Mount Chephren is a beautiful difficult scramble on the West side of the icefields parkway just North of Bow Summit. It is well described in "Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies" by Alan Kane. There is a crux at the start of the serious scrambling that is low class 5 rock unless you go far enough to the left of it where the terrain is easier.
I was very lucky to find some experienced scramblers to join me up Mount Chephren and Mount Saskatchewan this week. I met Raff, Allan and Marta at the trailhead for Chephren early in the morning. We decided to do it in 2 days rather than 1 so that we were not rushed and could enjoy the ascent more. It is a long scramble and would take a long day with some hiking by headlamp if we tried to finish it in one day. The bushwhacking around the lake was more difficult than I imagined. There was a lot of lush shrubs that got in the way. The approach trail was easy to follow despite all the shrubs. After the bush ended there was a lot of boulder hoping before reaching camp at the other end. While boulder hopping I was the victim of an unfortunate event. I stepped on some scree and it all started to slide. A big rock in the scree prevented me from escaping and I was pushed into the lake up to my waist. So my boots were soaked and so was my pants and my toque, which was in my pocket. Fortunately, I had dry socks to change into.
After setting up camp we headed up the moraine. It was quite hard and required careful stepping at times to ascend even though there was a bit of a trail up it. After eventually leaving the moraine we had a lot of steep tundra to hike up, which took about an hour. The crux of the climb was actually right at the start. We found the rappel rope left behind some number of years ago by another party. We ascended three 2 meter high sections to the right of it that required some technical rock moves. This was unnecessary because to the left of the rappel rope around the corner was much easier terrain, which we found on the way back. There was a lot of scrambling from there to the summit. It wasn't too difficult though. Near the top we ascended an optional section that was a little technical. It was beside a very impressive rock pinnacle.
The summit had a great view. Unfortunately, the large amount of smoke in the sky detracted quite a bit from the view. The smoke comes mostly from controlled burns nearby in David Thompson Country that had been going on ALL summer long. The purpose of these burns is to stop pine beetle from entering the David Thompson Valley. This would seem to be a futile effort since angry people might introduce the beetles to the valley personally just to stop the smoke from wrecking their views. Even if they did burn a perfect wall the beetles would still find a way into the valley. They are just delaying the inevitable.
Our descent was pleasant and pretty straight forward. We found an easier route around the crux at the bottom. We saw some mountain goats on descent but we weren't close enough for me to get any decent photos.
Once back at camp we enjoyed the awesome meal that Marta had prepared for us. It was very delicious. Thanks Marta. The hike out the next day around the lake was thankfully uneventful. We said goodbye to Marta before heading to Lake Louise for dinner and a beer. Definitely a fun climb with great company

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