Ball and Beatrice Scramble
The best views come with a large price, but Mount Ball is worth every second of the stuggle
Ball and Beatrice Scramble
Notable Visited Landmarks
Mountains
Introduction
Ball and Beatrice is a 29km, 2168m elevation gain, class 3, out and back trip taking you to the top of the second highest mountain in Kootenay National Park and Beatrice Peak. Don’t let the statistics fool you though, the difficult terrain adds the equivalent of probably at least 10km and maybe another 500m elevation gain. To illustrate my point it is usually done as a backpacking trip but we did in one long 16:25h day. The bushwhack to get to Mount Ball is one of the worst you will likely encounter on your trips in the Canadian Rockies, and after the bushwhack there is mainly just scree. This shitty terrain is reason for most people to be bitter in recounting their trip, but the views from the summit are the best I have ever seen and they more than make up for it.
Michael, and I did Ball and Beatrice on August 10, 2020 (year 1 of the covid). Not wanting to wait for the sun we started about 5:15 in the dark. We Soon learned that the sun was in fact out, as we suspected it should be, there was just so much cloud cover that hardly any light was getting though. Trudging through the bushwhack and realizing that the summit was engulfed in clouds made the mental battle even more difficult (I didn’t want to have no views at the summit and then have to go back up Haffner Creek another day when there weren’t any clouds). I kept telling myself that the dew point would rise as the air warms up and sure enough just as we got to the summit the final clouds were clearing from the top. After 8 long hours we enjoyed what we had went there for.
Please take note that the most dangerous part of the day is the bushwhack. There is sooo much deadfall we probably had to travel over a couple thousand logs that day and all the deadfall is engulfed in high fireweed so you don’t always know what you are stepping on. If you aren’t careful you may trip and impale yourself on a log. You also have to watch out for decision fatigue. Endless micro route finding in the bushwhack may lead you to grow weary and make bad decisions.
GPS route from the day, stats are off from lack of points in this track
Approach
Park at the Marble Canyon day use area and cross the 93 to the Marble Canyon Campground. The previous year when Michael and I did Quartz Ridge we parked at the water tower in the campground and we got a warning from the park. Once in the campground head along the South road until you see a dirt path breaking off to your right this will get you started on the closest thing to a trail that you will for the day. Michael and I did not know this, so we went to the water tower and started off our trip bushwhacking to Haffner Creek.
Try to follow the trail as best as you can there may be orange or pink and silver striped ribbons that mark paths to follow. You will want to stay climber’s left of the creek as it canyons off. After the canyon I suggest you stay high to the left of the creek. We did this for the most part on the way back and found that the terrain seems slightly better. If you head back down to the creek soon after the canyon subsides you will quickly get into some of the worst deadfall in the valley.
Some of the worst terrain we faced during the bushwhack
Keep plodding up the valley and you will reach a clearing of rock; this will be a nice couple minute break before you are back whacking bushes. Continue towards the headwall that will lead you into the valley between Ball and Beatrice. As you get closer to the headwall the bush becomes pretty thick. There was a lot of dew on the plants the day we went so naturally our pants were completely soaked and our shirts were about 60% soaked adding to the fun experience!
Once at the headwall we decided to go climber’s left and cut right at a break just at the top. I believe there is a common route going climber’s right as well. As you head up the slope the bush will start to thin and you will start to gain hope as the bushwhack is about to end.
Approximate route up the headwall, seen from the base of the headwall
Once above the headwall we continued into the valley towards Ball and Beatrice. After a couple of minutes, we were out of the bushwhack for good. The valley will be layed out in front of you with scree on the right side and a flat rocky surface on the left side. The rock on the left will subside deeper into the valley until there is only scree. There is a short wall that leads to the flat rock so to gain access you should stick on the scree until you move past the wall. When the flat rock subsides head climber’s left into the scree bowl before you.
Flat rock on the left side of the valley and scree on the right side, stick to the left side of the valley
Red dot shows valley where to aim for deeper into the valley
Mount Ball
Once in the scree bowl start heading up, after a while you should have a good view of some of the major landmarks on your route, including Beatrice, the buttress, the “waterfall” you will ascend, and the descent gully. You want to aim for the waterfall, there isn’t actually a lot of water there, the just a trickle so there isn’t too much to worry about. Once above the waterfall you will be back in scree, head up and to climber’s right until you gain the ridge between Ball and Beatrice.
1:descent gully, 2:Beatrice, 3:waterfall
Once on the ridge head South-East towards the buttress. The buttress is class 3, if there is fresh snow there as there was for us then it could be pretty fun. I note that the wind once we got on the ridge was horrible, probably about 60kph with larger gusts. I do not know if it always like this, but you might want to prepare just in case. Once on top of the buttress you will lose some elevation as you descend onto the ascent slope of Mount Ball. The common route up is to stick climber’s right on the West face of the mountain until you gain the summit ridge and then head North-East to the summit. We took this way on descent but on our ascent we decided to go straight up the glacier since we brought crampons and ice axes, there was no difficulty on the glacier and we popped out on the summit ridge having to go North-East a ways to the summit.
Mount Ball at left and the buttress at right
Descending to the ascent slope of Mount Ball, the classic route bypasses the glacier climber’s right but we went straight up the glacier on ascent.
Michael straying close to a glacier while descending the butress.
At the top there was crazy wind, so kept going past the summit to the North-East to the edge of the ridge, there were cornices on the ridge so watch out. At the North-East end of the summit ridge we broke off to the South and went down about 15 vertical meters to a more wind protected spot where we had a beautiful view of Shadow Lake. Despite all the wind we still spend at least half an hour on the summit, Michael had soaked his shoes in a marshy area earlier and he dried out his feet somehow, it must have been freezing! After our break we went back along the summit ridge to the South-West side and descended snow covered scree back towards the buttress.
Unreal view over Shadow Lake into the Sunshine area
Looking towards the Lake Louise area
Summit ridge of Mount Ball and view from the summit
Beatrice Peak
The route to Beatrice Peak is straightforward. First walk down the scree back towards the buttress, ascend the buttress, and descend the buttress on the other side. There is a pretty big crack in the buttress that you can jump over for fun! Once you descend the buttress it is class 2 scree to the top of Beatrice. By this point the weather was good for us so we took an enjoyable break on Beatrice and soaked in the good views.
Descending towards the butress.
Crack on the buttress
Mount Ball seen from Beatrice Peak
Looking towards Stanley Peak and the Lake Louise area
Descent
Once finished on Beatrice head North towards Stanley Peak, you will shortly see a gully on your left. This is the descent gully, the rock there is loose and there was a lot of snow in the gully when we were there. It is a good idea to bring an ice axe for this section of the trip. Once you exit the descent gully you will be in the scree bowl before the waterfall that you were ascending, the path back to the parking lot is clear, you just need to go back the way you came. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done the bushwhack back is I suppose a bit better since you are going downhill, but it actually took us longer since we were getting tired by this point.
During the bushwhack we tried to stay high on skier’s right of Haffner Creek, this worked out as well as you could hope for the bad terrain. As soon as we decided to go closer to the creek we arrived in the worst part of the deadfall. As I mentioned in the introduction by this point, we were suffering from decision fatigue. Try to make the best decisions you can, don’t cross the creek on narrow logs like we did. No injuries other than cuts were sustained but one fall and we could have sprained or broken an ankle.
Snow in the descent gully
Worst of the deadfall
In the end I was thoroughly pleased with this trip, it was a long day and the terrain wasn’t great, but the views were fantastic. If you are a masochist then this trip is for you, if you are not then you may want to steer clear of this one, maybe check out some of the video footage I captured before making a decision.