Mount Collembola - Mount Allan Circuit Scramble on 26-Jul-2022

We had a very misty and mysterious day for our traverse of Mount Collembola and Mount Allan. The clouds and mist persisted for almost the entire trip, which made conditions lovely and cool for climbing, but the surrounding peaks were often obscured, peeking out only now and then, which gave a very mysterious feeling to the day. We started out from the Pigeon Mountain trailhead at 8:00 am, arriving at the summit of Mount Collembola at 11:30 am. In addition to the cliff band just below the main summit of Mount Collembola, there are a couple of cliff bands along the ridge to the lower summit of Mount Collembola. I have always dropped off the ridge to the left (or SE) to find a break in these cliff bands, but last year Bill discovered that there was some very nice scrambling to be had by staying close to the ridge. Brian and I decided to follow Bill's suggestion, and I would definitely recommend this route. These two lower cliff bands are about the same level of difficulty as the one below the main summit, if not easier. We had our first break on the lower summit of Collembola, where we played "find the ptarmigan". We counted three young ones and two adults, but it was almost impossible to see the youngsters in the rocks unless they moved. We then climbed up to the summit of Mount Allan, arriving at 1:30 pm, where we were greeted by three very frisky and very entertaining marmots. After another break, we headed down the beautiful Centennial Trail on Mount Allan's north ridge, arriving back at the parking lot just before 5:00 pm. Thanks very much to Brian and Gary for joining me Jack on what is one of my favourite ridge walks.

Total distance: 22.5 km

Total elevation gain: 1685 m (using Gillean Daffern's number; our GPS numbers were all over the map on this)

Total time: 9 hours