Morrowmount
Route Map
Summit Elevation: 2539m
Elevation Gain: 1352m
Round Trip Time: 10hrs 0min
Total Distance: 24.46km
Technical Rating: Easy Scramble
Difficulty Notes: The difficult bit is getting through Jura Creek Canyon while the creek is flowing. Morrowmount is an easy scramble by the right route.
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My body and smartwatch were in agreement that taking a rest day or three would be the reasonable thing to do when Saturday the 9th rolled around, given that I’d done 3500m of ascent since the start of the month after effectively zero training all winter. Unfortunately for my poor tired body, I have decided that reason is out to lunch this month in favour of indulging in the Ultimate Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy when I’m not out scrambling.
In other words, I was heading out into my beloved Rockies yet again.
I’d discovered Morrowmount a week prior while doing the thing that I do - that thing being looking at maps, thinking “Huh, that’s a cool name” to myself, and then researching the summit. My hike up Yates Mountain two days prior had been somewhat strategic, as I wanted a clear view of the surrounding area to gauge whether the snow had retreated sufficiently - and it sure looked like it had!
With that knowledge in the forefront of my mind, I confirmed that the WX for the day was good, dragged my protesting body out of bed, had breakfast, made lunch, stopped at the grocery store for supplies (chocolate), realized I’d forgotten my trekking poles, went back to get said trekking poles, and then finally headed out towards Exshaw, reaching the Jura Creek trailhead much later than I’d intended at 0944hrs. And here I said I was going to stop doing that!
…To be fair, I knew afternoon thunderstorms were extremely unlikely given how early in the season we are, and that factored into my decision-making. Nonetheless, it’s not a great habit to be getting into this early in the season.
Okay, fine. I get it. You’re here for beta, not me rambling aimlessly. Onwards!
The trail up Jura Creek diverged from an ATV track under humming power lines after just a few dozen metres, leading into a small patchwork of on-foot and unofficial MTB trails that travelled in more or less the same direction. The trail network eventually brought me to an intersection, with one branch descending to the creek and the other following alongside it.
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I opted to follow alongside the creek, noting that I was gaining altitude relative to the canyon below. I thought nothing of this and assumed the well-defined trail was a bypass similar to the one up Hoodoo Creek in David Thompson Country - which, unfortunately, it is not. I soon realized that I was on the route up to Jura Cave, and made the best of my unintended detour by gaining the last bit of vertical to the cave and taking a few photos.
I debated descending from here to the canyon; while I did think this was doable, it would require crossing a number of scree-coated and smooth friction slabs alike. My friction climbing skills are lacking to say the least, so I decided to just return the way I came.
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I found a nice 40-ish degree slab partway down the trail, and used it as a shortcut into the canyon. Unfortunately things wouldn’t get any easier in the canyon, with a boulder at head height and waterfall well above waist height stumping me for a solid minute! While there was some flimsy driftwood leading upwards, it was soaked, tractionless, and bowed in a way that did not inspire confidence when I set foot on it. I decided to look for another option before trusting it.
After some internal debate I grabbed a thicker piece that was too small to ascend the waterfall, and oriented it against the obstructing boulder in such a way that I could use the knots as the steps of a crude ladder. This got me just enough reach to stretch my 6’2 body to its full length and grab an obvious hold. From here I pulled myself up and onto the rock, hopping over the other side and continuing on my way.
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I suspect that these bits of wood are placed by the much smaller and more wiry scramblers and runners that are common in the Banff region, and would certainly hold someone weighing 160lbs or less. Unfortunately things get a lot more questionable when my lumbering 6’2 190lbs self gets involved!
It’s worth noting that by this point I had completely given up on the prospect of dry feet; if you value those, you should not be here in summer! Put simply, there is no practical way through the canyon that doesn’t involve getting your shoes thoroughly soaked.
The canyon narrowed dramatically but provided no cause for concern until I reached its end, where my trekking pole suddenly failed to strike ground and I nearly went for an unscheduled swim! I tested the final pool - which was bridged by another uninspiringly flimsy bit of wood - and measured over four feet in depth. Falling in here would be quite unpleasant as you’d be in for both a good soaking, and I debated moving the belongings in my pockets to my waterproof Dyneema pack before continuing. In the interest of time I chose not to, but in retrospect that was probably not the wisest choice.
I set out across the driftwood cautiously, stabilizing myself against the canyon walls and providing as much lift as I could with my hands. My crossing was uneventful, after which I clambered up some low-angle slab on climber’s left to exit the canyon.
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I’d burned a significant amount of time between the cave and canyon, and the clock hit 1023hrs as the adrenaline rush subsided and I headed up the delightfully open creekbed. I occasionally spotted the trail and would hop onto it when I did, following it until it spat me back out into the creekbed, but didn’t concern myself with looking for it. I have to admit I’m quite tired of trying to follow trails in popular areas what with all the false tracks, and the creekbed was so open that it made more sense to just travel in it.
At 1102hrs I reached the interesting geologic formation known as the “false fault”. Geologist and scrambler Cornelius Rott details this in his
Cornelius Rott - Spectacular Mountains
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Immediately after the false fault I noticed an obvious trail leading to climber’s left of the second canyon, and decided I’d much rather follow it than play around on more flimsy driftwood. This turned out to be the correct call as I noted several spots in the canyon where 3+ meters of smooth vertical rock would impede anyone trying to pass through it.
The trail once again dumped me back into the creekbed, and I carried on with my upwards toil until I encountered a major fork in the creekbed. Checking the map, I noted that the right fork was the ascent route for the relatively popular Loder / Door Jamb traverse, and headed left to continue towards Morrowmount.
Creekbed travel is, of course, quite monotonous, and so the next hour was filled with little worth mentioning as I plodded my way upwards. Water was intermittently present during the approach, sometimes a muddy trickle and sometimes a proper noisy creek, and I found myself increasingly pleased with my decision to carry a single 500mL filtered flask this year. The ability to refill from otherwise questionable sources is pretty great, as it means I encounter drinkable water more frequently and can get away with carrying far less weight.
The creekbed became increasingly blocky and filled with deadfall about a kilometer before the ascent point, but not to the degree where it was impassable - I simply wasted a bit more time weaving my way around these obstacles. Snow started to show up in larger quantities as well, and I avoided the larger patches as I didn’t want to roll an ankle on a hidden rock.
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At 1240hrs I knew I’d reached the ascent point when the makeup of the surrounding rock abruptly shifted to a brownish shale, with the slope higher up splashed with an eye-pleasing orange hue. I paused for water and an Aero bar (caffeine, cocoa, and sugar all in one bar is a pretty great thing!) before starting my ascent.
The initial bit of terrain was some extrenely crunchy dinner-plate scree, which I’m not all that partial to. This soon transitioned to boilerplate Rockies scree, and surprisingly firm at that - I found myself enjoying the ascent more than expected, well aware that the scree was a bit firm for consistent plunge-stepping and descent would be less enjoyable as a result.
I was uncertain exactly where the ascent line went, and decided to trend climber’s right of a cliff formation that involved both orange and gray rock. This, as it would turn out, is not a great decision, and I should have cut through the middle of it instead.
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My chosen route led to progressively steeper and looser scree - which, while obnoxious, was passable. That being said it did not line up with the photos I’d seen previously, and I decided to try work my way up and onto the ridgeline.
I ascended towards the first break in the rock I spotted, and quickly started cursing as the scree was now too loose. I’d step, nearly have my foot slide out from under me, and then dodge a few sharp dinner plates headed to slash up my ankles! I traversed to some ball-bearing scree on top of easy slab, which was workable enough and got me up to a short moderate section. I quickly passed through this and popped out onto an amazingly clear and easily-traversible ridgeline.
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The ridgeline is trivially easy scrambling (really more of an off-trail hike) and I’ve rated this trip report assuming you take my recommended route and don’t follow my path exactly.
As I traversed the ridge, I heard a thundering BOOM from across the Fable/Mythic ridge, followed by an echoing rumble that lasted a good thirty seconds. I mused that it could have been some form of detonation at the Grotto quarry, but I was a bit far from that and it was far more likely to be cornice-fall triggering a pretty large slide. I counted myself lucky that I’d had a pretty dry day to date!
I ran across a small snow patch at ~2330m, which was flat enough and presented no real hazard. It was pleasantly shallow and I tromped my way across without issue. It was only when I looked back that I noted a small point-break slide that had gone off into Jura Creek maybe a day prior, and I found myself thankful that I hadn’t tried to take the “easy” route that follows the creek all the way up to the summit. There was still multiple feet of snow there accompanied by a few slopes that looked pretty eager to let go under the right circumstances.
I followed a lengthy snow patch all the way to the summit; while I certainly could have crossed it without incident, I was a bit spooked by what I’d seen and heard and didn’t really want to flirt with that in the moment. It was going the same way I was anyways.
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I arrived at the summit at 1449hrs, 5 hours into my trip and a bit later than I’d hoped. Ah well - sometimes we get to move fast and sometimes canyons waste time! Such is life. I checked the cairn and came up empty, pausing for a summit panorama before noticing that the north outlier appeared a touch higher than my position. I decided to traverse over and take some measurements for later.
The traverse went smoothly and was mostly easy with maybe a touch of optional moderate terrain. Anything moderate can definitely be avoided by losing more elevation; I stuck as close to the ridgeline as I reasonably could to preserve energy.
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To my surprise, the second summit measures as ever so slightly higher upon reviewing the data. My altimeter logged an average of 2539m at the northern summit, and 2533 at the southern. To be clear: this is within error for my unit, but it is telling that both measurements at the southern summit (which I returned to before descending) were lower than the northern one. Andrew Nugara remarks the same in his
Andrew Nugara - anugara.net
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I had to lose minimal elevation on the ridgeline traverse and decided to return to Morrowmount’s southern summit once more for some additional measurements before descending. The descent was as gorgeous as the ascent and I stopped for a few scenic photos along the way.
I had spotted the neighbouring Hassel Castle / Old Fort on the map when planning, and with zero beta on hand had flirted with the idea of traversing to and potentially ascending it. This was clearly not going to happen once I put eyes on the summit block, which looks absurdly imposing. Cornelius Rott has
Spectacular Mountains
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I noted with some annoyance that I hadn’t charged my watch in a few days and it was about to run out of battery. I decided to end the recording once I reached Jura Creek, switching to my phone so I could build a reasonable GPX track between the two sources. My phone’s GPS is a touch less accurate than my watch so there may be some slight weirdness in the provided track for this trip; consider yourself warned!
Descent was monotonous until I reached the canyon. Wherever possible I tried to stay on “trail” to minimise time spent picking my way across rock, which worked with some success. The trail seemed to be semi-consistently present after I passed the junction to Loder and Door Jamb, and may be worth following on ascent up until that point.
I noted with great displeasure upon reaching the canyon that someone else had been through after myself and dislodged one of the pieces of driftwood used to bridge the northern ~4ft pool. It was still in place but far less stable and looked even more questionable than it had on my approach. After sticking my nose in a potential bypass to the west of the canyon, I couldn’t find anything that looked frequently travelled, and decided to just suck it up and cross. (Vern DeWit notes in his Cross Peak
explor8ion.com
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Regardless, after pleading with a flimsy stick to please not break as I crossed it, I worked my way out of the canyon and breezed through the last of the trails back to my car, putting a cap on my day at exactly the 10 hour mark - longer than I wanted, but not terrible either for what turned into a 24km creekbed outing!