Ex Coelis (Rhine, Elbe) - "Kadoona"

According to the Canadian Rockies Database, the set of 5 peaks known as “Ex Coelis” was originally called “Kadoona Mountain” by the Rockies explorer Mary Schaffer. Kadoona was a mispronunciation of the Stoney name for the Kootenay Plains, “Kedonnaha Tinda“, or Meadow of the Winds. In 1994 this complex of 5 peaks was named Ex Coelis – Latin for “Out of the Clouds” for a motto of the First Canadian Parachute Battalion, one of eight battalions which made up the Sixth British Airborne Division during World War II. Names were assigned to the five individual peaks of the Ex Coelis complex in 1997. Normandy, Ardennes, and Rhine Peak were named after battles while Elbe Peak was named after a river in Germany near the point where the battalion met the Russian Army which had been advancing from the east. Stan Waters Peak, was named after a battalion member who had an outstanding career both as a soldier and businessman.

For such a diminutive set of peaks surrounded by much more impressive ones, the naming history matches their relative scrambling complexities. I discovered this for myself back in September 2022 when I made solo ascents of Stan Waters, Normandy and Ardennes. These summits are not as easily attained as one might think when considering the statistics alone. I ended up classifying the easiest 3 of 5 peaks as a solid moderate (SC6+) adventure that could easily dip its toes into SC7 terrain without careful routefinding. As I pointed out in my first encounter with Ex Coelis Mountain , many folks over the years have underestimated these peaks due to their diminutive stature. A few years ago I put together a detailed plan to tag both Rhine and Elbe in a day using GPS tracks from Brandon Boulier who kindly shared them on PeakBagger.

After successfully ducking bad weather and difficult, complex terrain on Friday on Mount Parrish I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready to tackle more of the same the very next day. Almost more daunting than the scrambling difficulties was the 3.5 hour approach drive! In the end, the fact that summer in the Rockies is extremely short and the forecast for Sunday was much worse had me getting up at 04:00 for the second day in a row to drive out of a sleeping YYC towards the Rockies. As I started the brisk hike from the Siffleur Falls Trail parking lot (@07:30), the forms of the Ex Coelis loomed over a swirling North Saskatchewan River.

I crossed on the familiar blue hanging bridge before marching over the boardwalk to the Siffleur River Trail. I didn’t want to linger long on my approach (due to forecast rain in the PM) so I resisted taking too many photos of the very scenic Siffleur River from the excellent trail.

It took longer than expected to hike the undulating trail to my approach drainage but by 09:00 I was finally off trail. I stayed right in the creek for about half of the approach and on climber’s left in light forest for the other half.

There were bits of animal trail but nothing obvious or permanent that I could find. I passed under the south slopes of Elbe before passing a steep wall in the creek. Shortly after the wall I arrived at a steep drainage leading up to the left, to the Rhine / Elbe col out of sight high above me.

The drainage was a great way to gain height quickly – it was steep and solid for the most part. At some point I noted that I was left of Brandon’s descent track but the drainage was still open and obvious above me so I continued in it. After a continuing steep grind through light forest I deviated to my right, losing a few meters to the col before starting up to a line of cliffs on Rhine’s lower SW face on rubble slopes.

I knew from Doug’s extensive trip report on Rhine Peak that he’d discovered a wandering route up the SW face that avoided difficult scrambling until the summit block. Doug Lutz has pioneered many interesting routes in the Rockies, often on more obscure objectives. I’ve enjoyed many of them myself and wondered if this would be another. Indeed, it would be!

After a short scramble through lower cliffs off the rubble access slope, I kept ascending and turned sharply left (NW) to an obvious low col along the face.

From here I tried to closely follow Brandon’s track (he was with Doug) up the route. As with my route on Mount Parrish the day before, this one is almost impossible to describe with any real clarity for the reader.

I traversed along the SW face for quite a ways, losing more height than I thought I would along loose scree ledges and following the odd cairn. Eventually I turned up to my right before gaining more height around the end of a ridge and getting into a large scree and slab NW gully.

I should point out that every time I looked up at the SW face above me, I had no idea how the heck I was going to get up to the summit of this mountain! The terrain was horribly complex, but little routes kept opening up as I traversed back and forth along the SW face.

After ascending the NW gully (easy scrambling), I traversed an obvious ledge (very thin) back to a rib on my left and proceeded up on moderate, steep terrain to another cairn and upper col along the SW face. Yet another slight height loss and traverse brought me into another rubble and slab gully – this one starting west and curving up to the left (north), leading all the way up to intimidating summit terrain.

It was all more convoluted and slow travel than you would first expect – exactly how all of the Ex Coelis group of peaks behave. It was also a lot of fun, picking out the various little ledges and gullies and face traverses, all pretty solid “SC6” or “moderate” terrain so far.

As I followed the final gully up to the summit block, clouds were again building around me and I started thinking it could rain at any moment. I followed the terrain and GPS track as it curved to me left towards a very steep wall and what I assumed was the crux below the summit.

Sure enough! I found myself at the base of a steep wall with two options. Devan’s track descended from my right while Brandon and Doug’s track descended from the left. Both routes used a shallow crack to descend along the steep wall but I felt like Doug and Brandon’s was a little more reasonable. As with most steep cracks and slabs, it started moderate and quickly became quite steep.

As I topped out on a ridge under the summit the exposure ramped up. This was a short section, but certainly deserves a “difficult”, “SC7” rating. Aunt Edna would not be in her happy place here!

A short scramble later and I was on top of Rhine Peak. It felt pretty darn good to be there after failing on my first attempt 3 years previous. The rain was holding off and my views were very respectable, including many remote peaks in the Siffleur Wilderness that I’ve either stood on or have plans to stand on soon. It was more than a little exhausting to contemplate if I’m honest. I didn’t linger long, filling out a sparse register (I was the first ascent in 2 years) before reversing my ascent route.

The crux felt trickier on descent than going up – a fairly common theme with harder scrambles. On ascent I almost thought it was more on the SC6 side, but after descending it I was back to giving it a solid SC7 rating. Reversing the rest of the route to the Elbe col was pretty straightforward but did require lots of careful GPS navigation and finding cairns along the way. The SW face of Rhine is not a place to be a casual route finder – there are many places to get into serious trouble here! Speaking of serious trouble. It was now time to see if I could squeeze Elbe Peak into today’s itinerary…

My original route saw me descend almost all the way back to the approach drainage from Rhine before starting up the lower south slopes of Elbe. I could see from satellite images that the south face of Elbe had complex, ribbed terrain that would likely prevent a direct attack from the Elbe / Rhine col. Of course I had Devan’s direct line up the east ridge of Elbe but I knew that I wasn’t in the mood for that level of difficulty and didn’t even seriously consider that route. I was feeling way too tired after the previous day’s efforts, not to mention the ascent of Rhine Peak to descend hundreds of meters only to go back up another peak. What to do? I decided on a hail Mary move.

I’d spotted a potential traverse line from the Rhine / Elbe col that might get me around the ribs and cliffs on Elbe’s SE side and into the south gully that Doug and Brandon used to access the summit. There was absolutely no guarantee that this line would work – there was a much higher chance that it wouldn’t. I decided to give it a shot and simply save Elbe for another day if it didn’t work out. From the col I worked my way up steep dirt and slab to a small tree island on the east face of Elbe. From here I followed a sheep trail around several corners, always expecting to be cliffed out but always spotting a traverse to the next corner.

Finally, I worked my way around one more corner and knew that my attempt at Elbe was officially and unequivocally done for today. Impossibly steep cliffs rose above and below my exposed position on a south rib of the mountain. I poked around a bit before deciding I simply didn’t have the energy or the luck today. Oh well. I was happy with my ascent of Rhine Peak and turned back to retrace my steps and the sheep track to my ascent gully. And then I hesitated. Of course I did! I don’t give up on objectives very easily and thinking of doing the whole approach all over again for Elbe Peak had me a little depressed. I took another look.

There was one last hail Mary left. Instead of going further down the south rib, why not go higher instead? Sure! The odds were tremendously against me at this point, but I could spot a very steep, moderate line heading up my rib and in a dirt gully between it and another rib to my left. It would be 10 minutes and I’d know if it would work or not, so I decided to give it a shot. And of course, it worked perfectly! YES. I couldn’t believe it. A very simple descent off an intervening rib led onto very steep but easy south slopes leading up to the now-visible summit block. Now I was PSYCHED.

As I ascended dirt slopes to the obvious summit block and ridge above, my enthusiasm waned with every step. The summit terrain was certainly not looking very easy the closer I got. Both Devan and Brandon’s tracks went up the east end of the summit block and descended a slightly different line for some reason. I soon saw the reason!

From the upper ridge just under the summit, a very exposed step led upward. I knew I could get up this step, but coming back down would be an issue. Due to a slight flare to climber’s right, descent would be very tricky and extremely exposed. Any slip would send me hundreds of feet down a cliff and was unsurvivable. I don’t like committing to terrain like this without first looking for other options, so I dejectedly turned back off the summit ridge.

But where the heck was the other option?! And where the heck did the guys descend, if not the exposed step?! After some exposed scrambling, I ended up directly under the summit on a south ridge but there was no way that was going to work. I almost gave up again, but something made me try an impossibly steep crack heading to an overhang above. I knew I couldn’t surmount the overhang but started up anyway. This was now serious terrain – slipping here would not guarantee surviving, even if it was less exposed than the east approach. At some point there is very little difference in falling 10’s of meters vs. 100’s.

But my good fortune with route finding continued. A key move to breaking this peak was making a giant step from my first ascent crack, over a rock rib and into another crack to my left. And then almost immediately making another huge step over another rock rib, into a third crack / gully that led up on much easier rubble to the summit above. I tried not to think about descending this terrain as I lunged over it and scrambled to the summit cairn – noting wryly that I wasn’t even above treeline here. 😉

Summit views were respectable from the lowest Ex Coelis peak but I didn’t linger long to enjoy them. Strangely, the register seemed much busier than Rhine’s had been, but I didn’t read all the entries before starting back down the difficult crux.

I’m not gonna lie. I didn’t love every second of the crux on the way back down it. It was mostly OK, but it was f_cking steep and there wasn’t a lot of room for error while stepping over and around the rock ribs into the various cracks.

Everything felt much better when I could face outwards in the final crack and descend using all fours as anchor points on the rough rock around me. Even after exiting the crux I spent a few minutes figuring out how to get back onto easy south slopes before breathing a sigh of relief.

The descent was quick and easy, but it did require another deviation as the gully I was in choked out below me and I went skier’s right to find an easy scree and dirt line down. Near the bottom of the south face I went back into an obvious drainage / creek bed which led into the forested slopes below. And here I had my first bit of bad route finding luck over the past two days. Instead of heading south to the approach creek, for some silly reason I followed Devan’s track through forest. This was fine for 8.2 seconds until the open forest because it was completely choked up with deadfall.

All ended well as I stumbled out of the trees onto the Siffleur Falls Trail and started the plod back to the parking lot. I let myself take some more photos of the scenic landscape along the trail and even found a better trail than the official one that runs much closer to the river. I wouldn’t want to hike this trail with kids or dogs (it’s quite exposed to the canyon below) but it provided some very nice views and I was happy to find it.

As I hiked the boardwalk and bridge back to the parking lot I meditated on my Ex Coelis adventures. I was stoked to have completed the two most difficult summits in the group and even more stoked that I found a reasonable route to combine them into one trip instead of two.

I was happy that apparently I can still manage difficult scrambles while enjoying myself (for the most part). As I get older I’m not always in the mood to navigate risky terrain but I do enjoy sneaky routes that challenge my mountain skills. When an interesting route combines with a scenic approach like these two did, it makes me smile for a few days afterwards and lets me know that there are still a few years of scrambling left in my future.