June 21st, 2021. Nicholson, British Columbia.
Round Trip: 6.5 hours. Elevation Gained: 1200m
Easy Scramble / Snow Climb
First peak back in Western Canada! South of the Dogtooth Range, the unofficially named ‘The Nipple’ stands at approximately 2485m above sea level. The Beta and Access details are as follows from Golden Scrambles and Golden Hikes – additionally our friends Ben and Scott were already well familiar with the access area so we were very much guided through this one. Also starting with this scramble, I debuted the use of my GoPro which I now use for 75% of my photos.
We went for an early approach and started from Scott’s truck at 5:45am. The path was initially snow free and easy enough to follow – we did eventually start hitting snow patches and crossed a very flush stream before navigating to the Upper Falls. Our descent down and around the base of the falls was essentially a massive boot ski mission, followed by step-kicking up our way to the lower slopes of the peak.
The ascent up The Nipple was little more than a steep slog, which made for a nasty ice-crusted descent in the late morning sun. Heading up was easy enough though in hind sight both Bri and I would have benefitted from bringing an ice axe and stiffer boots! The final ridge walk to the summit was by far the easiest part of the day, and our efforts were rewarded with a stunning panorama of the neighbouring peaks. Looing back on the footage I took of the summit, we reached the top right around 9am that morning, and including our break at the top took a little over 3 hours to return to the truck. Will have to revisit the area and scramble up some of the other peaks nearby… and remember to bring a spare tire as those forestry roads off of Twelve Mile Creek are rough.
Steep Sheep 