After a failed attempt last year but successfully climbing Cegnfs, I came back with the knowledge of a good ascent route, namely the descent route from Cegnfs. We hiked past the second waterfall until we crossed a dry creek bed at GR193240. We continued on the trail for 5-10 minutes to where the trail drops down and levels off, and the trees thin. Leaving the trail we bushwhacked SW where we soon reached a wide, rocky creek bed. This is the drainage that Kane suggests one should travel parallel to but it's easier to hike on it than to bushwhack parallel to it.

The creek bed leads to two rocks towering on either side. It's possible to scramble up the slope on the right, but instead we went through this "rock gate." Through the gate and around the bend an unusual scene lay ahead. Snow covered in debris filled a short gully. On the right side was a smooth gray rock wall while the left side was a slope decaying into fine black scree. It was this black scree that littered the snow. At the end of the gully a small waterfall cascaded over orange rock before disappearing into the snow.

We hiked up the left side of the gully to just before the waterfall and scrambled up the slope. We continued up the drainage before hiking out of it onto a scree slope.

Now we were on course with the book route. Having already bagged Cegnfs, Dinah and I weren't interested in doing it again. We wanted to bypass it and go for the col but we all disagreed on a route to get there. I wanted to traverse to the col so as to avoid unnecessary elevation gain. Phil, Dinah, Caroline weren't comfortable with "side sloping" on scree and made their own plans. Dinah and Caroline angled up while Phil headed straight up.

I reached the col in a short time and waited. Eventually Dinah and Caroline caught up to me. Phil was still far behind when I started up Mount Murray. When Phil reached Dinah at the col he asked her about the cairn he discovered: he learned he had inadvertently bagged Cegnfs!

After regrouping on the lower slopes of Mount Murray, we followed a trail around to the back of the summit block to find a wall of rock. A chimney allowed us easy access up the wall. Since leaving the treeline we had encountered only scree and the chimney floor was no exception. Phil remarked that a person might be tempted to scramble up the sheer rock walls to escape the scree!

A short time later we were on the summit. We hadn't arrived too soon. The clouds had been dropping all day and soon after we started our descent it began to rain. We made good time on the return trip. From the col we followed a goat track that hugged the lower slopes of Cegnfs. The track dropped down to the top of cliff bands. Soon after the track ends, we found a break in the cliffs. Dropping through it we continue around the base of Cegnfs to just before the drainage that we scrambled up that morning. Rather than try to downclimb to the drainage we headed down into the forest. We came across an animal trail that led us all the way down to the drainage and retraced our steps to the French Creek Trail.

Mount Murray goes down as one of the most miserable scrambles in the book. Dinah and Caroline remarked that they didn't begin to enjoy the trip until they arrived at the summit.

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