Colonel Foster Traverse

When we were tossing out trip ideas for the weekend, I threw out the idea of Colonel Foster, and Dan seemed to gravitate to the idea of doing the summit traverse over the 5 main peaks of the mountain. The trips had always lingered in the back of my mind, but I have always been a bit intimidated about the committement involved, and the fact that it sounded harder than I could climb.

Dan was the perfect partner for the trip: he is a solid climber, and has a lot of rock experience, plus he was keen! My forte definitely isn't technical climbing, but I hoped that I could pull my weight in the "general mountaineering" aspects of the route. I think our strengths complemented each other pretty well.

Despite my attempts to provide full disclosure that I thought the route may be pretty full-on, Dan was undeterred, so we decided to give the route a go. The plan was to pack as light as possible and attempt the traverse from the south.

Day 1: We left Victoria early and drove up to the Elk River Trail. After a few hours of hiking, we made it to Landslide Lake, then picked up the trail up to Foster Lake. Near the lake we lost the trail and ended up doing some bushwacking to gain the moraine above the lake.

Above the lake we picked up the snow slope that leads up to the south col. As we entered near a pinch in the snow gully we could see that the snow had melted out in a few spot, which made the route through on the snow impassable. We hit the rocks, and scrambled our way up a wet section of slightly nasty terrain, until we hit a dead-end. The only viable option looked like going direct up a slimy waterfall on steep rock. Then Dan noticed a piton in the rock wall to our right, and it looked potentially climbable above it, so we decided to give that a go. Dan put the rock shoes on and climbed it without the pack, then I followed up behind with the packs. It felt pretty hard to me (~5.8) but Dan figured it was pretty casual (if this was "easy" I was begining to worry about how hard the route was going to be as there is supposed to be some 5.8 in it, jut not on the approach!)

Preparing to climb a steep section to gain the snow up to the south col, with Landslide Lake below.

After fooling around with the technical section we were able to get back onto the snow, and plod our way up nearly two thousand feet to the south col. We arrived at the col a little before 8pm, and set up our bivi and had dinner. The plan was to get up early the next day, and then traverse over the 5 main peaks, and descend to the north col and camp there.

We got up early the next day and were off early. Almost right away we were into the climbing, with a fairly straight forward snow gulley than worked its way up the South-East Peak. From the top of the snow, it was fun scrambling up to the peak, with some great views out to Rambler Peak and into Central and Southern Strathcona Park.

Climbing up the South-East Peak, with Rambler Peak in behind

Nearing the summit of the South-East Peak


Main Summit from the South-East Peak. It took around 10 hours to get there from the South-East Peak.

From the top of the South-East Peak the terrain gets technical, and we worked our way down steep terrain and roped through a narrow section of ridgeline. Some more roped climbing brought us up to the top of the South-West Peak.

We then dropped off the South-West Peak with some steep climbing down the ridge, then a few rappels down to the upper snowfield.

Negotiating terrain between the South-East and South-West Peaks

Terrain around the South-West Peak

From the snowfield, we booted our way over to terrain below the Main Summit. Some scambling brought us to the crux of the route. Dan graciously took the lead (5.8) up a steep finger crack and up into some steeper face climbing. I managed to grovel my way up in my boots, and was pretty happy I didn't have to do that lead!

Regaining the ridge below the Main Summit


Traversing the ridge towards the Main Summit


After some more technical climbing, we managed to get ourselves onto the Main Summit, a little after 6pm.

There was still a lot of terrain to cover to get to the north col (2 more peaks plus a lot of up and down) and I wasn't feeling particularly optimistic that we were going to make it all the way that day. In theory, we were now on the "standard" route up Colonel Foster, so reckoned that the route may get easier. That was probaby wishful thinking.

Demonstrating the "Under" summit technique. I think it still needs some work.

From the Main Summit we had a few rappels to get down to the notch between the Main and North-East Summit. We were anticipating fairly easy terrain, but it ended up being more technical ground. We pulled onto the summit of of the North-East Peak around 8:45pm, 14 hours after we had started. Not wanting to get caught in technical terrain between the peaks, we decided to call it a day, and set up a bivi on the NE Peak, and cooked up some dinner.

Rappelling off the Main Summit

Gaining the North-East Peak

Brockenspectre

Last stretch up to NE Peak

Victoria Peak in the distance

Elkhorn Mountain

Bivi on NE Peak

On Day 3 we still had to get off the NE Peak, then up the North-West Peak, and then down. Again we (foolishly) thought that since we were on the "standard" route that it would be straightforward. Wrong. The mountain has got some pretty crazy relief, and lots of big terrain. It was definitely intimidating.

We dropped off the NE Peak, and had worked our way through convoluted terrain with several rappels. From the notch below, we then worked our way up loose terrain to gain the North-West Peak.

Dropping off the NE Peak with the NW Peak on the left, and North Tower on the right
Route up North-West Peak

From the top of the North-West Peak,we had to work our way down to the notch between the peak and the North Tower. We started on established rappel anchors, but then lost those, and started following our own rappel line. The last rappel was just a few feet short of reaching the notch, and I ended up having to fashion an anchor and lower myself on my prussick for the last few feet.

Once again we (foolishly) thought we were home-free as we just needed to get down a snow gully (Evacuation Gully) to get to the north col. All was going well until we realized that the snow was not continuous in the gully, and there was a massive moat/bergshrund which blocked the way down the gully. To get around these was fairly tricky, and it took an hour or so of fooling around on the rocks to negotiate a couple of burly rappels to get back down to the gully below the moats.

Heading down Evacuation Gully

Looking up Evacuation Gully with bergshrunds

From the bottom of the gully we were able to boot ski down and then hike around to the shoulder of the North Tower. From there it was easy terrain down to the north col, and finally we were off the "technical" part of the route. It took about 10 hours or so to get to the North Col from the North-East Peak.

After a little bit of faffing around and bushwacking, we made our way back down to Foster Lake. Dan did the heroics and hiked back up the hill to grab our hiking poles that we stashed on the way in. After losing the trail back to Landslide Lake we finally got back on track and still had another 10 km to the car. The last half of the trail we used headlamps, and arrived at the car a little after 11pm. Knackered, we took 1 hour spells for the drive back to Victoria, and pulled into town at 4am.

Overall, an outstanding trip. A little more committing than either of us were expecting, and the route really made you work for everything. No freebies on this one. Great adventure.

Rambler Peak


Kings Peak (Left) and Elkhorn (Right)