Horse Peak
Route Map
Summit Elevation: 3019m
Elevation Gain: 3435m
Round Trip Time: 2 days (moving time 22hrs 24min)
Total Distance: 59.4km
Technical Rating: Easy scramble
Difficulty Notes: Easy scrambling and off-trail travel with brief, mild bushwhacking should make this a pleasant outing if the weather cooperates.
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My attention has been turned to the Job/Cline PLUZ and Whitegoat WA more recently, thanks to yet another of Vern DeWit's excellent trip reports: namely, his Job Lake
Explor8ion - A Slice of Infinity
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"Here and there a few summits of interest though the quality of the rock is generally poor and one is left with impossibly loose faces or easy scree scrambles."
Vern further notes that the summits in the are are "either too crumbly to be 'proper' climbs or too easy to scramble and therefore not worthy of [dedicated alpinists'] attention."
This seemingly repulsive nature of the summits in the area means that a number of them appear to have precisely zero ascents on record - none in the ACC Journal, none on Peakery, Bivouac, any of the various personal blogs, Peakbagger, et cetera. Given my hankering for remote areas and untouched alpine scenery, I find myself strongly attracted to this area and have begun plotting routes and planning ascents of these seemingly unvisited peaks.
The spring melt, unfortunately, has been stubborn this year due to a high snowpack, and so I have been somewhat limited in my choices this summer. As the weekend of July 11 rolled around, I settled on the minor summits of Minster Mountain (labelled Horse and Colt respectively on Bivouac) as my target for an ambitious overnighter, since they'd at least give me decent views further into the wilderness. I thought that perhaps I could additionally target Minster from the creek directly south of it, but knew that was an ambitious plan and decided to pivot only if I felt better than expected.
Minster is an interesting mountain; it was originally named without being summited, likely without the true high point in view, and therefore the exact location is up for debate. Most parties (including myself) hold that Minster's location is the highest point on the massif, while some parties make an argument that Minster is located at the minor Colt Peak instead. Rather than detail this yet again, I will direct you to the excellent analyses done by
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Explor8ion - A Slice of Infinity
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Day 1: Approach
Route Map
Elevation Gain: 1531m
Moving Time: 10hrs 2min
Total Distance: 27.56km
Due to lingering snow around the GDT, I found myself unsure whether I could successfully replicate Vern's route up Minster Mountain, and plotted a much longer one up and down Sunset pass, across the Cline, and then up an unnamed creek to a bowl west of Horse Peak; from thence, up easy scree slopes to Horse, and then traversing the ridge to Colt. From there I would either return as I had come, or descend eastwards to Waterfalls Creek if time, energy, and snow cover permitted, following it south until its fork, then southwesterly to the southern slopes of Minster Mountain, and then proceeding to bag Minster itself before crossing west to the GDT and rejoining my entry route by it - an ambitious route for two days, to be sure.
My day started at a reasonably early (well, early for me, anyways) 0924hrs, as I headed upwards and away from the Sunset Pass parking lot along HWY 93N. I still felt mildly tired from the previous week's 150km overnight bike-n-hike to Jewell Lake, and already knew in the back of my mind that an ascent of Minster proper would almost certainly not happen, and this trip would likely just be to Horse and Colt. Nonetheless, I decided not to count my chickens before they hatched and pressed up the relentless incline until it ended on a narrow trail among vast willow-fields.
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Rain had evidently hit recently, and I took a moment to don my rain pants to avoid being completely soaked by the close branches while refilling my water and relieving myself at the Norman Creek campground. It was quite timely too - the forecast, indecisive as ever with its 30% chance of showers, once again proved my theory that the Rockies weatherman is perpetually drunk as it started to rain quite fiercely and clouds rolled in over my previously delightful views.
Cold rain in the Rockies is typically miserable, but a good set of rain pants helps a lot, and it's still arguably much better than suffering in sunny 30+ degree weather. I kept that in mind as I continued along the trail, which had in many cases turned fully into a small creek. Put simply, if you plan on travelling here, your feet will get wet. I knew I'd be travelling with wet feet once I forded the Cline anyways, and simply walked right through most of it all instead of wasting time trying to stay dry.
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The rain showed no sign of ending when I reached the apex of Sunset Pass and caught my first views of the gorgeous Pinto Lake. It would pause for ten minutes, rain for thirty, and the cycle would repeat seemingly indefinitely with blue skies nowhere in sight. At this point I was seriously concerned that I'd be summitting to rainy views (I am very, very sick of those) and was seriously considering turning around. I even messaged my emergency contact as much, and then realized that the cloud cover was thick enough to derail my satellite communicator altogether - something I hadn't ever seen before!
Given that I was in no danger, I decided to use the sunk-cost fallacy to my advantage and paused for a leisurely lunch to see what the skies would do, all the while contemplating my life's choices and debating whether or not I even felt like being out in the wilderness for the weekend - I still had time to bail and enjoy a leisurely Sunday at home, after all. Thankfully, the rain let up and blue skies rolled in, and so after silencing the lazy part of my mind I scrambled around a concerningly sized convex snow hull covering an eastern aspect of the trail, and then carried on towards the lake.
Despite frequent bear calls and even semiregularly belting out sea shanties, I encountered a surprising amount of small wildlife before reaching the Cline. One look at its lively waters told me there was zero point in attempting a ford further downstream (fording at the trail's intersection with the river makes you cross a swamp), and so I resigned myself to covering even more distance back to Pinto Lake to ford the river at its source. This went as planned but burned close to an hour of time - such is the price I pay for trying to get deep into the backcountry this early into the snowmelt.
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The southern Cline River trail was in generally reasonable condition for an infrequently-used trail - and by that I mean somewhat poor. Regular deadfall (only sometimes with beaten tracks around it) as well as only faint tracks in many cases were no issues for myself given my lightweight ~18lbs overnight pack and trained eyes, but I suspect your average backpacker would burn a significant amount of time circumventing these problems. This trail definitely needs a little bit of TLC, and I have to admit I find myself wondering whether there is anything left of the infrequently travelled north bank trail at this point. At the very least, I can't find any records of someone travelling along it between Coral Creek and the GDT in the last twenty years.
I reached my target creek at approximately 1710hrs, about two hours later than I'd hoped thanks both to my prolonged lunch and my added ramble around Pinto Lake. I wasn't certain whether I'd be ascending Horse and Colt that night, but it seemed unlikely that it would be the case given my level of fatigue and limited daylight. Knowing I was potentially gambling on the following morning's weather being acceptable for a summit day, I headed upstream.
I was surprised to note a faint trail on the creek's east bank, until I happened upon a rustic cabin that I suspect is used by Parks' conservation officers. Nobody was home, so I continued upstream. The trail vanished immediately and I found myself making creek crossings every thirty seconds to a minute. There was no point whatosever in trying to keep my feet dry, and so I didn't, even walking in the creek for prolonged periods until the freezing water started to numb my toes.
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Maybe fifteen mintues later the creek narrowed into a canyon - surprise! That was not effectively conveyed by the satellite imagery I'd used in my planning. I elected to travel on the eastern bank given that it was much clearer of trees and the like, and found myself seriously enjoying a stroll besides this little hidden marvel. As I headed upwards, only briefly needing to bushwhack to get around a ~4m waterfall and accompanying cliffs, I pondered the fact that I may be the only human in living memory to have set foot besides these delightful rapids, and for that matter might even have been the only living person to know of their existence until this trip report was published.
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All too soon, the creek widened again and I said goodbye to the lovely scenery. I rounded a mere two or three bends before entering a gorgeous alpine bowl, with the northern cliffs of Minster towering on my right and Horse's crumbling scree slopes desperately attempting to fortify my left side. After some deliberation - despite ascending maybe 400 meters from the Cline, I was feeling seriously fatigued - I decided I'd bypass the first set of cliffs at the bowl's back via easy scree slopes to climber's left, then make camp and gamble on the following morning's weather being good enough to afford an enjoyable ascent. I wasn't entirely happy about the decision, but heck - I was here, there was no turning back without a summit, and it definitely wasn't happening at 1900hrs with my energy reserves completely shot.
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Another half hour grunting up scree further proved that I was in no condition to be chasing two summits that night, and I gladly poked around for a campsite in the upper bowl upon reaching it. I noted recent rockfall from both Horse and Minster, and managed to find a small knoll shielded from both hazards by sizeable ditches. I located the flattest spot I could, and made camp.
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Day 2: Summit & Departure
Route Map
Elevation Gain: 1904m
Moving Time: 12hrs 22min
Total Distance: 31.84km
I woke the next morning at 0645hrs, debating on breakfast before ultimately deciding that the clouds looked favourable right now and I'd better make hay while the sun shone. Breakfast could wait until descent.
Removing any overnight gear from my pack, I quickly kitted myself out with my usual scrambling loadout and headed up Horse's western slopes. I occasionally found uncooperatively loose treadmill scree, but without fail always located comparatively firm rock just a few meters to climber's left or right and made good progress. Of course, it's not Rockies travel without a bit of weather, and so the weather promptly showed its ugly side and started hailing.
Yes, hail.
After I'd travelled 30+ kilometers to reach my objective, the Rockies selected the moment I started upwards to send a hailstorm. I was thoroughly through with the alpine at this point, but what else was I supposed to do - turn around and make the whole trip for nothing? Better to head upwards and at least have something to show for the suffering - and so I did just that.
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After about 20 minutes the hail gave way to cold, biting rain, and that in turn to brutally strong winds an hour later as I neared the ridgeline. The rain had managed to chill me so thoroughly that I kept my rain jacket on as an insulating layer - and that, in turn, added to the wind resistance. I spent nearly as much time bracing against the wind as I did advancing slowly along the ridgeline towards Horse's summit; in many cases, I could not even move my poles without the wind insistently trying to shove them - and me! - over the western edge of the ridgeline.
It didn't help at all that the wind was coming directly off the snowy and partially glaciated slopes of the neighbouring Minster, and its cold bite showed my exposed hands no mercy. When I finally reached the summit at 0929hrs, it was all I could do to assemble a small carn, fumbling with the ABS pipe register I'd brought to note down my ascent date, and desperately, triumphantly, add a few remarks proclaiming that this actually could be a first recorded ascent. I had found no tracks en route, even on the surprisingly soft ridgeline scree, and there were no indicators of human presence at the summit despite there being a Parks radio repeater in place maybe 700m south of it. I suspect these units are dropped in place and swapped out whenever a failure occurs instead of being repaired on-site, which would explain the complete lack of footprints other than my own.
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I fumbled with my phone, taking a panorama as best I could and resigning myself to enjoying the view later, and headed back along the ridgeline towards Colt. I had lost all feeling in my pinkie and ring fingers on both hands at this point, and tried to massage some blood and feeling back into them whenever the wind showed mercy and allowed me to forego the use of my trekking poles for half a minute or so.
The feeling that returned to my fingers was not good and the pain was near indescribable. I am no stranger to cold weather and chilled hands; I grew up spending many an hour on the construction of snow forts in Edmonton winters, and would often go paddling on our prairie flats when they flooded almost every spring, coming home completely freezing and then excruciatingly thawing my frozen hands out under warm running water. This was far worse and I knew I'd be lucky to escape without nerve damage if I didn't bail, let alone frostbite.
Extremely pissed off at myself for not anticipating this (I'd already been debating the merits of adding neoprene gloves to my kit), but also extremely relieved to have a valid excuse to bail from the endless cycle of bracing, pushing onwards, bracing, and pushing onwards again, I headed back down. Colt would still be there in a few weeks or months, but my fingers and pianist's fine motor control might not if I pushed my luck. One summit would have to be the grand total for this trip.
Feeling returned to my fingers as I descended, with the pins and needles that a sleepy limb typically exhibits refusing to depart. I supposed short-term nerve damage might already be a possibility, but didn't think too much on it - after all, what was I supposed to do at this point? I arrived back at camp at 1013hrs, and promptly readied a warm pot of oatmeal; cupping the aforementioned pot as I ate brought the last bit of feeling back to my fingers, and the pins and needles subsided, except when I applied significant pressure to the skin. It took about a week for this to fully heal.
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After enjoying a hearty brunch, I broke camp and headed back down towards the waiting rapids. Cheer had somewhat returned to my mind; if nothing else, I was headed homewards and had at least one summit to show for my suffering.
The hours slipped by as I made countless water crossings to the canyon, sidehilled along its eastern edge, followed my return route along the Cline River trail to Pinto Lake, and then up to Sunshine Pass yet again. 6PM rolled around, and I paused briefly at the Norman Creek campground to slather four slices of bread with nutella and wolf down the hastily-prepared meal before continuing towards the final 700m of descent. My hips, knees, and feet strongly protested as I approached the final 500m of elevation loss, and yet I pressed onwards. This misery, after all, was temporary, and I had maybe an hour to go before I reached my car and could cruise homewards along the Icefields Parkway.
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Miserable indeed it was as I descended. I've always struggled to understand how people manage to roll their ankles; I think I finally get it. Mine are usually freakishly strong and can entertain without issue many positions that would injure most people, but they felt decidedly powerless as I limped downwards, and I found myself exercising some caution to ensure I did not destroy them on accident.
At 1915hrs I hauled my battered body into the parking lot, tossed my pack in the passenger seat, and put the car in drive. It was - finally - time to head home.
The sad bit, as I look back through my photos, is that many of the views I had on my return journey were downright jaw-dropping to your average person. A combination of my exhaustion and exasperation with the weather made it almost impossible to appreciate these, and I fixated thoroughly on the goal of getting home, losing out on many a smile in the process.
Trapped at home by pervasive smoke for two weekends since, I've had plenty of time to contemplate the pitfalls and misfortunes of my otherwise triumphant possible FRA. Reading through Bivouac today, I stumbled on a quote by Robin Tivy in his 1989
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"The trail breaking was tough, and somewhat discouraging. Where are the broken trails of yesterday? In the mid 70's there might be some hope that we would meet another party coming the other way, and thus have a broken trail, but not today. Nowdays everybody is flying in to a hut on some glacier or lying on a beach in Hawaii instead of going out on patrol.
To fend off discouragement, we imagined scenes from days gone by, when two parties meet while out on patrol. "Hail! From where are you bound?"
'From Banff, gone 6 days: up Cascade fireroad, up over Dormer pass, down the Dormer, up the Panther, over Halstead Pass, up McConnell creek, down Roaring, up the Clearwater, and out the Siffleur." And yourselves? "From Lake Louise, out 8 days: via Boulder Pass, Deception Pass, Red Deer River, Drummond Glacier, Douglas Lake, Bonnet Glacier, Badger Pass, Johnson Canyon, Pulsatilla Pass, Wildflower Creek, Baker Creek and out.'
But, alas, no such party appeared, and we were left to break all the trail ourselves."
Robin's writing strikes a chord in a raw area of my heart some thirty-seven years after he put pen to paper for this letter. I have wondered countless times what it would be like to explore these remote areas with an equal in skill and speed; athletes of that caliber, unfortunately, are few and far between, and those who are interested in diminutive and insignificant summits such as this one even rarer still.
The age of the alpine explorer is inexorably fading from the Canadian Rockies. The number of named summits remaining without recorded ascents, official or otherwise, is perhaps in the upper tens or maybe just beyond a hundred by my rough estimation - and many of these likely already have cairns at the top left by humbler adventurers than Robin or I.
Social media likewise has centralised activity in the alpine around a few core spots. Hikers follow the same well-worn trails they did thirty years ago, while more serious alpinists chase the impressive and yet nonetheless tired list of 11,000'ers, along with a few conveniently placed frontcountry summits. Most of the distant and more diminutive summits fade into the background as we focus our goals on speed and metrics. How fast did we bag that summit? How many peaks did we ascend on a given trip?
And yet, as much as I tend to step out into the alpine primarily to "get something done", weekend warrior that I am, I find myself focusing more and more on these untracked areas instead of big numbers or fast travel. It boggles the mind that in A.D. 2026, we still have no record of humans summiting many of the peaks within the Whitegoat Wilderness or Job/Cline PLUZ for example.
There is almost nobody else to go there.
On the one hand, selfishly, I am greatful to be in places where no other humans tread and mar the landscape. But on the other it saddens me - we as a species seem to have concluded that the age of exploration is already over with the advent of satellite imagery, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts where nobody even begins to consider exploration, because they have already assumed there is nothing left to explore.
As the untouched summits dwindle in number this effect will only increase. I am not so foolish as to yearn for a time machine - the technology of today is unfathomably more advanced than '90s equipment, and that I am greatful for - but I cannot help but mourn the loss of an age I never knew. Perhaps at one point in time, I would not have been bound almost exclusively to solo trips by my desire to explore untouched places instead of the same few hundred tired summits. If nothing else, I suspect it is far easier to "embrace the suck" with another human present, and yet my best efforts to find similarly minded explorers have gone mostly unrewarded in this new era of FKTs, Instagram athleticism, and creatively bankrupt photos of the same tired lakes from the same tired spots.
Of my generation, I suppose there might be a half-dozen others in western Canada with both the good fortune and drive necessary to leave the beaten path and explore for the sake of it. Off trail, it is in many ways a lonely existence, and I have pondered many a time that I may someday be among the last people to ever justly claim a first recorded ascent in the Canadian Rockies.
This too shall pass.