Noyes, Mount South

Way back in August 2011, Wietse and I ascended Mount Noyes in Banff National Park overlooking the Icefields Parkway and Mistaya Lake. I remembered the trip as being scenic and fun with a few interesting features along the way including a steep dirt gully breaking lower cliffs and an upper route that felt sneaky as well. Little did I know at the time that there was an even sneakier line through the curtain wall cliffs that we avoided on horrid scree at the time of our ascent.

A few winters ago I did a complete survey of accessible peaks in the Rockies and compiled a rather large personal list of objectives. A minor summit known as “Mount Noyes South” ended up on the list and went dormant while I chased more worthy objectives.

2026 has not started out on a very positive note for most Albertans in the weather category. Despite promises of a “heat wave” due to a large El Niño forming, we’ve been plagued by cool, rainy weather and thunderstorms almost every single weekend of the spring so far. Combined with cool temperatures there have been a number of snowfall events too - delaying an already slow start to the scrambling and hiking season.

Most years this delay in ideal mountain activity weather conditions would have me antsy and bored. (First world problem if I’ve ever heard of one, but hey. We live in the first world so… 🙂) Thankfully, as I continue to age (despite my best efforts), I get less and less concerned about missing a few summits here and there. I have other hobbies to fill the gap seasons including golf, canoeing and most recently, cycling.

So far this spring I’ve cycled some Calgary classics including Sheep River (Diamond Valley to the Bluerock CG and back), the Canal Route (YYC to Chestermere and back) and many others. After a two week canoe trip to Quetico in NW Ontario, I came back and cycled the classic Highwood Pass, gate (south) to pass to gate (north) and then back over the pass to gate (south) again. As the weekend of June 19th approached, I was ready for a mountain adventure again.

Thanks to copious amounts of lingering snow to the west of Calgary, I made the questionable decision to go for Mount Noyes South. Arguably this peak is located in one of the biggest snowpack areas of the Alberta Rockies, but I figured it would grant me a realistic idea of just how much frozen water was still coating the core mountain ranges. In a surprise to absolutely nobody - I was right!

After a long and rather familiar drive to the Silverhorn Creek Campground along an already busy Hwy #93, I was happy to see that the forested slopes beneath my peak were dry and snow free.

The last time I was up this drainage was in 2017 with Phil Richards on an ill-advised day trip to Quill and Conical Peak. “Ill-advised” due to extremely thick forest fire smoke which ended up in a migraine for me on the endless scree slopes of Quill Peak.

It certainly felt like spring (and was smoke free!) as I slowly made my way along a rushing Silverhorn Creek before cutting up to my left into a mix of light and matchstick forest. Birds were chirping happily as I ascended steepening slopes to the shrinking sounds of the busy parkway below.

I have a love-hate relationship with first outings to the mountains every year. I always forget something important for some dang reason and today was no different. As I slipped into my new Arc’teryx Acrux LT mountaineering boots I realized something didn’t feel right. I’d purchased the boots from the Arc’teryx resale site in January for a really good price but hadn’t worn them until today. And guess what? They had no freaking insoles ffs! 😡 I didn’t even clue in until marching across Hwy #93 and being surprised by how stiff and hard the boots felt.

I knew that boots wouldn’t feel like my normal hiking runners but this was brutal. I took one off and immediately realized the problem.

I had my hiking runners along but I was almost certain that I’d need the boots and full crampons to negotiate the nearly 3,000m summit. I was already pushing things by heading out today in this area, I didn’t feel like missing a summit for being under-geared. I decided the distance was short enough to suffer without insoles for a day and continued on. But I wasn’t delighted with the situation and neither were my poor feet.

I was, however, delighted with the lovely green forest and spongy moss floor beneath my feet as I worked up the lower route out of Silverhorn Creek. At a set of low cliffs I easily worked my way around to climber’s right before hiking a steep (cairn here) slope to the first viewpoint of the day.

From the viewpoint I got back into a steep dirt and grass gully that I remembered from our 2011 trip. This gully deftly avoids silly cliffs on either side and is a great little landscape feature that reminds me to always look around for better routes.

After getting my hands full of tree sap at the choke point in the steep dirt and grass ascent gully, I finally broke out of the steep slopes above the parkway and got first glimpses of the rest of my day. My views included a lot of frozen water in the form of snow. ❄️⛄

I remembered that Wietse and I had lost some height across a shallow valley between an intervening ridge and scree slopes SW of the objective. I both didn’t want to lose too much height and more importantly didn’t want to wade through rapidly softening snowbanks.

I decided to stay on the intervening ridge by traversing towards the right (south). I hoped that the ridge would nicely abut the SW scree slopes closer to Mount Weed. This idea worked well and soon I was traversing up scree slopes under the south peak with views opening up behind and ahead.

After crossing extensive (thankfully still frozen) snow slopes to the top of yet another intervening ridge I got my first views of what lay ahead. A lot of snow is what those views revealed, instantly validating my stiff (!!) mountaineering boots, crampons and ax.

At first glance I wasn’t too happy with all the snow. Much of my approach slopes were south facing and the sun was rapidly deteriorating the snowpack. My head-on view of snow slopes that I was originally planning to traverse under Mount Noyes was a little intimidating. Then I spotted what looked like a potential by-pass to the steep south facing scree (now snow covered) slopes that Wietse and I had used for our ascent.

Despite the curtain cliffs looking impregnable at first glance, I noticed a significant feature part way along them, climber’s right of an obvious set of waterfalls.

Could this be another sneaky route on this mountain? There was only one way to find out, so I put on my crampons and started a high level traverse on hard snow to the back of the alpine bowl beneath my objective.

This was my first time using my Petzl Leopard Flexlock UL crampons and they proved a little more finicky than I would have liked. To be fair, I had them too loose and because I’m a slow learner it took far more fiddling to get them fitted correctly than it should have. In the end they worked pretty darn good, but with ropes for a base I couldn’t really expect them to be top performers on side-hilling steep, hard snow slopes.

To my absolute delight, as I approached the curtain wall cliffs to the right of a steep set of waterfalls, I spotted cairns marking a very sneaky set of ledges that looked easier and easier the closer I got to them. Honestly, this feature made my day. I LOVE routes like this!

Thanks to all my crampon-fiddling I was not going to be setting any speed records today but as I stepped off the snow onto an obvious scree ledge leading along the cliffs I didn’t care even a little bit.

Today was starting to feel like “one of those days” when everything breaks down and just “clicks”, despite first impressions.

I decided to keep the crampons on for the scree ledge traverse, hoping that they would give some extra purchase on potentially frozen, wet or loose scree and dirt.

After a delightful hike through the cliffs along an exposed scree, rubble and dirt ledge I was happy to see an easy and obvious route that would hopefully give access to my peak. There was a lot of snow but it proved reasonably solid despite the sun and I quickly proceeded up it.

Indeed. As I progressed up ever steepening snow slopes towards my objective, everything stayed easy and reasonable. I was happy to be in crampons with a mountaineering ax for added security as the snow slopes steepened significantly under the summit.

I enjoyed the steeper snow directly under the summit and didn’t bother looking for an easier route. (My descent route is a slightly easier line.) I knew there was a small glacier somewhere to my left and tried to stay off it as best as I could given the amount of snow.

As I broke onto the summit ridge I was relieved to see both a cairn and an easy ridge leading there.

As expected, views from South Noyes were stunning. Sure! There was a depressing amount of snow lingering in every direction but snow is scenic.

Aqua lakes sparkled far below - at least they were melted out. Views included many familiar peaks and remote valleys that I’ve had the great privilege of visiting over the past decades.

After spending some time at the windless summit, I decided to return via a scree and snow ridge leading directly to the Noyes col below. There was no overriding reason for choosing this alternate descent - I just felt like it. It worked perfectly and granted some great views to the east and of the tiny glacier on the south peak’s north side.

I joined my ascent tracks in the bowl beneath Mount Noyes before traversing back to the ledges leading through the curtain cliffs.

I exited the ledge route and completed the easy snow traverse on collapsing snow to the first intervening ridge. A short walk to the end of the ridge provided sublime views to the west over Mistaya and Waterfowl Lakes.

From the upper intervening ridge I traversed back to my left (south) to avoid the snow in the forested valley directly below - just as I had on approach. This line worked as well as it had earlier and before long I was back at the steep dirt and grass gully breaking through the cliffs.