Bluerock Mountain

Bluerock Mountain
Sheep River Area, Kananaskis
October 25, 2003

Bluerock Mountain makes for a long day but it's a delightful ridge walk with some scrambling. Following Gillean Daffern's description in the Kananaskis Country Trail Guide, we hiked to Kiska Mnoga Iyarhe. Following her warning in the book ("Forget about climbing Bluerock Mountain from this end; it rebuffs all scramblers' attempts."), we didn't attempt the cliffs but dropped down the left side until we could get around them. This involved a loss of elevation and added distance. Later I learned from her that it's possible to stay on the ridge and ascend a chimney. Undoubtedly this direct route would save an hour or two of time.

In any event, once we were back on the ridge we had no trouble in reaching the summit. We tried to save time coming back by contouring below the cliffs instead of climbing back to the ridge below them. Even so, we barely made it back on the trail in time to put on our headlamps as night fell. The days are awfully short at the end of October.

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The south end of Bluerock Mountain. Note the cliff band on the left side. We
circumvented it by going around the left end. The summit lies in the background.
Photo taken after climbing up to a clearing above the trail.

The resting bench: the hiking trail ends here. We scrambled up the slope on the right.
On the return, we bypassed this climb and went around the west side (left in the
photo). I took this shot on the return shortly before sunset.

Starting up

We scrambled up this gully

On top of the shale basin: this is the scene that greets you after reaching the high
point above the bench. The cliff extends to the left and down, ending 200 m below our
vantage point. That's where we headed from here. However, I later learned that you
can stay on the ridge. A break in the cliff band allows you to continue up the ridge
without the detour and elevation loss that we encountered.

Bottom of the shale basin: This is the view from the west end of the cliff band, taken
on the return after dropping down to an goat track. The rocky prominence on the left
appears in the next photo and is the part of a cliff band.

Around the end of the cliff band: we traversed left amid steep scree and slabs staying
below short cliff bands. The horizontal curve of the slope limited views ahead to only
about 100 m making routefinding tricky.

After traversing for a time, the way up becomes clear. A small scree gully is the only
break in the cliff band. However, we still had to pick our way through more steep
scree and slabs. We mostly traversed until we reached the bottom of the scree
leading to the break.

Top of horseshoe basin: After reaching the break and climbing up, we reached a
horseshoe-shaped basin lined with a cliff band. We followed the ridge up to the high point.

Finally back on the ridge

From the point overlooking the horseshoe basin, we followed the ridge, mostly it a hike
until we reached this point. Note the crescent-shaped cave on the left. The summit is
still far away and appears in the centre, well in the background with a line of snow
below it's ridge. The peak is on the right, in the back.