The trouble began at the parking lot. A pretender to the throne of coordinator wanted to know if the “bonus” option of doing a peak east of the ridge meant “Old Baldy Mtn” from the “More Scrambles in the Rockies” book by Andrew Nugara. “But I have to get another checkmark in my book soon” he pleaded. And he added that Nugara says that it is shorter to get to Old Baldy Ridge (the original and main goal) by starting from Boundary Ranch. Rather than fight, Ivan conceded that we could try the “new” ascent and plant shuttle cars at Evan Thomas for the “regular” descent.

The trouble continued when the usurper tried to find the direct ascent route. It was supposed to be right beside Flat Creek. Well to be fair all ten of us walked back and forth across the Flat Creek drainage and none of us could find it. In any case we ended up spending the better part of an hour on the horse trails (pee-u) that encircle Boundary Ranch. Eventually we did find Nugara’s “short” route (also described as an alternate descent route by Daffern). Unfortunately it seems to try to climb most of the 860 meters to Old Baldy Ridge in about 1 km.

"Are we there yet?" (Greg's group must be on Lorette in the background)

Steep hardly seems to describe it adequately. In any case we did finally find ourselves at the high point of Old Baldy Ridge a little after 1:00. Boots and socks were doffed and lunches were eaten.


Group on Old Baldy Ridge

Now the the interloper started in earnest to foment mutiny for an attempt on Old Baldy Mtn itself. “You’ve climbed over 800 meters, it’s only another 400 to that Nugara summit. It’s the highest point on the whole Ridge. It’s a whole two meters higher than the only officially named summit (Mt McDougall).” In the end he coerced four others to join him on the attempt. Three made it to the summit, two elected to turn around part way up, perhaps because the slave driver seemed to be intent on climbing as fast as some of the best and fastest scramblers in the Ramblers.


Mutineers at and nearing the summit of Old Baldy Mtn

Carl, John and Gilles on Old Baldy Mtn

In the end they enjoyed a pleasant scramble, found an absolutely spectacular panorama (it is the highest point on the ridge) and were up and down from the col in only about an hour and a half. The loyal five stayed at the lunch spot until the mutineers were at the summit and then proceeded down the regular route via McDougall creek and Evan Thomas trail.


The trickiest part of the ridge was the snow cornice

Old Baldy Mountain (ascent is up the left hand skyline).

The mutineers hoofed it fairly quickly and arrived at the cars only a few minutes later. The Kananaskis 100 Relay race caused us a few minutes delay for the stretch to Boundary Ranch, but was negligible on the way home.

Ridge: about 15 km (including horse trails) and 900 m of climb, Mtn: another 2 km and 400 m.

Many thanks to Ivan for calling and coordinating the trip, participants: Carolyn, Ginger, Janice, Kathy, Mario, Gilles, John, Richard and Carl (scribe).