[MCR] Rockies, Mt Cromwell, North Face, Robinson/Arbic

Subject: [MCR] Rockies, Mt Cromwell, North Face, Robinson/Arbic
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2010 09:08:00 -0600
My fellow Mountain Guides, Steve Holeczi and Marc Piche', and I made a recreational (non-professional ... we weren't getting paid) ascent of the Robinson/Arbic route on the North Face of Mt Cromwell on Tuesday, October 19th.

4am saw us fording the half dozen braids of the Sunwapta River, none of which were deeper than top of the calf, but none of which were warm either!

Dawn caught us up on the glacier just below the Elzinga/Miller route having checked our location just once, with the GPS and map in the wee dark hours. Strangely a solo headlamp came up behind us to within a hundred meters while Steve and I bounced yodels off of the soaring mountain walls, but no reply, and then the headlamp went away. Anybody know the story? We'd love to hear it.

Able to see where we were, and where we were suppose to be, we traversed to the left to the initial "hidden gully" (Selectied Alpine Climbs by Dougherty). Fabulous climbing in that gully, one swing thunks into perfect plaster.

We climbed a left hand variation to the route above the hidden gully through the first rock band as the R/A looked serious in it's thinness. A big traverse back right took us back to the R/A for the second rock band. Lots of spindrift here as the day was partially overcast with light snowfall at times. Most of the harder climbing ends at the top of this rockband as the face leans back above (same level as the glacier starts on the Elzinga/Miller). And the climbing wasn't really that hard, never feeling harder than 5.6 mixed or WI 3 - but it isn't deep blue ice, it is mostly snow-ice (s'nice) that very occasionally takes stubby or short screws and is mostly protected by rock gear. Crampon front points seem to be the most important asset on the route.

The upper half of the wall is mostly steeper snow climbing with another big traverse right to turn the last rockband. Overall less ice, snice, or consolidated snow high on the face. Given the amount of snow climbing, any significant avalanche threat from unstable snow would strike this route off of the list.

We finished the route straight forwardly on the left hand edge of the cornices on the summit ridgeline. We topped out at 6:00 pm and headed straight down the descent gully into the Stutfield/Kitchener drainage. Convenient that you top out right on top of that gully. There are windslabs in the descent gully so we stuck to the sides and out of the big stuff and, even given that, we did kick off a small . 5 sized fresh pocket wind slab that sat at the feet of a small rock wall. We made two half rope rappels (15 meters each) in the lower gulley and walked onto the glacier at dusk.

9 pm we stopped and brewed up in the morraines. 11 pm we made it into the timber and bed down without sleeping bags to shiver til dawn.

Dawn saw us descending a faint trail down skier's left edge of the main drainage, then out the lower valley to the highway.

Note that the Elzinga/Miller had seen a one day ascent on Sunday and that we occasionally saw the previous party's footprints. They reported great conditions on that route.

Barry Blanchard, Mountain Guide
Steve Holeczi, Mountain Guide
Marc Piche', Mountain Guide

Attachment: Cromwell.ppt
Description: MS-Powerpoint presentation



Powerpoint Photo: Joshua Lavigne

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