Climbed South Ridge of Mount Smuts in K-Country Yesterday(Aug 16). I am quite
surprise that this peak is in the Scrambles book, and that more people have not
fallen off of it!! After the typical Rockies scree slog, you get on to the
ridge, then the next section you climb about 150 meters of exposed low 5th
class climbing, and the upper part is 3rd to 4th class. On the 5th class
climbing, there is bunch of pins, few of them I pulled with my fingers. I had
3 medium size cams, which I used for one of the belays. There is one brand new
bolt and piton on the upper part of the ridge.
On the descent, right where the crux starts, there is a sloping ledge on the
west side. I built a station with three pins and was able to rap to the scree
gully with a 55 meter rope( a clean rap).
An ok route, but I would not recommend it as a typical scramble!!
Cheers,
Marco
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Marco Delesalle
mdelesalle@xxxxxxxxx
403/609-5580
cell-403/609-7940
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