May 13th 2018. Canmore, AB
Round Trip: 11.5 hours, 1400m gain (approx.)
Moderate to Difficult Scramble
Cougar Peak 2640m is the unofficial name for the peak situated 7.5km up Canmore’s Cougar Creek just north of the Canadian Forks. Bob Spirko’s blog has probably the best description for this increasingly popular scramble – we encountered two other parties in shoulder season! For this one I teamed up with my buddies Ben, Brodie, and Max. It was our first mission of the 2018 scrambling season. Might as well start big!
As this is a moderate-difficult scramble, helmets are strongly recommended. There is lots of loose rock debris once above the initial drainage gully. An ice axe & crampons also recommended if attempting in spring or winter.
I had previously attempted this mountain twice in winter 2016. First time my friend JJ and I attempted the route in February and went up the wrong gully. We eventually found our way to the correct upper gully but lost the daylight and bailed at the crux. I tried it a month later but turned back at the bottom of the upper gully from deteriorating weather and avalanche conditions. Lesson learnt: this one is not ideal in winter.
This counts as a semi-remote peak. It’s nearly 7.5km to the first drainage. A large cairn has been placed at the mouth of the drainage, and the initial route up is well marked. What I’ve found to be the easiest way up this area is to gain the bank on the climber’s left and hike through the trees for as long as possible.
Once above treeline the scramble begins as does some route finding. Initially you want to sway left via the slopes (I’ve left a few cairns here from the 2016 attempts) but eventually you need to cross the scree bowl aiming for a gully far above on the climber’s right. Your land mark is a sharp 90 degree angled block that sits to the left of the correct gully. When standing directly below it becomes very obvious which gully is the scramble-able option.
The scrambling becomes very steep as you approach and enter this upper gully. Its a rubble mix of scree and slabs. Anticipate high-end moderate almost difficult scrambling through these upper parts. A slabby crux section awaits you at the top of the upper gully that turned me back in 2016 from being sheer ice.
Past the crux area the footing improves as the gully opens up to another scree slope. The shoulder above this slope is only a few minutes away. Once you’ve gained the shoulder views of the familiar peaks around Canmore come into view, as does nearby Mt Fable. From here the summit is an easy 10 minute scramble away
If attempting in early shoulder season, be wary of lingering cornices on the east side of the ridge. While the one we encounter did not interfere with the route up to the summit, its easy to imagine how it could in earlier months…
We almost had half our party bail at the shoulder. If it wasn’t for Ben blasting up to the summit in 5 minutes I doubt the other two would have been motivated to finish the scramble. A little reassurance – possibly beer bribery – saw that the whole team of 4 made it to the summit that day. We also made sure to call our mums from the summit as it was Mother’s Day!
Return via the same way. Take extra care entering the upper gully and crux area if in teams as the rock is very loose through here. We met another scrambler who was heading up and actually turned back at the gully due to the rock fall risk; more so out of concern of kicking stuff down on us! Once down through the crux its a relatively easy scramble back down to cougar creek… the 7.5km hike out however requires a second (or third) wind. Luckily it leads right back into town!
Final note – this was our first scramble of 2018. As such we all individually hit a wall at different points in the day. It took us 11.5 hours to return to the car, for fitter parties attempting in summer I imagine that 8-10 hours could be easily achieved.
Steep Sheep 