Scrambling with Mark.   

When you think of breath-taking scenery in the Canadian Rockies, you would probably think of Lake Louise, Mount Assiniboine, the Columbia Icefields, Lake O'Hara, the Wapta Icefield, and Mount Robson, to name a few. I'm quite certain that Mount Lawrence Grassi would not make the list, however, breath-taking scenery is exactly what we got on this easy and interesting ascent. Some typically bizarre Rockies weather made this already scenic trip a visual feast that had our cameras working overtime. 

The goal was to make the southern-most tip of Lawrence Grassi, as we had seen it from Three Sister's Pass, two years earlier. It looked like a fairly straightforward ascent, but we took all our climbing gear just in case.

The weather wasn't too bad as we started towards the pass, although Big Sister and the surrounding mountains were blanketed in thick, low-lying clouds. The clouds eventually lifted about an hour in and the pass and the steep walls of Big Sister's northwest face were finally revealed. With a week's worth of fresh snow, the scenery was very nice. Just as we were about to arrive at the pass, a thick wall of cloud enveloped the mountain, and we were all of a sudden in complete whiteout conditions - you couldn't see anything at all. We waited for a few minutes and there was no change, so we made an educated guess as to which direction the summit was and started up.

Ten minutes later, the clouds suddenly lifted, revealing a stunning and ethereal view of The Three Sisters. This pattern of low-lying clouds and clear sky continued throughout most of the ascent, providing phenomenal weather-related scenery (very similar to our Middle/Little Sister Col ascent last year). It was especially interesting to see the thick clouds settle into the valley, blanketing Canmore, and the peaks of Grotto, Lady MacDonald, and The Sisters rising above them.

The ascent to the tip of Lawrence Grassi was relatively easy, although deep snow did add a little challenge higher up. The final 30 m was a little steeper and provided some moderate scrambling. At the summit (it's really only a highpoint, not a summit), a narrow and exposed ridge led to the last of Grassi's five peaks. Without snow, we might have been able to continue on, but the heavy snow, covering the ridge, made it difficult to set up decent anchors and belays and so we decided to play it safe and call it a day.

For the descent, again we erred on the side on caution, and rappelled down the 30 m rockband. The remainder of the descent was easy and uneventful. On the way down we stopped at large outcropping of steep rock to practice some climbing. Unfortunately, the rock was terribly loose and after a silly rappel, where I almost face-planted into the rock, we decided it wasn't worth the risk or effort.

Overall, a very enjoyable and surprisingly scenic day out and after our recent epics on Narao and Lorette, it certainly was nice to have an easy and stress-free day.