Planter's Valley - The Peanut Gallery WI4+

November 27 Jason and I headed to the Ghost for my first ice climb of the season.  We hiked into Planter's Valley, a spot where neither of us had been before.


There was a Chinook rolling in, typical situation with high winds in town and in the foothills, and dumping snow in the Main Range.  We lucked out and seemed to be on the edge of the two, no wind, and no snow; until we got a lot of mid afternoon snow.  The hike in felt like spring!  Very warm (+5 ish, 8 am) and no snow on the ground, with a light rain shower.  The first two climbs in the valley were not formed, so we head to the end of the valley, The Peanut Gallery.


The first pitch was about 60 metres of WI 3, my lead.  Generally good ice and my lead felt pretty good and generally pretty easy.

The upper bowl contains many ice and mixed lines, with the primary part of the drainage providing the largest sections of ice.  Further up the valley, the third and fourth pitches had larger and vertical pillars forming, but they had fallen off.

Jason and I spent a few hours on pitch two of Peanut Gallery, with JW leading the vertical, WI4+, pillars.  We climbed two lines, one very wet, one nice and dry.  Did a few top rope laps on the dry pillar.  Great day out with the young gun.

'Mount Schlee' - GR 385168

This summit in the Opal Range had the unofficial name of Mt. Schlee applied by Glen Boles after his team’s first ascent of the peak in 1976 (F.A. D. Forest, G. Scruggs, G. Boles and M. Simpson via South Ridge). 

This beautiful mountain reaches a height of 2850 metres (9,350 ft.) and is the second high point north of Elpoca Mountain, along the main ridgeline of the Opal Range. Gerrit Schlee was a friend of Boles and lost his life trying to save someone drowning in the Bow River in 1975. 



On Friday November 11, Andrew Nugara and I enjoyed this pleasant scramble with some snow and ice thrown in to make this simple ascent a bit more interesting. This peak likely provides great views of the Kananaskis Lakes region and the surrounding Opal’s, but we lost our views at treeline. The start of our day was warmer and calmer than we thought it would be as we left the Elbow Lake parking lot right at 8am.

Quick plod to Elbow Lake and along the main trail heading north beside the Elbow River. We cut over to the “Piper Creek” valley sooner then previous trips and make good time. We pushed onto treeline below our route and had a nice long lunch break. At 10:45 the weather and wind were still good, but increasingly thick and dark clouds would intermittently cover the summits of Elpoca and Rae.

We started our charge up the South East slopes and soon the weather changed for the worst. We lost our view and travelled in near white out conditions, snow began to dump and there was a howling gale. Nearing the summit there a bit of silly talk (Andrew ;-) about turning around, but we pushed on.

In summer conditions, this route would be a moderate scramble; but the rock hard snow and patches of water ice made the route much more difficult. We finally gave in put on crampons about 200 metres below the summit. The snow pack was only about 6 to 8 cm’s thick, but rock hard with the angle varying from 25 to 35 degrees, with sections of pretty good exposure. This icy surface layer would make any new snow quite dangerous if there was a significant amount. The upper SE face was mostly steep slab with thin scree cover, but usually enough for solid footing.

The final summit South Ridge had the odd steep and awkward step, but not too tough. Almost exactly 6 hours from the car, we stood on the very white summit of GR385168 ('Mt. Schlee'). Our stay was short, we quickly searched the cairn for a register, but there was none.

For our descent we wore crampons back to treeline, and this made the descent much safer and quicker. Quick break at our lunch spot and blasted back to the main Elbow trail and out to the car without headlamps. A nice 9.5 hours of very late fall fun.