For the Canada Day long weekend, Thomas Morrissey and I went back to finish up the peaks we missed on our Misty Icefields ski traverse last spring. We managed to borrow a canoe from the UBC VOC, and an electric bike with a kid trailer from Doug Vis to ease our ascent. We started from Pitt Lake with a fully loaded canoe and made it to the upper end in about 5.5 hrs.
We loaded up the packs in the trailer on the e-bike to take the load off our backs, and headed up the Pitt River Main, with Thomas on the e-bike and me on a conventional mountain bike. The mainline was smooth sailing and we soon reached the spur which would take us towards the alpine. The e-bike was a huge help on this and we managed to make it to 1150 m before the battery got dangerously low and we decided to camp. The road is in good bikeable condition all the way to the end at 1400 m, with only some loose spots lower down where we were losing traction and a bit of light alders in the middle.
From the end of the logging road the next morning, it was a short bash through a cutblock to gain the alpine which led to the Remote-Piluk col, where we dropped bags and went for Piluk peak, which was an easy and enjoyable scramble.
Back at the col, we took a direct ridge line route to Remote Peak, which involved a class 4 downclimb. This ridge could be bypassed on the glacier, adding elevation gain (and removing fun!) to reduce the route to class 2.
Back to the col, we plodded down the Piluk glacier and around the lakes to ascend the other side of the valley towards Old Pierre. We found a stellar bivy site near the ridge crest on a natural sandy ledge.
Old Pierre Mountain had looked very intimidating from across the valley, but up close the angle looked more reasonable. We hoped that the SE ridge, which was documented by Alex Romanciuc in his 2018 Misty Icefields video, would be class 4. We left our overnight gear and headed for an evening attempt on the ridge. The ridge is separated into 2 distinct tiers by a notch and flat section. I found the climbing and rock to be somewhat reminiscent of the Blackcomb Buttress, only with many more loose blocks (due to lack of traffic?). There are generally numerous options between mini gullies and aretes. There is a little bit of low 4th class off the ground, then it eases towards the flat section, where we did a class 4 downclimb into the notch. At the start of the 2nd tier is the crux of the route, a left leaning 4th class groove. Above this it is mostly loose 3rd class to reach the summit ridge, which is a spectacular sidewalk-in-the-sky. We found only 3 entries in the summit register over a 50 year period, but unfortunately we found ourselves without a pencil to add our names. The downclimb went smoothly, we saw a 2016 sling around a questionable boulder that the Romanciuc party used to rappel the crux, but we managed to downclimb. We found a hidden ledge on climber’s left of the notch which entirely bypassed the 4th class section we had used to enter the notch earlier. Old Pierre had all the elements of a classic scramble, and I imagine if access was better it would be quite popular!
The following morning we decided we would not have time to do the deep descent and potentially difficult ascent of Pukulkul Peak, so we decided to take the ridge directly from our campsite to Skayuk Peak, which was fun 4th class scrambling on several gendarmes. The 4th class could probably be avoided by dropping off the ridge when needed. From Skayuk Peak we dropped down onto the glacier north of Old Pierre and crossed over to an unnamed P100 where we got a direct view down to the lake from which we skied down to the Stave River last year.
From there is was a long slog retracing our steps all the way back to the logging road and bikes, which allowed a rapid descent back to the Pitt valley. With time to kill, we took the detour up the valley to the fantastic Pitt River Hot Springs, where we soaked and spent the night. The following morning we woke up early to ride back to the lake and canoe back out.
This was a great trip to a rare area that I hope more people get to visit! The style we did it in was lots of fun but with a motorboat and powerful e-bikes it could maybe even be squeezed into a weekend.