Wow, what a great scramble! All 10 made the summit, all went up/down the "ramp". Of our 10, only Jeanette & Clifton had been here before. We were glad to have Clifton's familiarity with the parking & trail network above Harvey Heights. We parked in Harvey Heights, on Cascade Drive at the bend with some garbage bins AND a trail head. This saved us +1.5km & +50M of vertical vs the Meander trailhead on the Harvey Heights access road. At the end of the day that was really appreciated!

We took the "west" ridge (RMRA 27-Jun-2008) vs "east" ridge (RMRA 06-Jun-2015). I would reccommend the the west ridge. It has established trail up to the ridge, and manageable scramling on the ridge. We saw a party on the east ridge, they stopped at the last & biggest of the gendarmes. I'm impressed that the RMRA east ridge team made thier way through it!

Looking to east ridge gendarmes & Canmore.

The trip is +8km return & 1200m vertical, we were 8 hours on trail, with a 30 min lunch. About +3km of distance & 650m vertical gets you up to the ridge. The upper portion is +1km of ridge, good scrambling/walking, with enough airy bits to keep it exciting! There is a bypass for a slabby section (which goes to climbers right, then up scree slope to regain the ridge. We took the bypass on the way up, and ridge on the way down... likely better done the other way.

Mid way up ridge - HH Nipple

The Nipple itself is an impressive feature. The "ramp" which leads up climbers left flank is a signature pitch. Above the ramp, a trail goes around & up the backside to the summit. With the clouds hanging low, we stayed 15 minutes at summit. We all went back down the ramp and had a quick lunch at the base. From here we could see the party stopping at the top of a large gendarme on the east ridge.

Ramp on west side of Nipple

Best of the Summit pictures - Kaoru (photo by MD)

The trip down the ridge was straight forward enough. The section with the "bypass" took a little longer. We had a few minutes of sun where we looked back at the summit wishing we were still back there.

Norman the Redeemer, with God Beam's too. Rio's got nothing on us!

Back on the trail, we followed it all the way down to the creek. It is always impressive to see the power of a flood. This section of creek & canyon, though short, was flushed clean of debris. Thankfully the creek bed was easy enough to descend. We were happy enough that our uptrack had gone up through trees to merge higher up with the trail.

Looking below where trail spits you out on the creek

We were all happly to be back at the cars for a warm down stretch! A good group makes for a fun scramble, and this one lives up to it's SC5 rating. Our group was Norman, Suzy, Mikako (pictures), Lenard, Kaoru, Clifton, Jeanette, Bruce, Gerald (c/s).

Participants: Norman,Gerald,Jeannette,Inge,Clifton,Bruce,Lenard,Suzy,Mikako,Kaoru