Sundown Peak (Little Fatigue)

Back in June of 2018, Phil Richards and I spent a weekend bagging peaks over the Fatigue and Citadel Passes in less than ideal weather conditions. Despite thick clouds and cool weather, we decided to attempt an unnamed peak laying north of Fatigue Mountain that has been called “Little Fatigue” by Andrew Nugara. Excerpts and photos from my 2018 trip report:

As we easily ascended the narrow ridge to the high point, I didn’t bother glancing at my iPhone to ensure we were indeed on the highest point. Phil even walked a bit further along the ridge, affirming that there was nothing higher in front of him. We snapped some photos in the gray emptiness around the summit and both of us commented how we could feel the incredible exposure pulling at us from the north side of the ridge.

As we descended past the false summit I found a massively exposed and deep cleft which gave another gut-pulling experience as we stood over it. We found an easy bypass to the “crux” rock band and it was only here that I bothered looking at my GPS to find our ascent line on the south ridge so we could follow it back down.

It was also only now that I told Phil we might not have actually been on the true summit! Dammit! I hate it when that happens! On hindsight, I likely would have turned around and ascended at this point if I’d had a clearer head, but we were already about 100 vertical meters down the mountain at this point and still in thick clouds so it just didn’t feel worth the bother. I obsessed about the near miss for a good ways back since I wondered how the traverse terrain was rated. If the traverse was difficult, and we didn’t do it, than we couldn’t really claim the summit.

I later realized that we didn’t miss much with both our conditions and the highpoint we’d attained but not reaching the truly highest point was something that always nagged me. After spending a couple of great days in the larches on Jut Mountain and then Mount McCrae, I decided it was time to tag the highest point on Little Fatigue. I wasn’t sure I’d have much energy just one day after a long bike ‘n hike into Loomis Lake, but I left the bike in the Rav, just in case I decided to ride up the Sunshine ski out road for my approach. (I’ve biked this road before and had some regrets due to an almost-too-quick descent thanks to its very steep incline.)

The parking lot was fairly empty on a gorgeously clear day as I sat in my car debating about riding or walking the ski out road. In my head I was thinking it was “only” around 4kms each way and in my body, I was thinking that I was feeling tired. In the end I learned from my experience only 24 hours earlier where I was very glad I’d bothered with the bike. Reluctantly, I unloaded the bike, loaded my pack and started slowly towards the road at the lower Sunshine Village gondola. The ski out is a somewhat sketchy ride — there’s a reason I’d only cycled it once before. There is a lot going on here — tourists and staff driving to the upper village and ongoing maintenance and construction on the road itself. Recently deposited, very loose gravel made the ascent even harder than usual and would prove to be a hazard on descent.

The ride was just as I suspected it would be except way T.F. harder. 😉 This was probably due to my trip the day before, but DUDE — that road is a never ending grinding HELL all the way up! Except for 1 or 2 exceedingly brief sections, I felt like barfing most of the ride. Jeez. Not a great way to wake up and start your day. I think my body was in shock after 2 minutes, realizing I wasn’t just dreaming this silly bit of unnecessary exercise. This was supposed to be a wonderful larch march, not a die-by-cycling situation. The only positive moment on the entire ride came right at its end, when I realized I’d ridden almost 5.5 kms — taking a total of almost 11 kms off my feet for the day. That felt worth it now that I could finally breathe again and my heart rate slowed to a more realistic set of digits for my age. I strode past a quiet village and made my way up a familiar path leading to the Sunshine Meadows above.

From the top of the wide trail that tops out between Mount Standish and Brewster Rock I continued into the open expanse of the Sunshine Meadows. Considering the incredible scenery and the pure number of larches (not to mention the gorgeous Rock Isle, Grizzly and Larix Lake), I’m always pleasantly surprised at the lack of crowds here. Instead of joining the crushing crowds at Lake Louise or the Highwood Pass, you’re much better off going up the Sunshine road to enjoy a much quieter atmosphere in larch season. I continued across the wide open meadows before entering a mix of larch and pine forest under the Quartz Hill shoulder that guards access to Howard Douglas Lake.

After ascending the shoulder, I dropped way down to the lake, passing some sleepy campers along its shoreline. From there it was another uphill ascent before dropping yet again towards a distant Citadel Peak and Pass. Finally I slowly started ascending on the thin, braided trail and decided that it was time to head NE across larch covered alpine meadows towards my peak.

So far my day had been pretty good but as I started out across the rolling meadows to the west face of my peak, things went nuclear as far as larches were concerned! Morning sunlight combined with an almost florescent glow on the trees as I silently brushed by them.

Brilliant green grasses and undergrowth combined with the yellows, greens and golden colored branches that seemed to have no end. Once again I marveled and appreciated my solitude in this special place.

Slowly the larches grew smaller and more sparse and soon I was staring up at the rubble slopes guarding the access to Sundown’s south ridge. As I ascended I couldn’t help but look back over the meadows.

Unfortunately smoke was building in the warm, windless conditions but views were still respectable to the north. Mount Assiniboine was sporting a cloud plume but was obscured by the haze. As I topped out on the ridge I took in the pair of striking lakes nestled between Sundown and Fatigue mountain with Sundance Peak looming above in the distance.

There were no complications on the lower south ridge — just as I remembered from 7 years previous. Clear skies provided me with the views that I’d missed out on my last time here — although the atmospheric haze and smoke was slightly annoying. Soon I bumped up against the only scrambling to the false summit. Cairns and obvious stepped terrain led up a fun steeper section that was over way too quickly. (Even this can be avoided on climber’s left.)

As I approached the false summit I was once again more than a little confused at the terrain. Even though I could see this time, it wasn’t completely obvious just how I would get to the easy summit bump, obviously located to the NE of my current position with a visible cairn. Nugara’s description doesn’t help much here but eventually I figured it out. Rather than traverse loose and narrow terrain to the nose of the false summit (like I did with Phil back in 2018), I descended loose, blocky terrain to my right (east). On return I by-passed most of the tricky ridge on the east side.

From just under the false summit it didn’t take long for me to stride back up to a small cairn and register marking the peak. I was more than a little amused to look back at the false summit and essentially see no height difference between the two. But hey! At least I could actually SEE something today… I have no idea what Andrew and Amber were consuming on their trip back in 2009 when they combined Citadel, Fatigue and Sundown but they even continued to bag an outlier of Sundown after attaining the summit! (They did avoid the 13kms of approach roads and the associated 500+ meters of height gain that entails but still!)

I wasn’t keen enough to check out the outlier despite some encouragement in the register to do so. I’ll go out of my way for caves, but distant outliers need to be very enticing for me to bother with. What did rouse my interest was the name of the peak. Colin Jones dubbed it “Sundown” in the register that he placed back in 2016, which I thought was a much nicer moniker than “Little Fatigue”. Apparently “Howard Douglas Lake” used to be called “Sundown Lake” as well, so this name is likely related to that bit of history. I decided to call it both to avoid confusion — or possibly to add some. There weren’t many entries since 2016, averaging less than 1 party every 2 years. Views were very respectable even with the obvious haze hanging in the air.

Descent was relatively quick and easy, mostly an exact reversal of the approach. I bypassed most of the scrambling on easy rubble and scree and was soon snapping way too many photos of the north face of Fatigue Mountain over the two lakes below. Sheep tracks were nicely shadowed on prominent outliers along the traverse and the surrounding landscape on either side of me was extremely scenic.

This is one peak where the best views are pretty much everywhere except the top — ironic that this is a very rare summit miss for me the first time around. Larch filled meadows dotted with small, shimmering tarns and soaring summits to my right and a pair of teal colored lakes nestled below the steep north face of Fatigue Mountain to my left provided all the reasons I needed to be just where I was. Soul food.

From the end of the south ridge I dropped back to the Sunshine Meadows and started back to the trail through the intervening larch forest. I spent a few minutes just listening to the trees slowly swaying in the afternoon breezes. Turning my face to the warm fall sunshine in a deep blue sky above, I marveled at how fortunate I am to enjoy such blissful moments. There is so much chaos and noise in the world today, I can’t help but wonder how different things might be if we all had the opportunity to SLOW DOWN and BREATHE more often.

I am a huge proponent of forest bathing, although I generalize it to “nature bathing”. In our mechanized world of artificial everything, we tend to forget that our species is nature, not just a part of it or even above it somehow. We are 100% natural creatures and we need to directly experience the natural world around us in order to feel whole. The more we deny it, the more we will deviate from our roots, and the less satisfied and content we will feel. IMHO.

I took my time walking back along Howard Douglas Lake before ascending once again over the Quartz shoulder and down through the open meadows to the ski resort. It’s hard to believe that in a few weeks this landscape will be snow covered and full of happy skiers again.

After reuniting with my 2-wheel steed at the upper village it was time for the terrifying ride down. It was OK for the most part, but my breaks were red hot by the time I finally wheeled into the parking lot.

I was glad to have the bike but I’m still not 100% convinced that I’ll use it next time I go up here. In case you missed the tone of this report, I HIGHLY recommend this outing during larch season as both a fairly easy summit and a wonderful “larch march” with very few humans to bother you along the way. Sure! It’s a bit of work to attain, but it’s worth every bit of effort. Energetic folks can even combine it with other peaks or check out the lovely lakes nearby.