Hiking and snowshoeing with Mark. After spending the night at the William Watson Lodge, we headed to the Mount Shark trailhead, early Sunday morning. The sky was cloudy, but the odd clearing gave us hope that we might make the summit. Unfortunately, that quickly changed, as we made our way to Lake Watridge and then up to Karst Spring. Light rain became snow and suddenly low-lying clouds enveloped the mountains around us. The grunt from Karst Spring to the ridge was long and grueling, due to the heavy snow and steepness of the grade. Finally, the first false summit came into view, however, it was covered in deep snow and looked too dangerous. We gave it a try, but given the icy conditions and the fact that the view from the top would have been terrible (because of the weather), we decided to retreat and save it for the summer. A disappointing day, however, Saturday's ascent of Opal Ridge made for an overall great weekend.
No pictures from this trip
Mount Shark attempt II
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February 21, 2004
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Mountain height: 2,786 m (9,140 feet)
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Elevation gain: 1000 m (we made it about 1/2 of the way up)
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Ascent time: Long!!
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Descent time: Not as long!!
Snowshoeing, scrambling, and mountaineering with Mark.
A perfect weather day and with our newly acquired mountaineering and climbing experience, a second winter attempt at Mount Shark seemed like a good idea....and it was....at least for a brief while!
Getting to Watridge Lake and then to Karst Spring was easy on the hard packed ski-trail. Getting from Karst Spring to the treeline on Mount Shark was physically devastating through deep, soft snow on steepish slopes. Snowshoes helped, but we were still sinking almost to the ground throughout the ascent. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally made it above the treeline, where we were able to ditch our snowshoes and rope up for the real scrambling. The real scrambling turned out to be REAL mountaineering! Obviously there was still a ton of snow on the mountain, making most of the steep ascent quite treacherous. We tried to stay on bare rock as much as possible, but were forced to go up snow-covered slopes some of the time. We did make it further up the mountain than on our previous attempt last March and the outstanding weather and scenery made the ascent worthwhile even though we had to call it quits, when we came to a short rockband that we couldn't ascend or traverse around.
On descent, we rappelled down one steep section, and then again down a snow slope. Did I mention the great weather and scenery throughout??? A great day, but I think that after 2 failed winter attempts on this mountain, we'll wait for summer to try this one again.
Mount Shark, as seen from the Watridge ski-trail
Almost above the treeline; the ascent slope can be seen in the background
Just before we traded our snowshoes for a climbing rope; Spray Lake is behind and the 2 mountain in the middle are Mount Nestor (right) and Old Goat Mountain (left)
Ascending steep slopes; we had to turn around just beyond this point
Rappelling down a steep section
On descent, with the ascent ridge behind