The Mountaineering Council of Scotland

Issue 18 June 2003

FEATURES Gilbert or Bust By Simon Richardson An account of the 2002 Scottish Mount Gilbert Expedition and first ascent of the West Pillar of Mount Gilbert in the Canadian Coast Mountains The view from the summit of Mount Tiedemann across the Canadian Coast Range was breathtaking. Mile upon mile of snowy peaks stretched to the horizon. Across the deep trench of the Tiedemann Glacier were the summits of Merlon and Grenelle with their proud north spurs dropping into chaotic icefalls. Behind was the Klattasine cirque with its inviting spires and walls. Further south Bute Mountain stood proud and aloof looking like a million dollars, but most intriguing of all on the far horizon, across the Homathko Icefield lay three prominent peaks. The left two were snowy, but the right was rockier with a prominent summit. When I got home I hunted down the Canadian topographical maps and convinced myself the rocky summit was Mount Gilbert, some 90km away. Although Gilbert is the closest 10,000ft peak north of Vancouver, it is one of the most difficult mountains in the Coast Range to reach. It was first climbed by a party led by Paddy Sherman in 1954 and was the first Canadian peak to be climbed using helicopter support. Sherman's route up the east face is occasionally ascended by ski touring parties, but it was Vancouver climber Bruce Fairley who was responsible for developing technical climbing on the mountain. He devoted three summers during the 1980s trying to climb the long South-West Ridge, before finally succeeding in July 1989 with Bill Durtler and Ken Legg. They called their route “The Friendly Giant”. I contacted Bruce who suggested that if I was looking for lots of high angle rock climbing then Gilbert may not be the place to go. “It's more of a peak bagging area,” he wrote, “although there are still a few new routes left to do. There is probably something pretty hard one could do on the south face of Gilbert,” he added, “but the line would be more difficult than aesthetic.” I hunted through all the books and journals I could find about the Coast Range but only came across two photos of Gilbert. The most inspiring was a shot that appeared in the Canadian Alpine Journal showing Ken and Bruce climbing around a gendarme on The Friendly Giant. The climbing looked superb and you could tell from the grain of the rock that it was superb granite. The second photo was a tiny picture of Gilbert's south face. It was difficult to pick out a definite line, but from the map it looked a good 3000ft-high feature. The map also hinted at a steep area of rock on the west face. Chris Cartwright shares my love for looking round new corners and finding new ways, so for summer 2002 we agreed to take a look at Mount Gilbert. It was a high-risk plan, to travel a third of the way around the world to climb a mountain based on a postage stamp-sized photo and a few contours on a map, but the sense of unknown fascinated us. It was Gilbert or bust. It was raining when we arrived at Mike King's small heliport on his family's White Saddle ranch early last August, after a five hundred mile drive from Vancouver. Mike was confident the weather would clear as we flew south, so within minutes of arriving we'd bundled everything into his Jet Ranger and our Coast Range adventure began. It was a long flight past Mount Queen Bess and then over the Homathko Icefield, but eventually we popped over a ridge near Mount Grenville and Gilbert suddenly came into view. Whenever helicopters are concerned, time is money. Mike swooped down into the glacial bowl below the west face and after two minutes of intense activity, our gear was sprawled all over the snow and he was away, leaving us to an abrupt silence. As far as we knew, we were the first climbers to visit Gilbert for over thirteen years and there were no other people within a fifty-kilometre radius. The West Pillar of Gilbert towered above us, shining gold in the afternoon sun. It was a compelling feature - the gamble was starting to pay off. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas and that night it snowed. As we watched the snow level relentlessly rise up the avalanche probe outside our tent we counted first one, then two feet of snow. The Canadian Coast Mountains have a reputation for some of the worst weather in the world, so perhaps my luck had finally run out? Two previous trips to the Waddington range further north had given scattered storms but never continuous days of bad weather. We stayed in the tent for two days, watching the world around us turn to a uniform white. One afternoon we waded up to a col overlooking the Filer Glacier and peered at the south face of Gilbert through occasional breaks in the cloud. Bruce was right, the face was more broken than the photo implied and there was no logical line. On the third morning the snow stopped. We grabbed our gear and frantically set off for the North-West shelf route on Gilbert - a route that Bruce had pioneered with John Baldwin, Rob Driscoll and Jean Heinemann way back in 1983. It was a classic alpine climb, with glacier work, a berschrund and a snow arête leading to the easy summit slopes. We stood on the top drinking in the view as the cloud boiled up around us, and then beat a hasty retreat. It was too cold for the West Pillar, so next day we traversed Peak '8900ft' to the west of Gilbert. It was hands-in-pockets scrambling at first, but the climbing got steeper as we approached the three-pronged virgin summit and we were treated to an intricate and spectacular corniced ridge that led over multiple summits. Eventually it took us down to the deep notch in the long north-west ridge of Gilbert where we were surprised to find an old carpenter's hammer with a broken claw. It was a good start but the weather closed in for another two days. Gilbert's West Pillar was draped in powder and looked ominously steep. Time was ticking away and we now only had five days left before Mike was due to pick us up. Our one trump card was our little transistor radio that we tuned into The Eagle, the local Campbell River station on Vancouver Island. The weather was equally poor there, but the forecast was set to improve by the end of the week. If it did, we'd just have enough time to have a crack at the pillar. Fortunately The Eagle was right. On Saturday we woke to a perfect day and as the sun burned off the snow from Gilbert's west face we sorted our gear. To maximise the chance of success we decided to take a large rack and three days food. We spent the afternoon, packing and re-packing until eventually all our bivouac kit, food, boots and ice gear could be crammed into two tiny 30 litre rucksacks. We went to bed as Gilbert glowed red in the evening sun. Gilbert's West Pillar is guarded by a large bergschrund system. Access is further complicated by a hanging serac and ice couloir that regularly spew rock and ice down the approach slopes. The whole approach would be unjustifiable if it were not for the Little Tower, a steep rocky crest that shields a narrow segment of the approach slopes from ice fall. The base of the pillar is undercut by a series of roofs, but these are breached on their right side by The Beak, a prominent prow with a corner running up its left side. The only weakness up the smooth central section of the pillar is the Great Flake, a hanging left-facing flake system that leads through seemingly blank walls to the exit chimneys and summit snow slope. It was the only feasible-looking line, but the link between the Beak and the Great Flake looked blank and tenuous. Worse, I imagined the Great Flake itself to be an inverted staircase of bomb-bay chimneys and huge stepped roofs. I woke up that night in a cold sweat dreaming of fingertip laybacking up the outside edge of an ever-widening chimney far above protection. We were both silent as we front-pointed up hard snow slopes towards the Little Tower early next morning. Given its size, the bergschrund was straightforward and Chris was soon across a jumble of broken ice blocks that bridged the gap between glacier and rock. Numb fingers took us three pitches up the tower then we cut left across the couloir for a couple of long pitches. A delicate section of mixed led up to the glacier-polished slabs at the base of the pillar proper. We changed into our rock boots on a one-foothold stance and then Chris set off into the sunlight that was now glancing across the pillar above. Even after a few moves it was clear the route was going to go. The rock was perfect crystalline white granite, cracked and featured, and as the sun warmed our fingers and toes, confidence surged through our veins. We climbed up past the Beak and then Chris unlocked the crucial link to the hanging flake system with a long and spectacular lead above a huge roof. The pitch started along a perfect diagonal crack, and when this ran out, a series of knobs and little dykes led leftwards to below the Great Flake. Chris was happy in front, and I was content to cruise along second watching the view of icy peaks slowly opening up below my feet. My reverie was broken when I reached the next stance. “Er Simon…. I think you'd better lead the next pitch…. you know how much I hate loose rock.” We were now below the inverted staircase of the Great Flake. It was not as steep as I feared, nor was it a series of bomb-bay chimneys, but a recent rockfall meant the edge of the flake was broken into a series of huge stacked flakes. At one point about ten metres above, you could see through an ugly hole formed by a chaotic jumble of delicately poised rock. “You've got too vivid an imagination, these things are always more secure than they look!” I joked as I took the rack from Chris, smiling weakly. The pitch was a delicate exercise of not pulling, or pressing down, on anything too hard. A series of moves up the flakes, followed by a delicate traverse right and a series of wiggles through some overlaps took me through the danger area onto more solid rock. It was just like winter climbing in Scotland. Nothing could be taken for granted, every move had to be carefully judged and assessed, and always there was the spice of poor protection to provide extra focus. As the flake became more solid, the climbing was more difficult, but we felt unstoppable now. Pitch followed pitch, until the flake ran out below a steep wall. It was now up to Chris to pull out the stops, and he made an unlikely lead up and left on tiny hidden flakes to reach easier ground below the exit chimneys. We were so absorbed that we hadn't noticed the weather deteriorating to the north. Less than 20km away it was storming on Queen Bess. We reached a good ledge and should have stopped for the night, but the temptation to continue and race the weather to the top was too great. The inevitable happened, and we were caught by darkness halfway up the exit chimneys. Fortunately the storm had fizzled out, but we spent an uncomfortable night perched on a couple of chockstones. Next morning a handful more pitches up the chimney took us to the top of the pillar and the end of a beautiful climb. We shook hands and grinned. The Gilbert gamble had paid off. The expedition would like to thank the Mountaineering Council of Scotland for their generous financial support and Mountain Supplies in Aviemore and Peglers in Sussex who provided invaluable equipment advice and assistance.

This issue included the article Walking Wild in Caithness and East Sutherland by Irvine Butterfield   Beds to get rid of the budget blues By Irvine Butterfield Many of the people who go hill-walking, or just set off for a long tramp, do so to get away from it all - getting rid of the blues isn't a phrase you hear much nowadays but todays "getting away from it all" says much the same thing. Though blue be the colour of this pocket guide it certainly shouldn't give you the blues if good comfortable accommodation at a reasonable price is what you seek. I am, of course, here alluding to "The Blue Hostel Guide", the annual publication of the group of individually run hostels who operate under the banner of Independent Backpackers Hostels - Scotland (IBHS for short). . It seems a long time since I was first introduced to an independent hostel for in the 60's and 70's they were few and far between. Nancy's Smith's at Fersit was a favourite though in those days there was no thought of the wave of people yet to take to the hills, and certainly no thought in our minds of the explosion of the outdoors movement and the need for the simpler accommodation and easy going atmosphere which marked out the likes of Nancy's and the other early pioneers of the independent hostel movement. Like the increasing numbers met on the hill the hostels just seemed to appear in increasing numbers, and as word spread the move to use them just grew. To many they were a substitute for club huts or just happened to be convenient for that Munro still to add to the list. Later, the opening of the West Highland Way provided new opportunities and as a consequence further demonstrated a growing need for hostel style over-night accommodation. The West Highland Way was to have as one of its earlier staging posts the first wigwams at Auchteryre Farm between Crianlarich and Tydrum. This was later followed by others who saw the potential to enjoy the independence of running their own small business. The scattered bunkhouses north of the Great Glen further highlighted a means of offering crofters and small-holders a means of diversifying and providing different types of budget accommodation to both stravaiger and Munroist. Thus grew a rough and ready chain of hostels and bunkhouses available to those who wished to follow the popular west coast route northwards from Oban and Fort William, to Mallaig, Skye, Ullapool, and onwards to Assynt and Cape Wrath. A veritable rash of bunkhouses exploded onto the scene in Strath Spey, their clients drawn by the attractions of the Cairngorms, and the promotion of the outdoor pursuits in the area, be it low level woodland and glen walks, or the strings of Munros along the A9. Backpackers too found the attractions of the Spey, with many happy to break their journey on the run south from the northern latitudes around John o' Groats. Winter climbing also draws the hardy mountaineer to the high Cairngorms, Nevis, and the hard ice on the posts of Creag Meagaidh, whose adherents find the locations at Laggan and Tulloch ideally placed for the early start. Tulloch has gained a reputation for its venison casserole, which after a hard day on the hills, or gripped on some ice wall, gives a welcome chance to pass up on the cooking and the washing up. This ambience is in keeping with the independent style of the various hostel operators who, like their hostels have their own special character and specialities. It is said that this variety is that which most appeals to lovers of the outdoors. Drying rooms and the chance of a shower are becoming standard and add greatly to the comfort. In recent years the main tourist centres of Fort William and Inverness have considerably expanded their hostels accommodation and their operators were to provide a focus, which was to be amply demonstrated at the time of Foot and Mouth crisis in 2001. With the town's hostels all but deserted, the devastation wreaked on the fragile local economy became a cause-celebre in Fort William. It was possible to demonstrate beyond all doubt the contribution made by the hostels to the local tourist industry in both summer and winter. The establishments are no longer merely a means to get away from it all, or places for a quiet weekend jaunt but also a serious, and welcome, part of a burgeoning outdoor industry. The past five years has witnessed an increasing number of new openings as demand has accelerated for budget accommodation in those parts of Scotland where walking and mountaineering are the most popular forms of activity. Look for this years guide when you next visit one of the hostels, or for a copy send an A5 S.A.E. to IBHS Secretary, Fraoch Lodge Hostel, Boat of Garten, Inverness-shire PH24 3BN.

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