summit on the signature black rock that litters the peaks in this area. Views of Monola and Monad were pretty great - Monola was much larger than I remembered it and it certainly deserves a name. Cabin Ridge looked pretty sweet to the southwest as well.

Monola Peak

After summitting Isola in some strong and cold west winds, we turned our attention to Monad Peak, lying to the west and slightly south of Isola. Considering our heavy philosophical discussions of the day, “Monad” is appropriately named after a fascinating Pythagorean world view that was steeped in a cosmology of mathematics where the world is seen as existing solely on the backs of numbers. I could actually get behind this theory! OK - don’t get me started…

The rolling terrain took us by surprise but wasn't terrible. This is the last drop towards Monad. Note the mirroring of the clouds with Monad's long ridge? We aimed for the shallow col between the two highpoints, just left of center.

Hiking beneath a very interesting cloud pattern. Here we deviated first right and then back left to get through this cutblock without bushwhacking.

The first order of the day was descending the west ridge of Isola. Despite not having any beta on it, this ridge was very easy. The scrambling was easy with only a few low cliff bands to descend, interspersed with nice, fast scree runs. As soon as we arrived near the bottom of the ridge, the wind was blocked and we enjoyed a nice lunch before turning our attention back towards Monad Peak.

Breaking through the easy cliffs along our way to Monad Peak.

Geoff mourns the loss of a faithful pole. The crazy Pol (i.e. Raf) is probably already at the summit of Monad at this point...

Another desolate view back towards Isola from the cutblock.

Interesting Facts on Monad Peak

Named according to the isolation theme of the area. The word monad comes from the Greek word for “one”, “single”, or “unique” and has had many meanings in different contexts in philosophy, mathematics, computing and music. (from bivouac.com)

From the summit of Isola, we’d noticed a few cut-blocks lying between Isola and Monad and we planned to use them on our traverse. Geoff did a great job route finding and Lisa and I continued our grand discussions behind him.

We stumble upon another cutline. We never stayed on these for long, but they were nice to use once in a while.

Geoff kicks shallow steps up a gully on the east face of Monad.

Lisa wisely puts her micro-spikes on for the slick east face slopes of Monad.

The terrain was rolling and we ended up dipping and cresting a few small ridges and crossing a large ATV track before finally grunting up very steep treed and grassy slopes to the upper cliff band on Monad’s long summit ridge. As Geoff and I kicked steps up the moderate cliff band, we noticed a figure off in the distance on the summit - Raf was there! As we expected, a very stiff wind greeted us as we swung our legs over the edge of the east face of Monad and stood on its broad summit ridge. Geoff and I did a quick detour to the high point on the north end of the ridge before returning and starting the traverse towards the true summit to the south where Raf was braving the cold winds and waiting for us.

Geoff and Lisa come up to the summit. Pasque at left and Plateau at right in the distance.

Raf and Lisa come down the south ridge of Monad.

Panorama looking south from the summit includes Monola at left, Cabin Ridge at center and Cyclamen Ridge at right.

It turned out that Raf was waiting for 1.5 hours for us to finish our detour from Isola - but he was bundled up nice and warm so wasn’t turning blue just yet. The weather was turning as we quickly took photos at the summit before continuing south along the ridge to the place where Raf broke through the bands and ascended nice easy slopes earlier. I was especially impressed with the view of Cabin Ridge from Monad. The turning weather provided some nice moody shots as the group balanced along the ridge in strong winds.

Cabin Ridge was the most dramatic view we had all day.

Dropping off the ridge to the east was a sublime relief from the relentless, cold, west wind. We continued down easy slopes, eventually meeting up with an ATV road which we followed down to Raf’s abandoned bike on somewhat icy, muddy tracks. The hike out along the road was fast, if a bit icy in sections, until we arrived at the dual-creek junction that Bob talks about in his Isola trip report. Here, the flood damage from 2013 was very evident but we managed to simply walk through the shallow water with no issues and continued down the road to the waiting truck.

Hiking down the ATV approach road towards Isola on slick mud / ice.

On the drive home, just as we dropped down from Windy Gap, the super moon rose over the foothills.

Without the cold winds and waning daylight, I’m sure Lisa, Geoff and Raf would have tacked Monola to the day for a nice three peak effort. I would strongly recommend combining at least Isola and Monad if you’re in the area anyway. The two peaks make for a very nice loop and aren’t much more than hiking, depending how you break through the small cliffs on Monad. With energy and daylight, Monola would complete a very nice, three peak day with some pretty good mid-front range views.