Spionkop Ridge to Loaf Mountain

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Spionkop Ridge
  • Location: Castle-Crown Wildness
  • Activity: Scrambling
  • Height: 2,576 m (8,452 ft)
  • Elevation Gain: 1,085 m (3,560 ft)
  • Distance: 15.2 km / One Way (9.4 mi)
  • Avg Steepness: 4.1°
  • Estimated Time: 3.5-6 hrs
  • Technicality: Advanced
  • Fitness Level: Moderate
I saved the best for the last of July long weekend. Perhaps this was one of the most joyful ridge walks I have done. It was well worth denying to stay in town and babysit my little princesses on Canada Day. Sorry sis.

Access:
Go west on Spread Eagle Rd from HWY 6. At the dead end, go north and follow the road. Unfortunately after the flood, one of bridges were damaged and they closed the road, so I had to park at the gate not at the trailhead. However this only added 1.2 km (one way) on bike and fording sin deep creek, so it was really nothing.

Approach:
Follow the road all the way to its end. Then follow a trail right after that. I know I would be a great guide book author. I dumped my bike somewhere closer to my descend gully.

The trickiest part of the trip was the confusing trails near a waterfall. I made the same mistake with my previous trip here too. Where I marked as "Find Right Trail", there are few trails. The trail to Spionkop is not easy to find, instead you will more likely to follow other trails. I can't really tell you how to find the right trail since I was confused and went around and around just like I did with my previous trip... However if you come to the waterfall, you are already on wrong trail. Trackback and try to find a trail which goes west not south.

To Spionkop Ridge:
From col follow the ridge. The difficulty start at last 150 m elevation to the summit of Spionkop Ridge. Scrambling wise it's just bunch of easy scrambling, however it is a sustained steep slope and bad rock quality make this part more than easy scrambling in my opinion. So I say this is moderate scrambling.

To Loaf Mountain:
From col follow the ridge. It was nothing but hiking to the summit.

Descent to Valley:
From what I could tell, the first or the second big gully from the Loaf Mountain were the safe bet. The first big gully (page 22) was just scree slop all the way down. I took second gully to descent which required more route-finding than the first gully. The second gully was surrounded by big cliffs except one spot, so you have to aim that spot or otherwise you will be in trouble. Please see page 27 for how I went down.

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Rumor says it. A week ago when a sumo wrestler came here. He was so heavy, he broke this bridge and now the road is closed.

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Gas company does good job keeping the road very nice.

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Summit of Spionkop Ridge.

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Bear digging.

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Loaf Mountain.

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Crossing this pretty stream near the waterfall I mentioned in route description. This also means I am on wrong trail.

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Loaf Mountain.

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I do like to come back here and stay overnight.

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Sun evaporating snow.

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At Spionkop-Loaf col. Pretty.

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View of the other side from the col.

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Spionkop. Looks there is some challenges to get up there.

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Very pretty.

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From a high point between col and Spionkop. Now Spionkop Ridge do look like a ridge rather than a peak.

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I elected to go slightly left side of the ridge (east aspect).

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Easy scramble but long steep slope with lose rocks.

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Peaks in Glacier NP, AKA soon to be part of Canada once I become the prime minister and I will trade Glacier NP with Niagara Falls.

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Pano from summit.

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Loaf Mountain
  • Location: Castle-Crown Wildness
  • Activity: Scrambling
  • Height: 2,639 m (8,659 ft)
  • Elevation Gain: 1,485 m (4,872 ft)
  • Distance: 31.5 km / Loop (Spionkop Ridge Traverse) (19.6 mi)
  • Avg Steepness: 5.4°
  • Estimated Time: 9-12 hrs
  • Technicality: Intermediate
  • Fitness Level: Hard
To Loaf.

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At the summit of Loaf. It was very interesting to see low clouds hanging around just around front range of Castle all day long. But it wasn't so interesting once I was in the low hanging clouds.

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Red bowl.

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Red ridge continues.

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Little better visibility.

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The ridge continued more but I had to get down.

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This is the 2nd bowl from the summit where I descended.

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Unlike the first bowl, majority of 2nd bowl is surrounded by big cliffs. In order to avoid them, I aimed the snow patch then from there I descended straight down to the valley where there was on cliff.


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