You only get a minute, better live it while your in it
‘Cause it’s gone in a blink.
The elevation gain from Bogong Creek to Big Creamy Flats is only 500 metres, while topping out on Mount Namadgi adds just 300 metres more elevation, but walking up Middle Creek felt so painfully, paralysingly, desperately slow. Sure, there was the bushwacking, which was very thick at times, and the deep boggy grass, and we were carrying overnight packs, but are those factors enough to explain just how slow I felt walking up the drainange, like moving through rapidly setting cement or treacle in a freezer?
For some reason, as we traveled up and down Middle Creek I was thinking about a trip I did in 2009 which I led for the Kootenay Mountaineering Club (KMC). Five of us climbed Kane Peak, deep in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park. The total elevation gain for the trip was somewhere between 2200 metres and 2400 metres and I carried the communal glacier rope (which we did not employ) the entire weekend. On the way to the Keyhole, a high mountain col which gives access to Kokanee Glacier, Coffee Pass and Kane Peak, one of the party got heat exhaustion so while he went on ahead to rest and rehydrate at the Keyhole I carried his pack the final 150 metres (elevation gain) up to the col then bounded back down again to carry my pack up. When we got to camp near Coffee Pass, I left the rest of the group resting at camp and took off to scope the route for the next day. I remember feeling positively super human because I was no longer carrying a mountaineering pack with helmet, rope, crampons, ice axe, etc. etc., and my energy seemed undiminished by the days activities. How is it possible that I am the same person?
Before We Go is a compilation of Dan John’s earlier essays published in one volume. I’m reading it now and it is probably one of my favorite Dan John books. A summation of the book would include the words reasonableness and standards. Both concepts which society has abandoned in favor of the latest fitness craze (pole dancing anyone?) and narcissistic individualism. Dan John, however is still putting up big numbers in the gym as he enters his sixth decade and rightly recognises that a healthy lifespan is predicated on muscle mass and strength. Only good things come from being able to pull weight off the floor and press it overhead.
I am not the person I was 15 years ago. The one who moved effortlessly like a sure footed goat across the mountains, but if I did not pursue reasonableness and standards I know I would be significantly worse off.
From the KMC Newsletter:
Kane Peak is an attractive rocky peak that anchors the south end of Sawtooth Ridge and commands your attention from various view points in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park. It's also a peak I've wanted to climb for a long time. Access is some what longer and more difficult now that Keen Creek Forest Service Road is closed, but you can still get to Kane Peak via either a bushwhack from the Woodbury drainage or by descending Kokanee Glacier from the Keyhole.
Despite my misgivings about having to hump an overnight pack up to the Keyhole in summer when all the choss and rubble is exposed, it seemed a preferable route to bushwhacking in via Woodbury, after all, there would be no actual bushwhacking. Actually, I'd never been to the Keyhole before, except in winter skiing over from the Kaslo Hilton, which really doesn't count because it is so easy.
With all the plans in place, five of us met at Gibson Lake parking lot at 8 am on Saturday, August 29. We were equipped with standard glacier travel and overnight gear. It's a long haul up to the Keyhole, over 1100 metres, so our idea was to go at a steady, but not break-neck pace. The first part on the trail was quite reasonable, but after the official "end of trail" sign - so ominous - the trail deteriorated into a scratched out path disappearing here and there into the boulders. The final climb to the Keyhole is very loose, and despite the presence of a couple of boot-beaten paths, one on each side of the final ascent gully, avoiding the paths and just stepping up boulders and talus provides firmer footing. We had a couple of short water breaks on the way to the Keyhole, but once at the Keyhole we had a deliciously decadent break with a cup of tea brewed over Ken's compact stove.
From the Keyhole, we could look down Kokanee Glacier to Coffee Pass and I was astonished to see that not only was the glacier almost completely bare of snow, but heavily crevassed as well. Of course, glaciers in the Selkirks are rapidly shrinking and Kokanee Glacier is clearly no exception. We put crampons and harnesses on, but had no need to rope up as we were able to descend all the way to toe of glacier down near Coffee Pass on bare ice. We took an end run around a few crevasses, but overall travel was considerably easier than if the glacier had been snow-covered with suspect bridges that would have required much careful travel.
From the Keyhole, we could look down Kokanee Glacier to Coffee Pass and I was astonished to see that not only was the glacier almost completely bare of snow, but heavily crevassed as well. Of course, glaciers in the Selkirks are rapidly shrinking and Kokanee Glacier is clearly no exception. We put crampons and harnesses on, but had no need to rope up as we were able to descend all the way to toe of glacier down near Coffee Pass on bare ice. We took an end run around a few crevasses, but overall travel was considerably easier than if the glacier had been snow-covered with suspect bridges that would have required much careful travel.
Nearing the toe of the glacier, a herd of mountain goats, on rocky terrain (old moraine) between the toe of the glacier and Coffee Pass scattered at our approach. Bert, who had climbed Kane Peak back in 1970 - yes, that is 39 years ago - recalled a goat nursery in the same location. Undisturbed by humans, this area has clearly been favoured by goats for a long time.
We debated traversing east to Coffee Pass over loose terrain to find a campsite, but, in the end, we thought that there may be no water available there and we found ourselves small, goat-like ledges on the old moraine to camp, with water provided by the copious ongoing glacial melt. Vicki and I shared a tent, and a comfortable tent platform, tucked nicely out of the catabatic winds that streamed down the glacier with Dave, who had his own small tent, while Bert and Ken, the two hardy mountaineers slept in a bivouac bag and under a silt-tarps respectively.
That afternoon, after fortifying myself with another cup of tea, I scrambled east over loose terrain under a couple of rock slabs to gain the old moraine that lies above Coffee Pass. As is typical of old moraines, this one is steep and loose, particularly on the south side, but a short descent down the north side, puts you easily into Coffee Pass. A small tarn, with no visible inlet or outlet lies slightly north and down from Coffee Pass and would provide water for a campsite.
Kane Peak has a long south ridge that curls right around back to the north, and encloses a rocky basin, once glaciated, but now full of rubble and with only small patches of steep bare glacial ice clinging to the highest ridge lines. From Coffee Pass, I climbed slightly, heading northeast. and gained this ridge-line somewhere between 7,500 and 8,000 feet. From here, there are two obvious routes up Kane Peak to the standard southeast face route, one is to drop 60 to 80 vertical metres down into the rubble filled valley and toil up loose slopes until you can gain the col on the south ridge of Kane Peak; the other is to hold your elevation and traverse around the basin using ledges and benches and to reach the upper basin and then continue up to the col. Which you choose, is probably a matter of picking your poison. Next day we took the traverse route which had a couple of sections of loose rock in gullies, but was technically easy and reasonably fast.
Back at camp, we all had dinner and pretty much everyone was in bed by soon after 7.00 pm. Dave and Vicki gave me grief for daring to use my headlamp to read my book until 9.00 pm, when I turned it out, not because I was tired, but because the loud sighs emanating from Vicki's side of the tent were intruding onto my quiet reading time!
Next morning we got up in the dark at 5.00 am and left camp at about 6.15 am, retracing my steps of the previous evening and quickly gaining the ridge. Not everyone was totally happy with my choice of route, but, in the end, we all headed off together and found the route quite reasonable with no more loose rock than is encountered on any average scramble in the Kokanee Range. Once we'd traversed into the basin the easy talus slope leading to the col was visible and with a minimum of fuss we were all at the col.
From the col, the small glacier on the east side of Kane Peak looks quite shrunken and almost totally bare of snow. A couple of large gendarmes lie along the ridge between the col and the peak of Kane, most of us descended a short distance - perhaps 30 metres - and cramponed across bare glacial ice to the base of the southeast slopes of Kane Peak, but Bert, quickly nipped across snow and rock ledges just below the gendarmes and arrived at the base of the main peak before the rest of us.
The final scramble to the summit is easy - class two or three - but care must be taken for loose rock as there are some large blocks lying about poised to tumble down with the slightest touch. There are actually two little summits - one more northerly than the other. We figure the most southerly is the highest (it also appears that way on 1:20,000 BC Basemap), but most of us touched both summits just in case.
After snacks, photos, and signing the summit register (placed by LC in June 2009), we returned the way we had come and were back at camp in time for lunch and a cup of tea. I used the last drops of white gas in my stove making Vicki and I a cup of tea. An event I thought bespoke excellent planning but the old mountaineers asked "What would I do in an emergency?" Luckily, my body fat stores are sufficient to see me through any such condition, at least for a short time.
I certainly wasn't enthused about shouldering my pack and plodding back up the glacier, particularly in the heat of the day, but there is no other way to get home. In the end, cramponing up from Coffee Pass to the Keyhole is infinitely easier than grovelling up the loose choss from Gibson Lake. Bert headed off first and set an excellent route back up to the Keyhole, all on bare ice and with not a single crevasse to be crossed. We had another snack at the Keyhole and changed into shorts and tee-shirts for the baking hot descent on the other side, and then slowly, with some painful knees made our way back to the trailhead.
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