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Niblock to Whyte to Devil's Thumb | 2011-08-21
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Above stats are to Mount Niblock, for Mount Whyte, see page 10, and for Devil’s Thumb, see page 18.
Well, Mr. I don’t understand route description decided to ignorantly persuade himself Mount Whyte is an easy-difficult and it wouldn’t be any problem soloing. By doing so he also convinced himself it’s not worth spending time opening Kane’s book (why did you buy the book then?) or researching on the Internet.
Approach:
Took a trail to Lake Agnes from Lake Louise. At the west end of Lake Agnes, I went off trail to bouldering field. I saw two big good looking cairns from the trail which I bet created by non-outdoor people. The cairns indicted nothing. Actual trail to Niblock is on hiker’s right (north) on greenery not on bouldering field at least near the lake.
To Mount Niblock:
Up to the lake it was so easy hike, but beyond the lake it made 180 degree turn to slag slag slag on rather hard scree. From the Lake Agnes I could see there was rockband about half way up. It’s really easy to see where the weakness is because rock/dirt debris piled up right below the weakness. Scrambling up this rockband was somewhat more difficult than its angle because the rock was rounded by water.
After the rockband, terrain flattened for a bit and I saw couple of bivy spots. There was another rockband continuing from east ridge, so I had to aim little to left to go around it. At this point trail became less visible, but cairns were placed more frequently, so keep looking. See page 20 for route line.
From Niblock / Whyte col, the first obstacle was about 3 m high rock with crack in the middle (page 7). On the way up, I followed a trail going around this rock to climber’s right (east), but I found that on the way down, scrambling up this rock leads to easier route, so I recommend to scramble up this rock. The way to the summit seemed uncertain at some point after this but surly trails and cairns lead me to the summit.
To Mount Whyte:
Trail to Whyte became even less visible compared to Niblock which is quite understandable considering the difficulty of this summit, which is according to my intuition, easy-difficult, but in reality it was well above average difficult. It’s a good idea to stop and look at the Whyte from connecting ridge to determine the route. See page 12 for route line. Whyte is pretty much protected by walls from col route. On the other hand, the wall is the only the major difficulty and rest are ok.
Descent:
I took an alternate descent route. By guessing I determined that I need to get down to Plain of the Six Glaciers Trail, but what I didn’t guess was, I wasn’t supposed to go straight down to the trail, which Kane does mention in his book. By doing so my way was all blocked by cliffs… In the end, I had to bushwhack and traverse south of Whyte’s east ridge all the way to Devil’s Thumb (page 18). It was Devil who saved me!! From this mistake, I believe I was supposed to aim rather 6 glaciers’ teahouse instead of Lake Louise before getting to the treeline. However I also saw a trail traversing to Devil’s thumb. I went way below the trail, but if I did found the trail, I probably didn’t have to suffer as much as I did. See page 19 for lines.
From Devil’s thumb, I took a loose gully down to the same trail I took on the way up near Lake Agnes. This gully is a major rockfall hazard, so if you are with others, be careful.
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