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Castle Mountain offers the climber a world of beautiful climbing on superb edges, jam cracks, and juggy roofs, all on hard Dolomite Limestone.
Canada Day, July 1st, Hot, dry, and a day off. I had a very unsure idea that I could climb Castle that day via a new route; I just had to find someone. So I gave a good friend of mine a call, Fred Sampson, and he agreed to go pretty fast.
So there we were, in the parking lot heading up for the kill, 11:30am. The grueling sun was taking a good toll on us, exposed on the trail up the south - west slopes of Castle. The Lookout is a marvelous place for many hikers, to view the Bow Valley from an aspect not many people actually see. We studied the cliff of Lookout Buttress. There is a prominent open book that can bee seen strait up from the lookout.
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Lookout Buttress seen from the gully approach.
The Approach:
From the lookout, hike straight into the bush, a rock gully will be coming straight down the mountain slope. Follow this drainage to a series of rock bands going through the gully. Follow a faint trail around on the left side of the cliffs. At the foot of the Cliff, head slightly left to the first gully system, below a large roof (150 – 200 feet up), I built a large cairn in the gully, and avalanches may get this winter?
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Lookout Buttress, a very prominent roof can bee seen two pitches off the ground. There is a five six-inch crack in the back of the roof on the left side. |
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Another Little Sweat Box
This Topo was drawn for the use of climbers to help aid their way up the mountain. At the time of this printing there are NO BOLTS on the upper half of the route. The only bolts that are there are on Pitch 1(1 bolt station), Pitch2 (2bolt station), Pitch 3(2 bolt station + A0 move 1 bolt). I have used a key on the Topo and should be studied carefully; I have put in the stations where I intend to install them, next summer.
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Another Little Sweat Box 5.10a A0 (10c free?)
I have not yet freed this move, but Fred free climbed the move seconding. |
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The upper corner / open book / dhihedral
Whatever you want to call this section of the climb is by far some of the nicest climbing on this route. After climbing through the roof area, there is a large scree ledge, scramble around these large over hanging faces, on the right. There is a PIN station with a bomber nut. Climb just to the left of this up good rock to another Ledge, head left 10 m, climb the wet corner to the base of a large open book. Up the book.
The upper last headwall is the wildest pitch, I stopped two-thirds the way up on a small perch, I was running out of rope from climbing the chimney roof off the belay. The proposed belays will have a shot pitch over the chimney roof and then the face as one pitch to the top, a full on 45-50M 5.8, 2.5’’ - 4’’ crack, bring extra big stuff.
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The upper corner system and the lower left hand corner is the large roof on pitch 3. The small blue dot under the roof is the A0 move and bolt. |
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