Mount Temple is the ultimate scramble. Towering majestically over Lake Louise, this hulking giant, third highest in the southern Rockies, presents a dauntingly impregnable wall of vertical rock capped by perpetual snow and ice.I like it!
- Alan Kane, Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies
A friend and I decided to go for it, but as we had just decided later in August, we knew that we'd have to wait until this year to summit. The season for Temple is very short - generally just a few weeks from late July into August. We started thinking up a 'team': a group of 6 or so would probably be best - large enough to send a couple of people back in case help was needed, and large enough to break into a slightly faster and slower group. In the end, we ended up with just three people: SM (Miss Search and Rescue Extraordinaire), ML (who has no issues carrying a backpack - not a daypack! - over 45km and 2,000m of elevation gain in a single day), and myself (with no serious scrambles under my belt this summer, I felt like I'd be winging it). It's not everyone we thought we'd have on board, but Temple's window had just opened and we weren't going to wait, taking the weekday advantage of less rockfall from scramblers above.
Never before have I spent so much time planning for a single day out in the mountains. It had been rainining a lot recently, and even watching the forecast for our summit attempt proved entertaining at best: it ranged from totally clear, to rain all day, afternoon thunder, and then mostly clear again. For a few days we were ready, just waiting to go for it. The morning of the forecast had changed again to 40% chance of afternoon showers. Those weren't going to stop us.
With 1,700m of elevation gain, I felt that I needed to be sure hat I have enough food and water. Here's what I brought:
A couple of days before we went, it started to feel real - very real. Temple started to feel big. On Monday night I was so excited and wired that I got a whopping three hours of sleep. On Tuesday night - the night before we went - I got an incredible two hours of sleep. I looked at the clock, wondering how on earth I'd stay awake for a mountain with the most elevation gain I've done to date. In the end, I think it was the adrenaline that kept me going. ML arrived in Canmore at 5:20am, and we were off.
Moraine Lake at 7:00am
We were the only ones on the trail at this time of day. A porcupine wobbled in front of us part-way. We headed up the switchbacks making good time, but by the time we reached Minnestimma Lake (at 9:00am), I had to break into my summit reward: a bottle of Coke. I needed the caffeine fix. We took a breakfast break and enjoyed taking photos. It was so incredibly calm and quiet, with still no person in sight.
Minnestimma Lake with Temple summit. I love the atmosphere of this photo;
the sun just started making its way around the mountain.
By the time we reached Sentinel Pass I dug into my chocolate. I needed the sugar fix as well. We strapped on our helmets and gaiters, and set out for the first rock band. The path was amazingly well-defined. We figured that if that's what the rest of the mountain is like, it would be way easier than we had expected.
This sentinel marks the half-way point in terms of elevation gain.
The summit is blocked from this point.
Heading up quickly, views improve by the minute.
This is Paradise Valley.
We quickly arrived at the first rock band. It was a little scrambly, but nothing tough. I'd probably say it's a bit less than the Heart Mountain rock step. Temple's supposed to be a moderate scramble, so what gives? Would it be moderate only due to total elevation gain?
Approaching the first rock step, and the only snow we had on the route.
The second rock band - Temple's crux - gave us what we had expected, what we had yearned for. It consisted of a 5m rock step and a 3m rock step. It was like a riddle where you know there's a way up, but have to figure out exactly how you can make it safely. I tried for a few minutes, but kept feeling off balance. The key was taking the backpack off. Paint markers indicate the spot to the right of a gully.
Second rock band - the crux
Third rock band
After the third rock band it was a straightforward scree/talus walk up to the summit ridge. This is where I started breathing faster, not because we were going fast or anything, but most likely due to the thinning air. Even though the terrain was easy, the last 300m of elevation gain were slow-going for me.
Then, all of a sudden you can see over the ridge ...
... and this is what you see.
Moraine Lake from summit ridge
We spent a fair bit of time at the summit ridge. Mist came and went, and added an almost eerie atmosphere to some photos. We couldn't get enough of it, so lost track of time until we decided to finally push the last 50m to the summit.
And there we were, at the top of the Temple glacier, the one that looks so daunting from the Lake Louise side, the one that is sure to appear on thousands of tourist photos from the day. We looked down the other side to see cars parked for kilometres along the Moraine Lake road. By the time we made our way back down, the tourists had disappeared. We had the mountain all to ourselves. We were so incredibly lucky to enjoy such a quiet day so high up. Summit temperature was a very comfortable and totally calm +5ºC, allowing us to stay for an hour (and practice some ice axe self arrest :-) ).
The way down was straight-forward. We lounged around Sentinel Pass for a while, then a tourist from Florida tagged along as we made our way back to the trailhead. Overall, we were expecting a day much tougher than this. Yes, it was long, but we all felt more beat after some hikes. There seem to be a lot of 'breaks' along this route: the flatness of larch valley, the distraction of Sentinel Pass, and the three rock bands that slow you down a bit. It's not just one big slog up a mountain. We felt that we could have shaved a couple of hours off of our 12 hour trip, but didn't want to give up those breaks. We were out for the full day and we enjoyed every minute of it! Heading home, we experienced the Drake Effect.
Day's reward (apart from the million dollar views):
Chinook burger at the Drake
More photos are on my Picasa.
For anyone thinking of doing this peak, forget Kane. Instead, follow the description in the brand new scrambling guides that Parks Canada has published for a few peaks. Route descriptions are amazingly detailed - much more thorough than Kane - and this was all we needed.
Scrambling Guides for Mount Rundle, Mount Temple, and Cascade Mountain.
So, what's next? We couldn't answer this question right away; this was, afterall, the big one we had planned for. I still want to take Yamnuska's Intro to Mountaineering Camp one day, and there still is Athabasca .... In the meantime, there will likely be more moderate scrambles. Maybe Cascade, maybe Wilcox in the next little while.
For the record, this was our timeline for Temple:
- 5:30am - Leave Canmore
- 7:00 - Start at Moraine Lake
- 8:40 - Break at Minnestimma Lake
- 9:00 - Continue on to Sentinel Pass
- 9:30 - Leave Sentinel Pass
- 12:15pm - Break at summit ridge for photos
- 12:40 - Push for summit
- 1:00 - Arrive at summit
- 2:00 - Leave summit
- 5:00 - Break at Sentinel Pass
- 5:30 - Leave Sentinel Pass
- 7:00 - Back at Moraine Lake
- 8:30 - Drake in Canmore
- 9:45 - Back home
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