01

Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

Narao Peak
  • Location: Yoho National Park
  • Activity: Scrambling
  • Height: 2,974 m (9,758 ft)
  • Elevation Gain: 1,260 m (4,134 ft)
  • Distance: 12.9 km / Round Trip (8.0 mi)
  • Avg Steepness: 11.1°
  • Estimated Time: 5-8 hrs
  • Technicality: Advanced
  • Fitness Level: Hard

Above stats is up to where I stopped.

Back to Back to Narao Peak, however this time I went for the summit with snowshoe approach not yoyo skiing like last week . From the previous visit, I figured out that gaining to ridge above treeline is steep but dry, so despite this one is rated moderate I was confident that at least I would be able to go high enough to enjoy the day. So failure in my mind, I headed out to Yoho.

In general, there isn’t much route-finding required. From Lake O’Hara parking lot, follow Lake O’Hara road for 2 km (waypoint Trail Sign). You will see trail sign on left (east) of the road. I am guessing there is a trail but this is winter, trail was obviously covered by snow so I simply followed the same track I used from last week to go up to treeline which is about 500 m elevation from the parking. I tried to keep up with the expectation of snowshoers from skiers by making sure destroying the track. Either you are skiing or snowshoeing, waypoint Big Rock is a good place to have snack and enjoy the magnificent Cathedral Mountain. From here to the north end of ridge, I had to navigate myself to avoid few snow deposits just to be safe beside that I could mostly walk on shallow snow or rocks. When I got to the ridge top, I was wowed by the other side’s scenery. From here on it was pretty much hike with wow view for a while until ridge became more challenging towards the summit. I was still able to scramble up or find another way but at last around 2800 m, I got blocked by snow. Only choice I had was a line with difficult scrambling. I tried and I was able to scramble up as long as I could still grab rocks, but still I got blocked by snow, so I turned around.

Despite this ended as attempt as I thought this might, I still recommend Narao Peak. In my opinion, Narao is one of my favorite winter scrambles so far.

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Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

View from Big Rock rocks!

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Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

Cathedral Crags & Cathedral Mountain.

04

Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

Little farther from Big Rock.

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Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

Gaining elevation.

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Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

At the north end of the ridge. (○゚ε^○)v

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Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

Getting closer to scrambling part.

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Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

Summit in sight.

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Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

This is where I turned around. You can't really see my struggle with snow in the picture… I could only imagine if it was summer, I could go farther along the wall to find a weaker point but I didn't have such option.

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Narao Peak Attempt | 2011-03-06

Hoar on a rock I kicked.

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