It appeared slightly smoky today on the drive to Little Elbow, but was not too bad on arrival. From the parking lot, Threepoint Mtn. is clearly visible to the south, standing all by itself.
Threepoint Mountain from Little Elbow TH (photo courtesy Simon)
Crossing the braided Elbow River
Now on the east side, we bushwhacked up towards a rockband that appeared to be very steep from back at the road. It turned out to be manageable, but with much crumbly loose rock - the theme for the day. We carefully worked our way up through weaknesses in the cliffbands.
Above the first rockband with Banded Peak's east outlier in the background
We continued past treeline, following a gully that eventually peters out and is replaced by some of the nastiest "2 steps up, 1 step back" scree for which you just have to dig deep and get through.
Jeannine gracefully enduring gruelling scree section (photo courtesy Simon)
Angling towards the north ridge seemed to help as the going from over there was much easier.
Gratefully on the ridge with Mt. Glasgow behind
We regrouped at the rockband below the 1st point and got to enjoy some fun scrambling on slightly more solid rock.
Scrambling along the ridge before 1st point (photo courtesy Simon)
With a sheer dropoff on the south side, this portion of the ridge gets narrower in places and offers interesting downclimbing.
Narrowing ridge before 1st point (photo courtesy Simon)
Teresa above a window, with Cougar Mtn behind
Fun scrambling on Threepoint Mtn
The 3 points of Threepoint Mtn (photo courtesy Simon)
From the top of the 1st point it is mostly a walk to the 2nd point, but many kinds of interesting fossils can be found along the way.
Fossils (photo courtesy Teresa)
The south, or 3rd, point is the true summit and can look a bit intimidating until you get up close.
At the col between points 2 and 3 (photo courtesy Simon)
It too is a steep walk until just before the top, where rock bands are encountered.
Rockband just below the 3rd point/summit (photo courtesy Simon)
We enjoyed a long lunch break at the summit, arriving just before 1 pm.
Simon, "Hollywood" Jeannine, and Teresa on the summit with 2 lower points at left
Just to our south was Rose Mtn, almost daring us to come over for a visit. However, unsure about how to negotiate a cliffband that Andrew Nugara describes as "impossible", we decided to proceed with our original plan and descend via Threepoint's west ridge.
Descending the west ridge; in the distance, Cougar Mtn to the left and Banded Peak to the right (photo courtesy Simon)
The ridge bends to the NW then, at treeline, turns west again. The bushwhacking was not too bad. When we finally dropped down into the drainage, we soon encountered a glorious but impassable canyon.
Beautiful canyon (photo courtesy Simon)
We crossed over to the north side of the canyon and continued our bushwhack down to a creek that eventually ends up flowing into the Elbow River. We enjoyed the cool refreshing water and one Rambler even took a private bath.
Refreshing creek break
We followed the creek down and were soon back at our stashed river crossing shoes and subsequently back at our bikes.
Our approximate route up (photo courtesy Teresa)
The bike ride back was quick and fun.
Simon and Teresa happy to be on bikes again; 1st point of Threepoint Mtn behind
Our trip of 29.5 km with 1,270 m total elevation gain, took us just under 10 hours to complete.
Our total route highlighted in red
Many thanks to the intrepid explorers who made it such an enjoyable day: Jeannine,Teresa, and Simon.
Brian, Coordinator