Colden Via the Trap Dike

July 17, 2010

Woke up shortly after 5am in the car campground at Heart Lake. The group of us had met here the night before; Katharina, Wendy, Debbie, Lucy, Marc, and myself. Lucy did not want to do Colden, so Marc decided he would hike the MacIntyre Range with her, leaving the four of us to climb the dike. Anyway, we all left from the Loj, and spent the first two hours hiking together to Avalanche Lake. We passed a forest ranger on our way in, and upon seeing the rope I was carrying, asked us if we were doing the dike. We answered yes and he warned us to keep an eye on the weather because some people had gotten stuck the day before after being caught in a storm. We assured him we would turn around if things got worse, and he was satisfied. The day was sunny though and we were not expecting rain. After a short break at Avalanche Lake we parted ways with Marc and Lucy and made our way towards the entrance of the dike. The first bit around the lake was a dense bushwack, but then we got down to the shore and the going was easy from there. Once inside of the dike we began the scramble. This was a blast! Water cascaded down as we made our way upwards, getting us fairly wet, but the cooling felt good on the hot day. The first class four pitch went easily and we did not feel the need for setting up a rope. The second pitch was harder. Debbie scrambled up like a fearless mountain goat (and claiming all the while she had never rock climbed before). I felt a little nervous wishing I could have a belay, but managed to scramble up without falling to my death. I set up an anchor for the rope for Katharina and Wendy, but by the time I was ready to belay, they both had managed to get up by free climbing. Oh well, at least I got to practice anchor building. The rest of the dike was easier with the occasional tricky move, but without the exposure. A little bit farther and we decided to exit the dike onto the slide. It took a bit of time to find a spot that we could get out at and then a short bit of bushwacking got us onto the open face of the slide. What a view! The slab was steep but the rock was fairly grippy if you could avoid the wet spots. Debbie and Katharina had little trouble and bounded upwards. Wendy was a little nervous with the exposure so I roped up with her, mostly for the psychological value and coached her upwards. At one difficult section I anchored to some convenient trees to provide a belay. As I was attaching my ATC, I fumbled and it went bouncing down the slab, landing in some bushes some 15 meters below. I belayed her up with a munter hitch instead and then rappelled down to the bushes to try to recover my ATC. I unfortunately did not find it, so just climbed back up using the rappel rope as a hand line. The rest of the way was easier, just tiring as the steepness was hard on the muscles. As we approached the summit, other people were waving and cheering us on. As I clambered over the last ledge onto the summit plateau some random woman told me that I was her hero... um ok... sure. We sat down go a well deserved lunch here and soaked in the views. We chatted with another woman, Marie, from Montreal who had hiked up via the trail and was waiting for some of her friends who were coming up the same route that we did. As we were packing up, her group arrived, and we said goodbye to our new friend prior to heading on down the trail. The descent was long, but a quite a bit easier than the route we had come up on. We stopped for several breaks and to fill up empty water bottles from a conveniently placed stream. We encountered Marie's group several times on the descent and rested with them at Marcy dam before the long slog back to the parking lot. Marc and Lucy were waiting for us, having finished their hike about 45 minutes before us. After a quick swim in Heart Lake we drove to Tip-a-Canoe for beer and burgers, where once again we met Marie and her group. The hike was just over eleven hours. A fabulous day!

The team; Debbie, Mike, Katharina, Marc, Wendy. Lucy is the photographer. Colden summit obscured by cloud cover behind us.