Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

September 11, 2020

2927m

Rogers Pass, BC

Uto Peak is one of the classic climbs in the immediate Rogers Pass area of Glacier National Park. It’s somewhat overlooked thank to the close proximity to Mt. Sir Donald, but the climbing quality is equally good. The SW Ridge of Uto Peak is rather just a shorter version of the NW Ridge of Mt. Sir Donald. It’s not as sustained nor exposed, but offers a few harder technical cruxes. The north ridge of Uto Peak offers an easier route (3rd or 4th class) albeit with looser rocks. The most common way to climb Uto Peak is by ascending the classic SW Ridge and descending the easier N. Ridge making a loop, while ambitious parties would probably prefer a traverse from Uto Peak to Avalanche Mountain.

Winnie and I had been talking about to give Rogers Pass area a visit for a few weeks. I knew how much she wanted to come here, but she also needed to gain some experience in scrambling and mountaineering. Earlier in the summer we had done Welch Peak and Foley Peak in the Chilliwack area that involved route-finding on exposed and loose terrain, and then spent 5 days on Vancouver Island dealing with more loose rocks. A weather window formed immediately after coming back from the Vancouver Island trip so we pulled the trigger spontaneously. It was tempting to try Uto to Avalanche traverse but I figured it’s probably safer to just do Uto Peak (up and down SW Ridge) as a introductory climb. Winnie didn’t expressed interest in just scrambling Avalanche Mountain so after the climb of Uto Peak we would move to the Bugaboos to aim for Lions Way and Brenta Spire to finish off this mini road-trip.

The objective for the first day was simply driving to the trail-head and sleep in our vehicle so we didn’t need to rush. Winnie had an important appointment at home and couldn’t leave until 5 pm anyway. The drive out of Vancouver was a bit slow but once the darkness kicked in, the drive into the interior was quite a smooth sail. The drive over Coquihalla Highway to Kamloops, then eastwards down Highway 1 corridor to Revelstoke was something that I had done probably 20 times in the past 5 years. We eventually made to the trail-head at around 2 am. We were too tired to set up our tent at this time of a day, so just opted to sleep in the truck. There were two other vehicles with climbers or hikers sleeping inside, so we weren’t alone. We also determined the risk of getting ticketed by a ranger was minimal.

The alarm went off at around 6 am. Based on the various trip reports as well as my own Mt. Sir Donald trip 6 years ago we figured that a true alpine start wasn’t required to day-trip Uto Peak. We only used head-lamps for the first half an hour. The approach trail was a bit rougher than I remembered with some long stretches of hopping on rocks, but it’s very well marked and easy to follow. The trail gains just over 1000 meters to the official campsite under Uto/Sir Donald. We took our one and only break filling up water bottles at the only (easy) stream hopping before reaching the campsite. The terrain was bouldary and confusing near the campsite but the general bearing was to just turn right aiming for the cliff faces of Mt. Sir Donald. After a few minutes of boulder hopping we came across some sets of paths and cairns and ascended steeply to the climber’s path under Mt. Sir Donald’s rappel route, then traversed horizontally across some ledges to Uto/Sir Donald col without having to step onto any snow patch (2.5 h from truck).

Winnie and I took a long break swapping footwear for rock shoes. We opted to carry our hiking shoes and trekking poles because we weren’t 100% sure whether or not we would come back down the same way. The exposure kicked in right off the bat with an awkward traverse out climber’s left, which was then followed by a long stretch of 4th class climbing on small ledges. The lower ridge can be broken down into several steps separated by a few platforms. The attacks of the difficult sections were usually on climber’s left side of the crest. The crux came at about halfway up. We opted to pitch out one short stretch with me leading the sharp end. The climbing was definitely 5th class there and I agreed that this short pitch felt harder than anything I did on Mt. Sir Donald. Beyond that we both soloed the next short section – an uber exposed corner on climber’s left side of the crest.

The terrain eased a bit above this stretch of technical climbing but depends on the micro-terrain route-finding we still encountered a few climbing steps. Nearing the top we deviated from the SW Ridge and ventured onto what seemed like the west face. We ascended the last 50-100 vertical meters on the west face dealing with mostly 3rd class terrain albeit with loose rocks. We made the summit in 4 hours 40 minutes since leaving the vehicle. Despite the earliness we decided against the traverse towards Avalanche Mountain and instead, spent at least an hour and half on the summit. It had been 6 years since I climbed Mt. Sir Donald so I felt a bit emotional to look back at that giant.

The descent off N. Ridge would be easier but we both wanted more challenges, so decided to return the same way. For the upper route we reversed our route down the west face and then made a few short and exposed down-climbs. There weren’t many existing rappel stations so we either had to down-climb, or to leave cords behind. We ended up only doing one rappel to get down the crux zone, and down-climbed everywhere else. The lower ridge had a few long stretches of committing down-climb but we thought those were actually quite fun.

Wearing rock shoes the whole way up and down was quite hurting so we both looked forward to take a long break at Uto/Sir Donald col resting our feet. The climb of Uto Peak via SW Ridge was honestly a bit disappointingly easy for both of us but for sure “type 1 fun” that I’d recommend to anybody. The return hike was boring and tedious but didn’t take us too long. By coincidence we bumped into Kris Mutafov and his friends heading for Mt. Sir Donald on the following day. We had bumped into his group on Victoria Peak on Vancouver Island a week or so ago and now they recognized us out here in Rogers Pass… How small the climbing world is…

After the climb we wasted no time and drove straight to Golden for a well-deserved dinner. We unfortunately arrived there too late so that most restaurants were already closed. None of us wanted to eat fast food so we settled on a restaurant beside the Subway on Highway 1, which turned out to be disappointingly expensive but oh well.. We then resumed the drive southwards down Columbia Valley aiming for the Bugaboos…