Mount Rae Scramble
Always be careful, even a popular route can have unexpectedly dangerous terrain
Mount Rae Scramble
Notable Visited Landmarks
Mountains
Introduction
Mount Rae is a 10.7km, 1040m elevation gain out and back trip to the top of the Misty Range in Kananaskis Country. Although Mount Rae is the fourth highest mountain in Kananaskis Country it requires little more than 1000m of elevation to get to the summit, this is because the trailhead is located at Highwood Pass with road access above 2200m. Rae is typically done in July and August, Kayla and I did it on August 2, 2020 (year 1 of the covid).
Mount Rae is typically class 3 if you bypass the pinnacles, there is a common chimney that can be taken to bypass the first pinnacles, I haven’t done it but from pictures it looks like it is class 4. Kayla and I went straight up the first pinnacle which was class 5. Leading up to the ridge there is loose slab beside hard snow both of which make for dangerous descent routes. Mount Rae may be popular, but it should not be taken lightly.
GPS route from the day
Ascent
Start at the Highwood Pass parking lot, cross the 40 and start heading North. After a minute or two you should arrive at a trail leading to your right, take it. You will immediately start heading up through trees but since you are already pretty high up the trees will subside rather quickly and give way to meadows.
Quickly into the meadows
Follow the trail as the meadows dissipate into rock and you make it to a pass. Cut left at the pass and continue to follow the trail, you will now be able to see the route onto the ridge. Continue up the scree to the snow and slab while you plot out potential ascent and descent routes.
Vegetation is getting more sparse
Higher up in the scree, route we took to the ridge
We went up on the slab, it is important that you bring helmets here because the rock is very loose, you will want to spread out a bit and probably go early in the morning to avoid other parties. I accidentally knocked a couple rocks down towards Kayla. We stayed close to the snow near climber’s left of the rock until we gained the ridge.
Kayla coming up the rock close to the snow
Once on the ridge head North-East, the ridge will start out easy until you get to the pinnacles. If you wish to avoid the pinnacles you should look for a trail in scree breaking off to your left, take the trail to safely bypass the pinnacles. Once you get to the pinnacles if you want to take the chimney, I believe you go right around the first pinnacle, we did not do this though so I am not 100% sure that information is correct. If you want to follow our route up the pinnacles, then attack the first one straight on.
The ridge starts off easy, notice the part Kayla is on can be avoided by using the trail
The first pinnacle is broken into 2 sections separated by a ledge, the first section isn’t bad, but the second section gets pretty steep near the end and the holds aren’t fantastic. On the second section of the pinnacles you will want to stay climber’s right so that you are climbing as little as possible. There is a pretty obvious crack that you should follow up.
Once above this climbing section go North towards Mount Rae, you will have to go up another 2m or so that you are on top of the pinnacle, from here you will have to downclimb a couple of meters with exposure until you are back to safety.
First part of the pinnacle, there are many holds here
Second part of the pinnacle from the ledge, we followed this crack up
Footage of getting to the top of the first pinnacle
Kayla downclimbing the pinnacle
Go around the next pinnacle and then cut left and up until you are back on the pinnacle ridge. Follow it to the next pinnacle, I started ascending the next pinnacle but didn’t make it 1 meter before I determined that the rock was too loose to safely climb. Instead we went left to an obvious weakness and then ascended that pinnacle where the route back to the ridge was then obvious.
Kayla following me up to the pinnacle ridge
Go around the last pinnacle
At the top of the last pinnacle, it is easy to get back to the ridge
Back on the ridge the terrain starts off pretty easy but gradually you become more exposed, at the start I was actually quite disappointed at the start because I had heard that the Rae ridge walk was pretty difficult and it wasn’t living up to my expectation.
We took a nice break on the summit, there was a decent amount of smoke when we went so the views were interesting but not quite as sharp as I would’ve liked, I guess some smoke at the top of the Misty Range is somewhat fitting.
The ridge after the pinnacles starts off easy
More difficult terrain further along the ridge
Smoke at the top of the Misty Range
Looking North-West from the summit of Rae
Descent
Our descent started off by following the trail back towards the pinnacles which we bypassed this time with a trail in the scree to skiers right. When we were back at the bowl, we ascended we started going down on snow. I wouldn’t recommend this, Kayla and I had microspikes and 1 ice axe which I brought in case there was snow on the ridge. We quickly realized that the snow was hard, so I gave Kayla the ice axe and I picked up some rocks and we tried to descend facing inwards. I took a bit of slip bit I was able to stop my momentum and we immediately traversed over to the rock which we came up.
Starting our descent
The exposure on the ridge was more obvious to us during our descent
Descending in the bowl we started off on hard snow, this was not a good idea
Kayla gave me back my ice axe and I gave her my rocks since she can just step in my footsteps I needed the better protection
The rock was very loose and there a lot of parties coming up now, so Kayla and I were very slow on descent. After we were back on trail it was an easy walk to the parking lot. Do not underestimate the hazards of descending this bowl, a couple days later someone fell on the snow and had to be taken out on a helicopter.