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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
Mount Lawson
- Location: Kananaskis Country (Highway 40)
- Activity: Scrambling
- Height: 2,795 m (9,170 ft)
- Elevation Gain: 1,210 m (3,970 ft)
- Distance: 9.8 km / Round Trip (6.1 mi)
- Avg Steepness: 13.9°
- Estimated Time: 5-8 hrs
- Technicality: Advanced
- Fitness Level: Hard
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Above stats does not includes my scout to Mount Inflexible.
I parked on Fortress Ski Area access road. Sometimes the most difficult part of scrambling or hiking is to find trailhead and Lawson was that. I found at least 2 good trails growing near where the true trail supposed to start but these trails didn’t go anywhere near where I wanted to go. The best one I found started not in middle of the turn but at the end of the turn. There was kindly a cairn to indicate the correct trailhead. However even with this trail I had to go off-trail for a short distance and there were few intersections to confuse me. So be sure to know which direction you should be aiming or you can easily get lost in wood.
Once I go to ascent gully, it was straight forward. There were 2 small waterfalls on the way, I am sure there are trails to avoid scrambling on these waterfalls. The second waterfall I surely found a trail (page 3), but for the first waterfall I didn’t bother looking. This gully lead me to a long steep ridge which made me think it would continue to heaven… However disappointingly it didn’t and stopped at summit ridge around 2800 m. It took only few minutes to get to the summit once I was on the summit ridge.
I heard stories about descending in snow condition. I was lucky there was already snow gully formed from recent cold weather and the snow condition was just perfect for dipping foot for descent. It was time, energy and knee saver.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
Mouseover for lines. Left is ascent route, right is descent snow gully route.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
I found a good trail where my pole is pointing after the first waterfall.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
Mount Inflexible. Looks like Mount Fox from this angle.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
Mountain condition certainly improved since early September. Snow's melting.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
Finally the end of steep ridge walk.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
Left to Lawson, right to Inflexible.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
After boring but steep ascent, change in views and easy ridge walk to the summit was reward.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
I decided to go for Inflexible.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
Traversing to Mount Inflexible doesn’t sound easy in Kane’s book, but he didn’t mention anything about technicality. I found that I could not simply stay on ridge top. Nearing Lawson/Inflexible col, terrain became combination of big slabs and rockbands. I had no choice but to lose elevation to avoid these. I eventually had to go lower then the col. Looking Inflexible from where I was, going back up to ridge to get to the summit is also questionable to me. There is one big rockband that I am not sure if you can go over near what appeared to be the summit. Also lower section of it is huge slabs and I didn’t like to go there when snow was already there. The route which I think has the most chance is North Kent/Inflexible col-ish approach. Mouseover for zoom.
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Mount Lawson | 2010-09-27
Lost energy and motivation to keep going so I decided to return hummm…
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