Hope Peak (Middle Sister)
Route Map
Summit Elevation: 2769m
Elevation Gain: 1454m
Round Trip Time: 15hrs 1min
Total Distance: 20.53km
Technical Rating: Easy scramble
Difficulty Notes: Easy scrambling via the Kane route. Those with honed routefinding skills may spot a faint trail winding its way up Stewart Creek, which vastly reduces the time and energy required on approach. If (big if) you can find it.
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Preamble
I must have a thing for suffering - or something along those lines.
When I first got into scrambling, I was in far worse shape than I am now, and was outmatched and outhiked by my brothers and other friends who I dragged along. I, however, was the brains of the operation - I’d studied the route, had the topographic maps, could figure out our approximate location just by looking up at neighbouring peaks, et cetera. That has since changed, and now I usually end up letting others set the pace to avoid leaving them in the dust. Such is life; it’s hard enough to find hiking partners, let alone people who are fit and driven enough to slog their way up a thousand vertical metres of scree and call it ‘fun’.
The problem with taking less fit parties out scrambling, I’ve found, is that you have to double your time taken and then some. Kane’s speed estimate is 300 vertical metres per hour; I ascend above 400m/hr on easy scrambling terrain - and yet I find 150m/hr is a much better estimate for hikers who consider even Banff’s Sulphur Mountain trail to be of moderate difficulty. This was the case when I ventured to
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I had met Eric Boerger the week prior. He was getting on in years, but had done quite a bit of scrambling and mountaineering in his heyday and had the photos and knowledge to back up his claims. By his own account, he felt taunted by the Middle Sister every time he looked up at it; 78 or not, he wanted that summit. I was impressed by his repertoire and resolve, and my thoughts quickly jumped to “Heck, why not?” - after all, there were no great views to be had thanks to persistent smoke in the area, so a frontcountry peak with minimal effort required would be ideal.
Trip Report
We started off bright and early at 754hrs, and made our way down the frequently-travelled road, crossing a few bridges before eventually ending up in the bed of Stewart Creek. This area felt the brunt of the 2013 floods, and a visible, consistent trail has yet to re-form. We frequently found walkable trail for short periods, then ended up dumped back into the creekbed.
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Note: On descent, we realized there is a consistent trail for almost the entire traverse of Stewart Creek, but it is extremely faint in some places, and in others so eroded that creekbed travel is faster. Don’t count on finding or using it!
After a few hours of travel, we found ourselves approaching the beginning of the “scramble” section, with the cliffs of Faith Peak rising at climber’s left as we worked our way past some interesting (and fun!) moderate scrambling. Eric opted for a somewhat-manky packed trail on climber’s right of the scramble section, while I headed into the thick of it and had a blast scaling dry, grippy rock with solid hand and footholds.
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We exited the creekbed at 1200hrs, and made the call to stop for lunch before beginning to ascend the ~180 vertical meter scree slope ahead. Once we started moving again, going was slow and I regularly had to stop to give Eric a hand on some of the looser sections of treadmill scree. To his credit, he pushed on as smoke started rolling in (a fact of life, albeit a miserable one in the Rockies) and I donned a half-mask respirator to keep my asthma at bay. At 1303hrs we crested the slope, took a quick breather, and pressed onwards.
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The path past this point was downright pleasant by comparison to the prior scree slope, and so well-trod that it was arguably an improvement to the approach along Stewart Creek. Going was smooth, and I kept the pacing slow to avoid tiring Eric - who just kept on trucking. He wasn’t particularly fast, but he showed no signs of flagging or quitting and I found myself growing increasingly impressed with his stamina.
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Eight and a half hours into the trip and one more obnoxiously eroded slope later, Eric and I reached the summit at 1623hrs. I have to admit I was more than a bit miffed over the lack of summit views given the smoke, but I’d been indoors for the past few weeks waiting for wildfire season to let up and this was much better than no views at all.
Given that the smoke obscured distant details, I took far fewer photos than usual and didn’t bother taking shots to stitch later. I did end up with a few decent shots overall though, and got a pretty neat one in particular of Sundance Peak - which Devan Peterson pioneered a new route up this year. Said route stays clear of the Spray Valley annual closure, so I’d expect to see more ascents of this summit within the next few years.
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We spent about ten minutes admiring the summit views before starting our descent, knowing full well we would run out of daylight in only a few hours and likely make much of the return journey down Stewart Creek in the dark.
Descent to the creek was largely uneventful, and we made it past any major trail difficulties before the sun fell below the horizon. Dusk, however, was when we made an unfortunate discovery - the hinge on Erik’s headlamp had broken and I had left my duct tape at home. Unperturbed, I retrieved the brand-new, completely overkill Streamlight Stinger DS LED I’d tossed in my pack on a hunch that we’d be out late (who doesn’t want an excuse to use a ludicrously bright flashlight?), and handed Eric my headlamp.
We then proceeded to struggle down the creek for the next few hours. I’d thankfully spent some time testing my headlamp’s battery life in more detail since my trip into the Siffleur Wilderness, and combined with the ludicrously bright and well-focused beam from my flashlight we did reasonably well. Even so, navigating terrain in the dark is never all that fun - or that fast!.
It took a few hours past this point, but we finally made it back to our cars at 2255hrs. I have to admit I was a bit disgruntled at this point - 15 hours out for a minor peak was not a particularly great day in my opinion, and I had hoped to be in bed an hour ago already. But speaking to Eric about it as we drove back to my parking spot, my opinion shifted. Sure, my day hadn’t been incredible between the smoke and nighttime slog, but Eric had finally gotten that summit.
There’s something to be said for helping others achieve their goals in life. I sacrificed a dash of sanity that day, but in retrospect it was worth it.
Given the choice to go back and go somewhere else that day, I’d do it again.