Sofa mountain offers another long ridgewalk of over 5 km above treeline. The scramble starts after a pleasant one hour walk through lush forest to the Sofa Cirque. In this photo, the cirque is in the center. The scramble leads up the right ridge through the triangular buttress, then left to the summit which is behind the NE ridge to the left with the cornice, back to the end of the NE ridge and down again into the cirque.

heading for the cirque

This is an area where bears are often seen, so we and Aldis' group travelled close together. Even on the highway, we had seen a family of black bears.



Black bear family

From the cirque we ascended the right-hand ridge to the base of the cliffs. Nice scrambling on solid rock with little rubble led to the NW ridge of Sofa Mtn.



Gary on nice rock

working our way up the buttress

nearing the top

The long ridge to the summit did not seem to involve a lot of elevation gain, but seemed distant. In the end, it took an hour at a moderate pace. Along the way, we had good views down into the Sofa cirque.

Carl and Gary with Mt. Cleveland in the background

looking down into the cirque

admiring the view

We sat down to lunch on the summit in calm air.

Mount Cleveland

Gary with Chief Mtn. behind

the weather still looks good

In less than 15 minutes it became clear that the black skies to the south and west were moving quickly toward us.

blackening skies

A unanimous decision was made to get off the peak. Soon we were struck by high winds driving rain and light hail.

heading for the NE ridge through the rain

Luckily, it was to our backs as we covered a kilometer to the end of the NE ridge were we got a bit of shelter. As we descended the cliff bands, the weather eased.

descending with improving weather

One of the trickiest rock bands on the descent off Sofa Mtn

By the time we made it back to the cirque we were dry and were able to shed our jackets.

on the way out

The trip was 14 km with 1100 m of elevation gain, and took 7 hours.

Thanks to participants: Dean,Carl,Gary,Ulrike,Gary - Bill (C/S). Thanks to all who provided photos, and a special thanks to Carl for the impressive bear calls - they worked!

While again the high ridges were surprisingly sparse in flowers, there were some interesting plants.

Waterton Lakes Cryptantha (Cryptantha celosioides)

Skypilot (Polemonium viscosum)

Jones' Columbine (Aquilegia jonesii)

Of botanical interest, two rare narrow-leaf species of fleabane were in flower.

Buff Fleabane (Erigeron ochroleucus)

Front-range Fleabane (Erigeron lackschewitzii)