Mount McGillivray Scramble on 22-Sep-2026

Participants: Scott, Stephanie, Mark

Trip Stats: Distance – 13.4km, total time – 9h 25min, elevation gain – 1425m

Since the pandemic this trip has become a popular front-range peak, as it comes into season early. The trail no long bush bashes through trees and side-hills as both Vern DeWitt and Steven Song suggested from earlier trip reports. There is a very well-defined trail through the trees.

Although Sim was not able to join us on the trip, she was kind enough to share her down-track with us, although for the section in the trees, the trail was so well-defined there was no need for a track. Once we reached the open slopes, we were finally afforded some views. We continued to push up towards what looks like the summit block, but is not. The rock bands, must be bypassed by side-hilling to skiers right. However, unlike when Vern and Steven Song completed the trips, there is no a very well-defined trail and there is no side-hilling required.

Once past the first rock band, you wrap around the mountain, heading towards the backside and the eventual ridge; however, before getting there you must bypass another rock band. Here, Nugara suggests that there are two options, the first a difficult and loose scramble up to the upper ledges, or a second easier option, to stay low on lower ledges and then push up on an obvious scree gully. Given how loose the terrain is, and knowing that parties had been injured on the mountain before, we chose the easy option, which also had a very defined trail leading to the scree gully. Note, if you choose this option, you will lose roughly 150-200m of elevation that will need to be gained on return. Once at this point, Vern suggests taking note of which way you came up, as the mountain is more convoluted than one might think.

Rather than grovel up the loose scree, we tried to get on solid rock as quick as possible, electing to push up, and scramble up towards the ridge. On our way up, we noted a possible scree decent to climbers right of us, which we would use on the way back. Pushing up early, we were able to use the slab to get us to the ridge, and then the fun scrambling began. As the ridge progresses it becomes narrower and more exposed. The final crux is an exposed scramble across two rock pillars on the ridge, separated by a break in the rocks, which must be carefully navigated.

Once past the crux, it is a quick and easy scramble to the summit, where we enjoyed some lovely front range views.

Rather than return the same way across the crux, we chose to follow Sim’s route, which drops down just below the exposed pillars, and then pops back up onto the ridge just after the crux. From here, we continued along the ridge until we found the scree decent on skiers left that we had spotted earlier on ascent. We used as much of the scree as possible heading down and to skiers right to push back to the first of the long trail walks below the rock bands. After regaining the elevation, we had lost earlier in the day, we reached the first rock band which needed to be circumvented. Here rather than warping around and following the trail, we saw a point that we could drop down to a higher ledge and then meet the well-defined trail below. We chose this route for some difference. We were then back on the obvious trail along the side below the first cliff band, and then heading back to the defined trail in the trees. The rest of the trail is easy to follow, if you’re not immersed in conversation, and then get off course a few times, but it was easily corrected.