Three Sisters Traverse
Some days the motivation to get the task at hand completed seems to flow from an inexhaustible source, other days it’s hard enough just to get out for a short run around the block. On this day the former certainly applied to myself and Russell. As we met up at the trail head the iconic three peaks were shrouded in a heavy cloud. Feeling optimistic, we decided it was worth at least going to check it out. After a few hours of bush whacking, we poked out of the tree line beneath the smallest peak of the three. After a quick conversation regarding the heavy cloud that was surrounding us, we concluded that it would be worth continuing as it wasn’t raining.
We cruised up the Little Sister, somehow managing to find a good path to its summit without needing to pull out the rope, but we were glad to be wearing our rock shoes. Rapping off the south ridge proved straight forward with existing rap stations all the way down to the col of the Little and Middle Sisters, however we couldn’t help but feel the intimidation of the north ridge of the Middle looming in the clouds directly across from us. The path up its shear north ridge looked improbable to say the least but we were optimistic. Features like this always look more complex from afar.
From the col we weighed our options and naturally opted that we should check it out. Soon we had worked our way on the exposed prow of the ridge where the real business started. This section of the traverse did not go by quickly as the climbing was quite a bit more engaging. Russell did an excellent job leading through the crux, which was a challenging pitch. Fortunately we found a line up the prow without getting terribly off route. We didn’t find any existing belays and only a few pieces of fixed gear along the way. After about eight pitches and six hours of high quality choss wrangling, we finally crested to the top of the Middle Sister. Getting up this peak certainly was an effort, but we were feeling pretty happy to have it behind us now, with just the Big Sister to go.
The route up the Big Sister was supposed to be easy 5th class climbing so we felt all we had to do was put our heads down and grind it out. As is often the case in the Rockies, we ended up getting into more challenging terrain and soon the rope was back out. At this point the clouds that had been looming around all day had finally decided to release some of their moisture and we were now enjoying a light shower as the sun dipped below the horizon. Looking down at the lights of Canmore below, we were so close to town but yet completely on our own. A few more hours on the go and we were atop the Big Sister, aware that we still had decent walk down to the spray lakes road a mere 1300 meters below.
It was now well into the night when we reached the car we deposited almost 22 hours earlier on the spray lakes road. For obvious reasons, we were utterly famished and thirsty and to our disappointment, the only place in Canmore still open was the convenience store, it was 2AM after all. We’d have to settle for hot dogs and coke but we weren’t complaining. A great adventure.