Mount King George, North Ridge: A forgotten classic
Tom Harding and I climbed Mt King George in the Royal Group on Aug 3.
This is an amazing place, a reasonable day from Banff gets you into an
area with a remote wilderness feel, incredibly scenic alpine meadows
and a camp below the North Ridge of King George, which is a classic
Rockies alpine route.
Conditions:
Aug 1: Walked in with hot weather but with signs of an approaching
front.
Aug 2: 2 am wake up saw rain and gusty winds. 6.30 wake up saw clearing
skies, 9 degrees, winds diminishing. A walk up the King George Glacier
to King George/Prince George col that day saw good firm snow all day to
3000m. Soft enough that crampons were not needed but remaining stable
well into the afternoon.
Aug 3: 1 am wake up saw clear skies, calm, 5 degrees. Good radiation
freeze made for rock hard snow conditions all day on shaded slopes.
Sunny slopes softened slightly as soon as the sun hit them, but I don't
know how punchy they got because we were off any high elevation sun
affected snow by 9 am.
Aug 4: 6 am saw high cirrus, calm, 5 degrees.
No avalanches, minimal rockfall and no icefalls noted the entire trip
(even with very active looking seracs visible from camp)
The mountain:
To keep the feel of remoteness and adventure for this place I'll skip
the approach info. Suffice to say that the information is already out
there with a bit of research (Corbett's 11'ers book isn't the best
place to get your info!) and it's easier than you might think to get
there if you can think like an elk. I will say this - let's not camp in
the meadows up there. There are outstanding campsites on flat gravel a
5 minute walk from the glacier, on the Prince George side. This is a
better place to camp for climbers, it avoids the slog through moraine
boulders at 2 AM. Let's keep those meadows lush and undisturbed for the
elk herd that lives there.
Corbett's book describes the SE Ridge and SW Face. Both are piles, from
what we could see. The approach gully to get to the SE Ridge was not
snow filled but a full waterfall, of Cascade Falls proportions. Didn't
seem to be an option. If you want to climb the SE Ridge or SW Face I
would suggest camping in the valley to the west of Princess Mary and
approaching that way. But why bother when you have the N Ridge staring
you in the face, by far the best looking line on the peak and Aemmer's
and Fynn's route on the first ascent.
The N Ridge starts with a straightforward approach over glacier
polished slabs beneath Prince George and then a climb up the King
George Glacier, contouring beneath Prince Albert. A short bit of 30
degree snow gets you to the King George/Prince Albert col at 3000m.
This is where it gets spicy. A sharp sawtooth ridge of rock leads
almost horizontally from the col for several hundred meters to a notch.
From the notch the rock ridge steepens for a hundred meters or so. On
the spine of the ridge the rock is quite firm, but this necessitates a
fair bit of up and down. On the horizontal section we linked ledge
systems below the crest on the SE side of the ridge to make time, but
the rock is very loose on these ledges. On the steeper section we again
stayed off the crest to the left, climbing ramps and gullies, to make a
more direct line to the snow ridge above. From the top of the rock
ridge the route is wonderfully aesthetic, climbing up a snow and ice
arete, bypassing a rock step part way up on the left and climbing
another step near the summit easily on the right. This part of the
route is like a steep S Ridge of Victoria.
Descent was made by the SW face. 30 - 40 degree snow leads you down the
summit block via a gully and then snow at a similar angle takes you
down the climbers right (south) side of a hanging glacier. 1400 m
later, and after your ankles are good and torqued from frenching, a
rubbly rock ledge leads almost straight climbers right (south) to a
scree slope that ends at King George/Princess Mary col. From the col we
walked down the valley west of Princess Mary on rough moraine and snow
to a fairy-tale meadow clinging on the lip of a hanging valley. After a
good foot soak in the stream we went down another couple of hundred
meters to bypass cliff bands, then unfortunately had to walk 200 m back
up to camp. Still, from the summit to camp only took 5 hours, complete
with foot washing.
Round trip 11.5 hours.
Of note - What I believe to be the Congdon/McNab couloir on the East
Face looks like it could be quite good in the right conditions. There
was snow and ice all the way up it still, albeit with a huge schrund at
the bottom and an avalanche runnel running the entire length of it. The
top will melt out later in the season. It's looking ugly at the moment
but in spring (watch out for cornices then) or after freeze up in the
fall it looks like it has potential to be a decent route.
Mark
Mark Klassen
Mountain Guide
mark@xxxxxxxxxxxx
www.alpinism.com
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