Cataract Peak Scramble/Mountaineering
"It was the best 2 days of my life, I only cried twice" - Kayla McArthur
Cataract Peak Scramble/Mountaineering
Notable Visited Landmarks
Introduction
Cataract Peak is a 56km, 2850m elevation gain out and back trip to one of the lesser traveled peaks in the Canadian Rockies. Because it is so deep into the wilderness, so it is difficult to get to and just under 11000ft (10935ft) so peak baggers choose the 11ers instead, it does not get very much attention. When Kayla and I were there we were the seventh party to sign our names in the summit register which was first placed back in 1930.
There is obviously a long approach to get to Cataract Peak, about 24km to the base. 20 of these kilometers are on trail, through forest and meadows bringing you through great backpacking territory. The lower half of Cataract Peak is a labyrinth of gullies and ledges, which we started going up in the dark, an interesting strategy. I believe that there are many ways you can take that will get you where you need to go but you will need to have good route-finding skills. On the upper portion of the mountain there is a ramp that can take you to the summit ridge which we took on descent, there is a pocket glacier on this ramp close to the summit ridge, if it has snow on it then this trip may only be class 3. If it is ice then you will want crampons and an ice axe. We decided to go up the West Ridge on ascent which is a loose class 5 ridge.
I had been wanting to do Cataract Peak for 2 years leading up to the trip, the views from the top were phenomenal and I recommend this trip to anyone who loves scrambling. Kayla and I did it as a backpacking trip, I suspect under good conditions it could be done in 1 day but it would help to really know where you are going so you don’t lose any time bushwhacking or on difficult ledges on the lower part of the mountain. The mountain itself is the loosest mountain I have been on; I fell to my hands a couple hundred times in the scree so that will slow you down as well.
GPS route from the trip, stats are off from lack of points in this track
Approach
Kayla and I did Cataract Peak as a 2 day backpacking trip, you will have to adjust your trip plan according to how many days you plan on taking and when you want to summit. We started on August 26 2020 (year 1 of the covid) at about 11:00, our strategy was to bivy the first day and climb the peak and head out on the second day so we could afford a later start of 11:00. You start at the Mosquito Creek parking lot (near the hostel) and go to the trailhead which is on the East side of the 93, just North of Mosquito Creek. It will be marked with a sign showing the distances to the destinations in the area.
Destinations in the Mosquito Creek area
You will essentially want to follow the signs and the trails for the first 20.1km to the Pipestone River. Your first stop along the way will be the Mosquito Creek campground 6km in, at the campground go to the area with the picnic tables, there will be a bridge, cross it, the trail picks up from there. A kilometer or 2 later there will be a fork in the trail, there will be a large sign pointing right that says “Molar Pass” do not go right this path leads you to Molar Pass South, you want to go to Molar Pass North which leads to Fish Lakes. If you read the brown sign you will notice that you should in fact take the left path.
Route to bridge at Mosquito Creek Campground
Follow the Fish Lakes sign and go left
The trail will lead you to some meadows, along the way there will be tonnes of Pink Indian Paintbrush, it is my favorite flower so Kayla started to get annoyed with the frequency of our stops for me to take pictures. Eventually the path will take you close to a stream on your left that comes from a pond below North Molar Pass. It appears that the trail continues on the Right side of the stream but this is not the case, right before the stream meets the pond you want to cross it, the trail will pick up and take you to North Molar Pass.
Pink Indian Paintbush
Stream on left from pond up ahead, cross the stream right before the pond
Once at North Molar Pass descend into the next valley and you will soon find yourself back in a meadow. As you go along you will get your first view of Cataract Peak to your left. Continue to descend and you will get to the Fish Lake campground which was a nice spot for a break. We then continued on the trail, there was a fork in the road, and we took the left route marked Pipestone River and followed the trail down to the river. Getting to North Molar Pass is about 800 vertical meters and you lose about 600m getting down to the Pipestone River, it kind of sucks but you have good views at least!
On the South side of North Molar Pass, Cataract Peak at far Left
Upper Fish Lake
Fork in the trail, follow the sign left to the Pipestone River
You will have to cross the Pipestone River, I suggest crossing right where the trail meets the river, that is what we did. There is no bridge and the river is too wide to jump across so you will have to take off your shoes to cross. Once you cross the river head directly away from it for no more than 150m you should run into a trail, we did not know about this trail and ended up doing some unnecessary bushwhacking for quite some time before we met up with it. Once on the trail follow it South-West and eventually the trees will subside and if you look left you will have a view of a clearing with a large waterfall coming from the valley between Cataract and Little Cataract.
Crossing the Pipestone River
The “clearing” is actually filled with bushes and you will need to cross a small creek, you want to aim for just left of the waterfall, you will ascend just left of the waterfall and then stick close to the stream leading into it. Eventually there will be some rocks that provide an easy crossing, cross the creek, and continue to follow it. We chose to bivy at a green patch close to the creek so we would have easy access to water. Note that the water in the creek is silty and it may appear white. We gained about 300m from the river to the bivy site so day 1 was about 24km and 1050m of elevation gain.
In the clearing, aim for the left of the waterfall
Our bivy site below Cataract Peak
Ascent
Knowing that we had a long day ahead of us we got up early so that we were starting on our way while it was still dark. We ascended the scree that was accessible a couple hundred meters from our bivy site and started to move climber’s left. We quickly found out that the scree was incredibly loose. There was one section where if you didn’t place your feet correctly it was 1 step forward 15-20 steps back. Eventually we came to a section where it looked like we would have to rock climb over a wall. We were able to work around this obstacle by putting on our crampons and going up a hard patch of snow to a narrow ledge and working across.
1:scree we used on ascent, 2:where we popped out with access to glacier, 3:West ridge, 4:ramp we used on descent
Kayla about to access the narrow ledge from the hard snow patch
Kayla coming across the narrow ledge
After this obstacle it was back to generally moving up and to climber’s left, this section was more slabby with some loose rock on top. This brought us to a glacier on the North-West side of the mountain, we put the crampons back on and used the glacier to gain the West ridge. The West Ridge started off pleasant, the rock wasn’t too loose, and our views were less limited. It remained class 2 until we were a couple hundred vertical meters to the top and then the we hit the fun part of the ridge which lasted until the summit ridge.
Kayla coming up the tame glacier to the West ridge
You’ll know that you are in the difficult part of the West ridge when you reach a 1.5m downclimb, it isn’t steep, but the ridge is starting to narrow there and there is more exposure. A couple meters after that you are thrown straight into the thick of it with a 6m ish class 5 downclimb.
Class 5 downclimb
After this class 5 downclimb the ridge will start to narrow and get steeper. Go around for the first 5m or so, then climb onto the top as it starts to elevate.
Kayla coming up the narrow section of ridge after the downclimb
The ridge will then start to level off and it will bring you to another downclimb, only about a meter and a half but there really isn’t any room for error.
Coming up on the next downclimb with a good view of the rest of the ridge
Kayla on the downclimb, you have to be precise here
The next downclimb was the crux of the ascent for us. It is only about 2m, but it is very loose and again you have to be precise. I loosed about 20/30lbs of rock on the way down. It is best to face inwards on this one, once I was down, I guided Kayla with my hands in case she lost control. Immediately after that downclimb there is another which we determined to be too steep to downclimb safely, so we traversed around it to the left, there was a lot of exposure.
The loose downclimb
Traversing around the downclimb immediately after
From here the worst of the ridge is over there are a couple more short downclimbs but they are not as dangerous, so if you can get this far you can make it the rest of the way to the summit. Once on the summit ridge it is about 2-3 minutes to the actual summit. The views from the summit ridge are amazing, you should still be careful though because the summit ridge is still loose and you wouldn’t want to fall off.
View South from the summit
View West from the summit
Heading back along the summit ridge
Me on the summit ridge
Kayla at the start of the summit ridge
Descent
We decided that because the West ridge of Cataract Peak was so loose we would take the ramp just below on the North face of the mountain. This was probably a good idea, it still wasn’t great through. We immediately ran into a pocket glacier that could not be bypassed, it led straight to a cliff if you fell. We put on the crampons and took out the ice axes, the glacier was hard snow/ice though so after a few nail-biting minutes we made our way across. That section would be much better if there were more snow.
Taking a break on a dry patch on the pocket glacier, note that the glacier lead straigt to cliffs
After the pocket glacier it was mainly scree the rest of the way with the exception of 1 small snow patch, the rock is extremely loose on this ramp so be careful if you choose to walk close to the cliff as I did. Once off the ramp we were back at the area with the glacier we ascended, we followed it down skier’s right and then cut left towards all the possible descent ramps.
Approximate route to the ramp we descended
We got onto the closest ramp and almost immediately descended to the ramp below. We followed the ramp down and it brought us to an obstacle course. There was water leaking over from the ramp above making most of the rock on our ramp wet. As it turns out the type of rock when wet became very slippery and the only dry sections of rock, we had were very close to the edge of the ramp so we had to risk exposure for the dry rock. After that ramp we crossed a gully got started on another ramp which took us to a nice descent gully.
Start of the obstacle course
Taking precautions for a possible slip
Making sure to avoid wet rocks
We descended the descent gully back to the valley and then followed the creek in the valley back to our bivy site. It took us about 8 and a half hours to go to the summit and back even though it was only about 1100m elevation gain and 8km round trip. This is mainly due to loose terrain, and route finding. You should have good mental preparation for this mountain.
The Trek Out
After we had lunch and packed up the bivy site it was time for the walk out. This time we fixed many of our mistakes from the bushwhack the previous day so the first couple hours we were doing good. Once we crossed the Pipestone River it was time to go uphill again. This was Kayla’s first backpacking trip and she was getting pretty tired at this point especially since she wasn’t used to the extra weight. It was looking like we might just have to bivy somewhere for the night, then just before the Lower Fish Lake we came into a beautiful meadow with the sun blasting off the trees and I was taking pictures, she got her second wind and we were good to go for the last 17/18km of the trip.
Meadow where Kayla got her second wind
Lower Fish Lake
We made it back to the Fish Lakes campground, ate a quick snack, made it back to North Molar Pass just before sunset and we made it out around 23:30. Day 2 was about 1800m of elevation gain and 32km, not including our lunch break we were traveling for about 16 and a half hours. This was a great experience, from the interesting terrain on the mountain to the classic backpacking route. Not many people do Cataract Peak, I think a lot of people are missing out.
Sunset over North Molar Pass