Climb: Mt. Lyall-Lyall 1, 2, 3
Date of Climb: 8/19/2004
Trip Report:
I received a message from my friends in Sandpoint Id, Carl and Juli to go up to the Canadian Rockies with them for some peak bagging on Mt. Lyall. Carl promised a stress free trip with an easy approach, no bushwacking and no hairy river crossings. This being the Canadian Rockies, I didn't really believe him, but I dropped everything that I was planning to do that week and drove across eastern Washington in the 100 degree heat on Sunday afternoon.
On Monday we had a leisurely drive north and made the obligatory stops at the bookstore and the liquor store at Lake Louise village. We arrived at the Glacier Lake trailhead in the evening as a very dark cloud was headed our way up the Saskatchewan River valley. After downing several beers I decided that it would probably be a good idea to pitch the tent. Sure enough, as soon as we had the tent up, the storm hit with all of the intensity of a fire hose. Unfortunately, it had been years since I had done any seam sealing and water started coming into the floor almost immediately. It rained most of the night as we huddled on our ensolites in an effort to keep dry.
The next day started out foggy but the fog had burned off by the time we arrived at Glacier Lake. We continued past Glacier Lake up the Glacier River Valley to the unnamed lake at the foot of the Lyall Icefall. The high water from the hot weather took out pieces of the trail and forced us on the bank several times with all of its obligatory deadfalls.
Juli at the camp below the Lyall Icefall.
The following day, we headed up the moraine to the Lyall Bivouac, figuring on an obvious trail. The moraine had all of the excitement of a corniced ridge with the crest eroding down one side. The trail stayed on the crest and disappeared over the edge on several occasions. Eventually the moraine disappeared into the timber as did the trail. We continued up through deadfalls, erosion scars and brush until we finally broke through the trees and lo and behold, we ran smack into the trail which had also emerged from the trees.
The rest of the hike to the Lyall Bivi was uneventful, but we found very little evidence of any recent human passage, indeed the trail that we found hadn't been used by any humans for over a year, maybe more. It was overgrown with lichen.
The next morning, we got up promptly at 4 AM, made coffee and proceeded to sit around for another hour waiting for daylight. Daylight came at about 6AM and we proceeded up the cliffs that led to the edge of the Lyall Icefield. We trudged across the icefield and made it to the foot of the peaks in 4 hours. We proceeded to the col between Lyall #1 and #2. The warm weather made for sugary snow on top of ice. It was a nice break to be on rock for the ascent of Lyall #1, a blocky limestone ridge. We stood on the top of Lyall #1 at about 11 AM.
Climbing the headwall below the Lyall Icefield
After a little sunbathing, we descended to the col, put on the rope and headed to the top of Lyall #2. We did some more sunbathing, but the billowing clouds that were all around created more interruptions. We headed down to the #2-#3 col in our crampons on low angle bare ice. At the #2-#3 col, we decided to bag Lyall #3 since we were so close even though the clouds were closing in. #3 proved to be the most interesting climbing and we even got to do a little front-pointing to get over the bergschrund. We did some more summit lounging and finally started the long trudge back to camp.
Climbing the bergschrund near the top of Lyall #3.
Carl and Juli on the summit of Lyall #3
Lyall #4 on the right and #5 on the left.
The monotony of walking across a long flat glacier was interrupted as we were crossing an especially thin section. Carl was maneuvering around an obvious large crevasse, proclaiming how thin he thought the bridge was and proceeded to disappear from sight. Juli proceeded to anchor the rope with a fluke while I held her on tension. There were a few nervous minutes while we heard nothing from Carl, but we eventually started feeling human motion on the rope and finally we were able to talk to him. Fortunately he was uninjured. After a lot of grunting and some swearing, he was able to get himself back over the edge, using the spare end of the rope that we lowered to him. He proclaimed that this was the first time he ever fell in a crevasse in his 20+ years of climbing. (Of course it should be noted that he once rescued his partner in an especially nasty crevasse fall high on Good Neighbor Peak in the Yukon and saved his life. After getting him out of the crevasse by the "brute force method, he had to lower his partner many thousands of feet down the mountain and then drag him across the Seward Glacier to their base camp.)
After getting Carl extricated, the weather finally hit and we raced across the rest of the icefield, making it back to camp well before dark.
The hike out the next day was stormy and soggy, but we were motivated by dry clothes and lukewarm beer waiting back at the car.
Gear Notes:
Crampons and Ice Axe,(preferably long enough for probing) 1 fluke and 1 screw for each member for crevasse rescue. 1 8.8mm rope, prussiks, "Glacier Travel and Crevasse Rescue" by Andy Selters
Approach Notes:
Good trail to Glacier Lake, parts of trail above the lake were flooded by river, but were still quite easy compared to other Canadian Rockies river valleys of that scale.
When you reach the end of the moraine, look very hard for the trail that goes straight up the timbered hillside
