Jenny's Mountain Adventures: The Weekend Where We Lost All Our Stuff - The Fold Mt Kidd and The North Ridge of Wasootch Tower

Gripped Magazine recently published a list of 4 moderate alpine climbs off of Kananaskis Highway. Included in that list was Joy, a great climb we did a few years ago. Based on that, and the raving reviews on the route description, we decided that the Fold on Mt Kidd (11 pitches, 5.8 trad) would be a great day out. We got off to a slow start after having to register for our campsite and relocate the trailer at the crack of 9 when the campers centre opened. Our next obstacle was the fact that the Galeta Trailhead Parking was closed for the spring. We checked the map and saw that were weren't going to be on any closed trails during our approach, but we still had to park on the highway as the gate was closed. It was a long, steep approach but followed a well worn trail and the route itself was very obvious even from the highway. Unfortunately it just wasn's our day. Maybe Gripped hyped the climb up too much or maybe we just didn't do the route properly, but I found this route to be much more of an adventure than I was hoping for!

Looking up at Mt Kidd and the Fold

The route started out of a gully on the left side of the "fold", about 50 metres above the big tree on the ridge. The rock was loose and hard to protect but the climbing wasn't very hard.

Steep approach to the start of the climb

The second pitch made its way up the ridge to a 3 pin belay. Kyle and I were pulling off holds all over the place and feeling uncomfortable with the rock quality. After the 2nd belay, Kyle started up, following questionable beta from our mixed sources of inaccurate topos and confusing route descriptions. In the process of looking for a way up, he knocked off a huge block into the approach gully, which got both of our hearts beating like crazy. After that, we had a quick chat and decided to bail. We weren't quite sure where we were going, were finding the rock quality really sketchy and it was already late in the day with 9 pitches to go. It helped that we were at a belay station with a bail anchor already set up. We replaced the cordelette with our own and rapped down to the climbers right side of the route by Kidd Falls. On the way down, another block was kicked free, landing right on our pile of ropes. Just like that, our two basically new half ropes were core shot. Good thing we were done with rappeling for the day. That was just the beginning of the weekend gear loss fandangle.

Beautiful day, sketchy route

Apparently, in hindsight and a bunch of reading about the route, the rock gets much more solid after pitch 2 and the route is really fun and aesthetic after that. I guess we will just have to come back and redeem ourselves another day, but for the record I am really happy we bailed this time. It was our first time bailing for any reason other than an injury and I felt very good about the decision. We were tired, started late and didn't have a good grasp on where the route went. Unfortunately our ropes were sacrificed in the process but nothing worse than that happened. Oh ya. Somewhere between taking a selfie on top of pitch 2 and reaching Kyle at the bottom of our rappel, I lost my camera. That was another tragedy for the day.

Kidd Falls

Getting off the route early meant we got back to the campground early. We enjoyed beers by the river, giving our feet and calves an ice bath in the mountain run-off. After a campfire and late dinner, we had a nice long sleep and were much better rested for the next day and the next route, the North Ridge of Wasootch Tower (5.7 trad - 7 pitches).

The approach was just as long and steep as the one the day before. Instead of a trail however, it followed a river gully, taking the left fork up to another left fork, getting progressively steeper as we went. The last half hour of the approach was a full on scramble up mostly solid rock to a large left trending corner crack. This was the start of pitch 1 but there was nowhere to put any pro so we decided to solo it. Unfortunately I got to a point where I didn't want to climb any higher without a rope. Luckily Kyle went for it and made the 3 hardest moves of the whole climb in his mountain boots unroped to make it to the bolted anchor above and belay me up.

Scrambly approach to the North Ridge of Wasootch Tower

Soloing the first pitch seemed like a good idea at the time

Much happier to be roped up

Kyle and I actually went back to the route the following weekend and found that there is an alternate approach up the left slope beside the gully. This takes you up a steep trail and is way faster and easier going. You end up skipping the first unprotected pitch and have to do a short, steep direct line to get onto the ridge. If I was doing the route again, this is the way I would do it!

The second pitch went up an arete and followed the corner system up the ridge. While leading this pitch, Kyle somehow dropped his chalkbag down into the gully below. It was just too far away to rappel down to it so we carried on. The thought of his chalkbag being left behind haunted Kyle all week. With that in mind, and rain in the forecast, we did a recon mission yesterday and recovered the chalkbag. Kyle was thrilled, because he had just filled it and didn't want to waste that good chalk! At least one of our lost/ruined items from the weekend was salvaged.

From there, the route traversed a huge gully then zig-zagged its way up a series of ledges. It was easy climbing, but loose and run out. Kyle put in 3 pieces of protection for an entire 60 m pitch and the rope drag was heinous. It was tricky to find out where to go, but Kyle managed to figure out that you have to climb up and over a ridge and belay off a tree at the top of pitch 5.

The route had amazing views the whole way up

Starting the big gully traverse

Happy Kyle - minus one chalkbag

Pitch 6 didn't look like a pitch at all. Instead it was just a scree slope 3/4s of the way up Wasootch Tower. I took the lead on this one, it was so crazy. There was a nice bolted anchor just at the bottom of pitch 7, which followed a dihedral up onto the summit ridge.

Really gnarly loose, run-out pitch

Topping out on the ridge

From the summit ridge, we stayed roped up to continue up to the summit, an awesome grassy plateau, because the rock was pretty loose. There wasn't really anywhere to put gear but it made me feel better. Overall, we barely used any of our rack on this climb. The most useful pieces were our C3 cams with some of the smaller C4s coming in handy occasionally. There were a few pixed pins, some bolted anchors, trees to belay off of and the occasional bolt on the steeper pitches so a small rack of cams and some slings would do just fine.

Kyle belays me along the crumbly ridge

Great views off the summit

At the top of the tower, we had some sandwiches and took in the 360 panorama. It took us about 4.5 hours to do the climb (with 1.5hrs approach and about 1-1.5 hrs descent) and we were back at the truck with plenty of light to spare despite our 1pm start time. The rappel off the summit is just 2 bolts, there were no rings so be aware that you may need to leave some cordelette on your way down. There was a good trail that traversed down from the Gmoser Col but ended abruptly in the river bed which was a bit slow to walk down, but very direct and got us back to the truck in time for dinner.