Quick Stats: 4.2 Miles & 1,970′ gain via Falling Rock Canyon from Icehouse Canyon. HPS #64
This adventure was one influenced by my mental health, which is something that happens from time to time. I had wanted to do this the day before as part of a larger adventure, but couldn’t get my head right. A day later, I was able to get things under control enough to do Sugarloaf Peak.
I set out from Icehouse Canyon early in the morning, hoping to capitalize on the colder temps bringing better conditions as I knew a good portion of this would be a snow climb. I made my way across the creek to get to Falling Rock Canyon without issue, and then my headlamp batteries were dying. I ended up replacing the batteries with spares I keep in my pack (a good thing to have in your emergency kit) at the start of the route up to Sugarloaf Peak. There was a giant felled tree in what seemed like an obvious route up, and after a couple steps on it to see if I could use it to get into the couloir, I decided the rock scrambling to the immediate left looked far more enjoyable.
And it was! I ended up following what I call the “fun lines,” which are the most fun looking scrambling lines. Sometimes exposed, usually more difficult, I have a lot more fun upping the challenge when I’m out scrambling, so I’m notorious for finding something that still gets you where you need to go, but in a much harder way.
Except this time the fun lines brought me up an adjacent couloir, and I was way off route. It was a while before I realized what had happened, and once I did I kept scrambling over to the rib separating the two couloirs to see if there was an easy way to get back en route. I did this 4 different times– 3 of them ended up cliffing out, until the 4th actually gave me a way to down climb into the proper couloir. I was immediately greeted with a sign that I was back en route to the summit:
After some so-so quality snow climbing, and a cute hike along an overgrown ridge, I found my way to the summit!
Coming down was a lot faster, and a lot easier, since I could now stay in the proper couloir the whole way. The snow quality as I got lower deteriorated and got really punchy, but nothing too terrible. Once I got to the start of the scramble and the felled tree, there was a really dicey section that felt very 4th class to me. I would later learn that this section is classified as 4th class, and that the felled tree with a rope attached is normally an upright tree with a rope attached, and that’s how most people ascend this section. I gave my self some props for down climbing 4th class without having climbed it first. 🙂