Mt Begbie

Last weekend we decided the summer sunshine and heat were really all too much and we went and found ourselves some snow and ice pellets! Well, it wasn’t exactly intentional, but we certainly found them :-)

But that belies what was actually a really great trip - up Mt Begbie, just out of Revelstoke, at the northern end of the Monashee Mountains. After a rather leisurely departure from Kelowna on Saturday morning, we walked up that afternoon to a lovely camp spot at the edge of the alpine (~2000m asl), looking down over Revelstoke and the Columbia River.

Neil coming into the alpine zone near our camping spot for the night

Home Sweet Home for a night

That night we were both woken by bouts of heavy rain, but fortunately the morning dawned relatively calm and we headed up from camp towards the glacier. The glacially carved rock terrain above the campsite was fascinating, with its bands of quartz and linear scour marks. We skirted the old glacial ice and headed up across the snow to the start of a ledge that cut its way across the rock buttress to the prow of the ridge. The schrund at the edge of the rock was pretty deep and wide, with a very convenient tongue remaining across to the ledge.

Scoured rock, overlooking the Columbia River and Revelstoke township

Looking up at Mt Begbie - our route skirted the glacier on the right to the obvious ledge that cuts from left to right, then up the skyline ridge

Frances makes the first foray onto the snow

Once on the ledge, there were a couple of exposed, narrow sections where we belayed each other through, before the ledge widened.

Checking out the way ahead - ok, time to rope up, we say

The scrambling up the ridge was wonderful – lovely solid rock. The mist had really come in by that stage but we were following cairns (plus adding a couple more), and it seemed before we knew it there was nowhere further upwards to go.

Hmm, you get to use your imagination to fill in the view....

We could only imagine how beautiful the views are from the ridge on a sunny day, but the enveloping mist lent a peaceful air to the place and it was wonderful to be up there. Unfortunately, once on top, the mist started throwing ice pellets at us and the pause there was brief before we headed back down.

Working our way down the ridge in the mist

Once the sky had run out ice pellets, we started to get big fluffy snowflakes instead, but the downwards route was good fun and we were back to the ledge soon enough. We had tossed up the idea of abseiling off the ledge before the narrow section, however with the way the schrund looked we ultimately decided to repeat the belay back across the narrows and retrace our steps off the end of the ledge onto the glacier.

So, ah, not much beneath your feet then?! Having fun though :-)

Enjoying the big fluffy snowflakes, about to leave the ledge for the glacier snow

We wandered back to camp as the sun came out (of course!) and enjoyed a leisurely second, or was it third?, lunch, before decamping and pounding our way down 1300 m to the car.