Have you ever been so certain in a wrong approach that you willed a route into existence? I did on this day.
Parking isn’t permitted at the cement plant so we parked at Grotto Pond. From Grotto Pond we trended in the correct general direction until we picked up the trail.
After some hiking toward our objective, an obvious trail emerges leading up the ascent ridge through the trees and toward the first cliff band.As we rose above the trees, views opened up over Lac des Arcs and surrounding peaks.When we reached the cliff where we should have found a line to the left and up, I was distracted by the beautiful rock and wasn’t too concerned about the turn since I recalled reading that there was an alternate line below a cliff. It’s an easy enough mountain that I didn’t bother pulling out the book to re-read the description. We continued on our way, staring up at the distracting cliff, and trending to the right below it.The first part of the line was easy and even had a decent trail. The turn we should have taken is behind this cliff.As the traverse below the cliff tapered out, the terrain got looser. We saw the ridge we wanted to get to and picked the easiest line up to it. Even though there was little in the way of a trail by this point, I reasoned that this was because the main route was more popular – not because we were not, in fact, on a route at all.Dan turns to follow up behind me from the end of the traverse (and the end of any semblance of a trail).Nevertheless, we reached the summit ridge. The last part of the slope was steep and loose, but it worked. Dan can be seen nearing the top of the slope here left of center. Terrain up this slope was on wet, gravely, loose slab.Looking ahead as I follow the summit ridge in the direction of the peak, which appears as the high point on the right in this photo.Following the final section of the summit ridge. A few people can be seen sitting at the peak.We reached the peak, still convinced we had taken Kane’s alternate route – I even made a note of this in the summit register. Grotto Mountain can be seen in the background to the west.Looking east to Loder Peak.Summit panorama.The traverse to Mount Fable was still looking a bit snowy, so we called it a day here.Returning back along the summit ridge. We chose to make a loop and return by the more popular route, descending to the right rather than to the left from whence we came.The block ahead in the ridge is considered the crux by many. The scrambling looks intimidating, but the holds are all there and I found it to be good fun once I was actually on it. It’s never beyond moderate scrambling. Another party had seen our “creative” ascent line and asked about returning that way to avoid this section. I hope I persuaded them that it was too loose and tedious, and that it would be too easy to miss the correct turn leading back to the main route.I paused on our descent to admire the views from some interesting rock formations.Below the rock formation is a section of loose, tedious scree – shorter than the scree on the route we’d taken though.
We returned back to our vehicle on an obvious trail, with a round trip time of 6 1/2 hours. It wasn’t until we were driving home that I opened my book to make notes on our route, parking etc. and realized that Kane’s alternate route goes left under the cliff, not right. We were so confident that we were on-route, that we followed the line all the way to the peak without hesitation. If I were going back to do this one with a friend, I would insist on sticking with Kane’s main route. There is one section of moderate scrambling, but the rock is solid and the movement felt secure. The route we took is loose enough for significant rock fall, particularly likely to result in injury on a mountain as popular as this one.
Peak Bliss 