July 5th, 2021. Golden, British Columbia
Round Trip: 5 hours, Elevation Gain: 800m
Easy Scramble / Intense Bush Whack
The Clamshell at just under 2600m is the local’s name for the shell-like ridged peak just north of the Kicking Horse Ski area. Scott was our main resource for route beta on this one, essentially we drove some +12km up the Dogtooth FSR past an open mine and literally parked where an off-shoot “road” cut beneath the main avalanche path. From the jeep we followed flagging tape along the faint remains of what may have once been trail… in other words we thrashed through thick green growth up the slope until breaking into waist deep bush. As the ascent continued the bush shrank in height but also blanketed the majority of the slope. We went up at a brisk pace as to escape the hordes of buzzing annoyances…
This trip was insanely buggy! Some of the worst mosquitoes any of us had encountered in all the summer seasons of playing outdoors. Worse than Algonquin Provincial Park and worse than the basin between Mounts Andromache and Little Hector. We wore full shells and in my case a bug net, despite the warm start to the day. As such, we took very few photos on the ascent journey…
Eventually the shrubs and bush shrunk down to ankle height before disappearing into solid shale. The gully fans into several upper gullies (hence the name Clamshell as seen from in town), we opted to scramble the one furthest to the climber’s right (southeast) in order to gain the summit ridge’s shoulder. This was little more than a steep hike with minor easy scrambling, the ridgeline itself again more of a hike over lingering patches of the winter snowpack. We over estimated how long this trip would take – partly we kept a good pace to avoid the skeeters! So, given the rapid 2.5 hour ascent and ravenous hordes of buzzing vampires, we happily cracked our summit beers at 8:38am. The return journey sucked ass, footing was poor downhill through all the slick greenery and the mosquitoes chased us right back into the jeep. Still made for an unforgettable trip and another peak off the list!
Steep Sheep 