Aberdeen and Haddo Scramble
Sometimes glaciers are associated with cold, other times it feels like you are baking in an oven
Aberdeen and Haddo Scramble
Notable Visited Landmarks
Lakes
Mountains
Introduction
Aberdeen and Haddo is a 27.5km 1775m elevation gain out and back trip to 2 of the easier peaks to scramble in the Lake Louise area. There are seasonal trail restrictions that require you to travel in groups of 4 or more in this area from around mid July to mid September to deal with bear activity so be aware of these restrictions if you are planning this trip. We did this trip on July 27, 2020 (year 1 of the covid) in a group of 3 and the restrictions weren’t in effect then, so it is possible they won’t come into effect until later in the year.
The trip involves on trail travel, some bushwhacking, class 2 scree, a class 3 downclimb and climb, and easy snow/glacier travel. The glacier travel is easy, and it isn’t dangerous as long as you stay relatively on course and have appropriate equipment (no crevasses).
This is a fun scramble in the Lake Louise area that will probably get you away from most of the crowds and good experience on snow. Moraine Lake is always packed in the summer, but the Paradise Valley parking lot can’t even fit 50 cars even though it is on the same road as Moraine Lake.
GPS route from the day
Mount Aberdeen
Start at the Paradise Valley parking lot, I suspect you’ll want to get there early, this is the Lake Louise area and once people realize that the Moraine Lake parking lot is full they may settle for a different hike in the area. You will start on trail as it takes you South-West towards Lake Annette. The trail will take you over Paradise Creek a couple times. You will get to a sign that says Lake Annette is only 0.6km away. When you get to this point you will want to break off from the main trail onto an unmaintained trail behind the sign.
Mount Temple with alpenglow in the early morning
Follow this unmaintained trail for a couple kilometers, you will have to pay attention because the trail is easy to lose at places and you may need to backtrack a bit. There was one section that we passed that had a lot of deadfall where it would’ve been bad to trip, and a couple section where the bushes were more than 2m tall. The unmaintained trail ends at an intersection between Paradise Creek and a creek coming off from the North.
Pink indian paintbrush on the unmaintained trail
The unmaintained trail, relatively easy to follow here
Creek coming from the North meets Paradise creek marking the end of the unmaintained trail
From here you will want to roughly head West and a bit North, the gully that you want to ascend is still behind a ridge jutting out from Aberdeen. Try to avoid large clumps of trees when possible, the bushwhack doesn’t get too bad until you are almost finished where the trees get very thick.
The trees get dense at the end of the bushwhack, that speck of white is my Dad
Once you are out of the bushwhack you should be able to look towards the mountain and see that your gully goes into a canyon section. Follow the gully into the canyon section where you will start off on climber’s left of the creek but move to climber’s right across the creek at the appropriate time. We did not cross which made the terrain more difficult. Out of the canyon the creek will vanish, and you will have a good view of the slope up, which when we were there was covered in snow.
Looking up towards the canyon section
Higher up in the canyon climber’s left side of the creek has more difficult terrain
The ascent gully is filled with snow. You can’t tell from this angle but the snow lasts longer than it looks.
We got to the start of the snow slope and I put on my crampons and Kayla and Dad put on their microspikes, we all took out our ice axes. The crampons were not necessary, but I wanted to test them, and they did help. The snow is soft in places, especially near the bottom of the slope, it was much firmer near the top. The grade of the slope also increased a lot further up the slope and you could even ascend on all fours if you wanted to.
Kayla and Dad starting off on the snow slope
The snow is soft in places
Higher up on the slope the grade steepens
As soon as we got off the snow we were greeted with horribly loose scree, if you want to do this trip I suggest earlier in the season rather than later so that you have as much snow as possible to ease your ascent. We followed the scree as far as possible and eventually we reached access to the North side of Aberdeen. There is a trail that you can follow from there to the top, I suggest you take it. The rocks on this final slope are large but they are deceptively loose and in a larger group can be very dangerous.
The views from the top of Aberdeen are fantastic and we took a huge break on the summit I think upwards of a whole hour. I am not actually sure if I saw a cloud the entire day with a projected 15 or 16 hours of sun so there wasn’t any rush for us to get going.
At the top of the gully we gain access to the North slope of Aberdeen which we took to the top
View from the summit of Aberdeen with Temple at right and Haddo at left
Lake Louise and the Icefields Parkway from the summit of Aberdeen
Kayla on the summit of Aberdeen
Haddo Peak
Eventually we did get going though, we went to the East end of the summit towards Haddo Peak and started following the ridge. At the end of the ridge there is a notch leading onto a narrow section where there is awesome opportunity for pictures. It looks like you are on a thin slice of rock with nothing on either side or behind you except air, and there is no trickery! You are quite exposed.
Dad and Kayla starting towards Haddo Peak
Dad is taking filming precautions by taking off his helmet to ensure he is capturing the correct footage
Great place for a picture
After some pictures downclimb the notch and you will be given access to the glacier between Aberdeen and Haddo. The access to the glacier is actually the most dangerous part of the glacier, it is very steep but when we were there the snow was soft and it wasn’t an issue as long as you face in and kick steps down.
We skirted along the outside of the glacier following the tracks left from previous trips by ice climbers. This was the most fun part of the day, the views were great, and the terrain was cool. The snow was so soft that my Dad was running which usually isn’t possible due to bad knees. We left the glacier to the East near Haddo peak and it was an easy walk to the summit from there.
Video footage from the ridge, and the glacier
From Haddo you get a nice view of the glacier on Aberdeen as well as Lake Louise if you go far enough East. We didn’t spend too much time on Haddo before we were descending back to the pass between Aberdeen and Haddo to access the glacier once more.
Dad on the summit of Haddo with Temple at left and Aberdeen with the glacier we were on at right
Lake Louise and the Icefields Parkway from Haddo Peak
The Way Back
Often times glaciers are associated with cold, because of the snow and what not. Well on this day that wasn’t the case. Snow has something like a 10% absorption rate which means that the other 90% of the sun was blasting back at us off the glacier. Since this was a day of 15 or 16 hours of sun as soon as we got back on it felt like we had stepped into an oven.
The incredible heat was also making the snow soft, so we were post holing more. I got off the glacier onto some rock on its outskirts as soon as possible and I followed it for a way until I was forced to get back on the glacier again. The rock is class 3 at worst.
My view from the highpoint on the rock section, Temple at left and Lefroy at right
Dad and Kayla on the Aberdeen glacier as seen from the highpoint on the rock.
We followed our previous tracks back to Aberdeen and took another rest there. We descended back to the snow slope. I thought the snow slope would provide us with a quick descent, but it proved trickier than I thought it would. Dad and Kayla didn’t have crampons and their ice axes didn’t have leashes, so they weren’t as comfortable as I was, they ended up descending a long way facing inwards.
Dad and Kayla descending facing inwards on the snow slope
Once off snow we went through the canyon and bushwhacked back to the unmaintained trail which we followed back to the maintained trail. At this point we were hot and since Lake Annette was only 0.6km away I was able to convince us to take a little visit. The water in Lake Annette was very cold and I wouldn’t recommend swimming there unless you are very hot as I was at the time.
When we were done at the lake, we hiked out on trail back to the parking lot. We took 14:22 hours but we stopped for many breaks to make the most out of the day, if you want to go for speed you could go much faster. This was a great trip and I would recommend it to all scramblers who have the appropriate equipment.
Dad and Kayla almost back at the unmaintained trail
Dad on the unmaintained trail coming back to the maintained trail marked by the sign
Going for a swim in Lake Annette
GPS stats from the trip