Grotto Mountain (Second Attempt)
Route Map
Summit Elevation: 2706m
Elevation Gain: 883m
Round Trip Time: 4hrs 32min
Total Distance: 9.05km
Technical Rating: Moderate scramble
Difficulty Notes: An uncontrolled slide at the first chimney could severely injure or kill, so take the necessary precautions and gear in shoulder season.
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I first attempted Grotto Mountain in February of 2026, when an odd break from winter left me thinking I might be able to squeeze in a summit. The
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Grotto remained on my mind as a possible early-season objective, as I watched winter continue on its weary way and eventually give way to spring. After taking some time to recuperate from a back injury that had me briefly worried I wouldn’t be scrambling at all this year, I decided on the evening of Friday May 1st that I’d had more than enough of recovery, bought a shiny new pair of Scarpa Rapid XTs to replace last year’s thoroughly shredded approach shoes, and powered up Tunnel Mountain for a scouting trip.
The views from Tunnel weren’t particularly encouraging. Pretty much everything above 2500m was thoroughly snowed-in, with the exception of Princess Margaret Mountain - the crux of which is a difficult scramble per Andrew Nugara, and which I wasn’t convinced would be fully ice-free. I decided I’d go for a drive on the following day and see what I could spot, with a few possible objectives in mind. It wasn’t long before I’d had a look at the upper slopes of Grotto and decided it had a decent chance to “go” - there was certainly snow up on the ridge, but I was fairly convinced I could work around it and get to the summit. Whether I’d get views to the north or whether cornicing would block that was up for debate, sure - but I was fairly certain I could at least reach the cairn this time around.
I lucked out with some numbskull taking up a spot-and-a-half in the otherwise full Cougar Creek parking lot, the remainder of which I deftly slipped into with my wonderfully maneuverable Fiat 500. By 0925hrs I was marching along my merry way towards the slopes of Grotto Mountain.
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The route up Grotto is interesting, in that there is zero signage and plenty of false trails around to fool you and waste your time. I made it up without being misled once in February, thanks in large part to most of the false trails being covered by snow - but in a refrain that would soon become obnoxiously repetitive, I found myself on a rapidly petering-out trail alongside the Cougar Creek flood control system.
I kept ascending with my eyes up, until I spotted the trail and rejoined it. What followed was a guessing game of branch after branch after branch, trying (and mostly succeeding) at discerning which trail went where I wanted to go. I try to follow LNT principles wherever possible, but even so the rat’s nest here had me seriously considering just going for a bushwhack straight up the slope!
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Of course, all good things come to an end, and so did my luck. I found myself travelling east along the slopes of Grotto, and confirmed on a few different mapping applications that no, there was not in fact a documented trail here despite one being very clearly under my feet. At this point I’d spent far too much time ascending to sacrifice that elevation gain, and instead headed up a switchback that I assumed would take me back to the ascent route.
The trail vanished at the top of the switchback instead. What ensued next was enough expletives to make a boatfull of sailors proud, along with bushwhacking upwards and to the west on Grotto’s slopes. I’d find a sheep trail, follow it west until it petered out, then ascend another 10-20 meters and find another one. This pattern repeated itself for about ten minutes before I rejoined the ascent route, thoroughly done with the number of unmarked trails combined with the lack of flagging or signage in such a popular area. I don’t object to following a trail, or to blazing my own, and will do both as required - but I strongly object to being admonished to “stay on the trail” when I can’t even tell which trail I’m meant to staying on, let alone what is or isn’t a trail at all.
Snow made an appearance at 1116hrs and ~2060m, and I found myself starting to regret not bringing microspikes. I’d assumed that the melt had progressed enough on the lower front-range peaks that I wouldn’t need them - to which I’m sure my seniors in the sport will remark “Ha!” and “Ha!” yet again. Lesson learned. I continued upwards without any serious issues, but did have to slow down and take time picking out my footing more carefully.
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I was delighted to note relatively sparse snow coverage as Grotto’s ridge came into view. Yep, this would definitely go. I continued working my way upwards, leaving the cliff edge I’d been following as the route became obstructed with snow, and then working my way up to…
Oh.
Cue me staring like an idiot at the ~5m cliff band Kane describes, with no obvious way to break through it. I reviewed the book and determined that there was apparently passage to climber’s left, near the edge of the cliff I’d been following up. I was not all that happy with how icy the area looked.
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I made a quick detour to climber’s right, trying to scope out an alternate route that didn’t involve getting so close to the icy cliff’s edge, but came up empty-handed and resigned myself to at least taking a look at my problem. And then I made a mistake that could have proven fatal with a wrong move: I stopped paying attention to the surrounding terrain until I was already in the thick of things.
The thick of said things looked pretty bad at first glance. There were few potential dry footholds - all too far apart to be usable on their own - and much of the chimney was solidly iced up. I found myself wishing for my crampon bag; I needed the burly steel spikes for all of five steps and I’d be sailing free. The point, of course, was moot, as my crampon bag was happily enjoying the warmth of my bedroom closet.
I discovered the bigger problem as I looked back, and then glanced at my footing. I was stable, but in an awkward position to retreat - and right behind me was a lovely snow ramp leading to what looked like a good 100m fall, which surely would have killed if I’d gone down it. I had no ice axe to stop a slide with either.
I gingerly reversed the steps I’d taken to get to this point, pausing for a moment to let my heart settle once I was safely away from the drop. This was definitely not going to go with the gear I’d brought for the day, and while I really didn’t want to add yet another attempt to the growing list of “failures”, I saw no other option that didn’t involve seriously risking life and limb just to make a triumphant scrawl in a little notebook higher up.
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A bit dejectedly, I started my descent. To my surprise, I found a solid trail leading downwards - and as it turned out, I had not yet learned my lesson. Of course this had to be the main ascent route that I’d somehow missed. Of course it couldn’t possible go poorly.
Right?
I really must have a thing for suffering. A bird in the hand, two in the bush, all that - the point is, the trail was awful. It had the perfect level of scree on its surface to offer zero traction, without enough to make surfing possible, and I took my sweet time picking my way down it, not noticing that I was slowly trending eastward. When I finally looked at my watch I was thoroughly ticked off. I wasn’t about to regain 200 meters just to rejoin the trail, and I resolved to bushwack yet again to my ascent route.
As luck would have it, as I ‘wacked and swore my way back to said route, I happened upon yet another solid trail going east and west across the mountainside. I followed it and was promptly dumped into some steep, downwards-stepped moderate slab terrain covered in just enough scree to once again eliminate all traction, which I negotiated a decent amount of before eventually making it back to my descent route.
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Upon regaining the route I immediately engaged my GPS watch’s “tracback” feature, complete with off-route warnings. Despite the crap I’d just dealt with, my mood didn’t stay down for long (after all, this was my first scramble since February) and I found myself whistling the odd sea shanty as I descended towards the creek.
Descent was much more pleasant past this point, and I only found myself off-route once, which I quickly noticed and reversed course on. I arrived back at my car at 1357hrs, and after some internal debate I headed east on HWY 1A towards
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