One of those days where you wish you had stayed in bed.

We thought that conditions for the ascent were perfect - not too much snow, but enough for step-kicking the ascent and glissading the descent. The first part of the trip was easy, although we had some problems while getting past the frozen waterfalls. I went too high up on the rockband and we ended up wasting half an hour getting me over a short, but steep gully. The scenery throughout was very nice.  

Back on track, we started up the main ascent gully. The grade quickly increased and we encountered more problems. There was lots of snow, but it had hardened almost to ice and as we gained altitude, step-kicking became impossible. Without our mountaineering boots and crampons, we resorted to using our snowshoes, which gave us decent traction on the dangerously steep and slippery slope. Unfortunately, our ascent was quite slow and on this shortest day of the year, our turn-around time of 1:30 pm was rapidly approaching.  We were almost to the top of the gully when we fell prey to my carelessness. I didn't tighten the strap on one of my snowshoes well enough and all of a sudden it came off my foot and went careening down the mountain. There was nothing we could do but watch it go down. It came to a stop about 500 metres below us. I knew right away that this was going to add significant challenge to our descent.

Since we were almost to the safety of the rocks above the gully, we continued up until we had to stop because of the lateness of the day. We could just see the summit and were about 200 vertical meters from it. After a short break we started down. The descent was easy until we were back on the snowy ascent slope. With one snowshoe missing, my descent was an absolute nightmare. It was painfully slow and physically more brutal than anything I've ever done. With each small step I had to thrust my ice axe deep into the hardened snow to belay myself. Had the snow been a little softer, it would have been easy, however, I often had to use all my strength and weight (two things that I have little of!) just to break the surface. In addition, all my weight was on my left foot and leg throughout the descent and they began to ache within 20 minutes. My snowshoeless right foot could get no traction whatsoever and was useless. I might as well have been descending on one leg.

It got so bad that, with the aid of our short rope, Mark actually had to belay me down. This was an even slower process and we were still a long way from the bottom when darkness set in. No problem! I have my trusty headlamp! Well......maybe not! Apparently, it had accidentally been switched on during the trip and the battery was dead. We spent the last two hours of the descent in complete darkness with only a single glo-stick to light the way. I thought that descending the rockband by the frozen waterfalls in darkness was going to be next to impossible, but I think sheer adrenaline propelled us down it in no time. We stumbled back to the car at 7:10 pm, completely exhausted, both physically and mentally. I think we'll wait for summer before we try this one again!

    
Heading up the snow covered creek bed towards the ascent gully 

    
Just below the frozen waterfall; the ascent route goes up the rockband at the top right

    
Typical scenery on the way up  

    
Ascending steep snow slopes enroute to the ridge; the grade is far steeper than the picture portrays; (notice, I only have one snowshoe at this point - the other decided to go down "solo" and was lying on the slope, several hundred metres below) 

    
Just saying "Hi" to some relatives in England (interesting fact: the highest mountain in England is Scafell Pike in the Lake District - it's summit sits at a staggering 978 metres above sea level (3,206 feet)!; Calgary is 1,048 metres (3,440 feet); this photo was taken approximately 2,758 m above sea level (9,046 feet). Mountains visible in the photo are Fisher peak at the far left, The Wedge to my left, and Opal Ridge to my right. A long stretch of Highway 40 is also visible.