Bluerock (Roca Azul) Ridge and Summit, just before the close the gate for the 2020 season..

 

Bluerock Summit 

One more Ridge in Sheep River Provincial Park before they close the road until June 2021. Over the last few months I have joined Ken and Pete for some adventures in that area, and every time we have been running/hiking we kept seen Bluerock Mountain ! Magnificent ridge, three false peaks along a ridge 3.5kms long..... we discussed a few times and Ken said, next summer guys.
Last Friday I saw a post on Facebook, some guys just climbed it ! And the views were stunning. I like it (literally) and at the same time Ken sent me a message about the same post to what I replied “why wait till next summer?”. ken sent an email to Pete and I and explained the logistics. We set on an Alpine Start of 6:00am to catch the Sun Rise at the top of the Ridge and bank for 10 hours round trip.




We ran 7.5kms in the dark before starting the scramble to the ridge. Temperature was just above 0c and we needed to stay dry so that the rest of the day was comfortable. After an hour twenty we arrive to the beginning of the scramble. We stopped for a few minutes to put on extra layers to face the strong winds for the next 3 hours. As soon as we went up the first false summit the wind was so strong that it was difficult to stay on our feet !! we were literally been blown sideways for the remaining 3kms.


  





Cave
Next stop was the cave. We had a bite to eat while resting from the strong winds and prepared for the Crux (a gully that would require an axe and spikes)







Getting ready for the crux, axe and spikes were needed



To me, this was the most exciting part of the trip, a real gully where you need to use axe and spikes to climb up what seems to be around 50 to 60mts long. 
Once we passed this, then one more false summit before getting to the real top of Bluerock !

We made it to the summit in 4:15. Got a nice picture and started to travel down. At this point, the most challenging part was the gully.. coming down is quite tricky and have to be extra careful. 
The wind was getting calm, and the descend felt easier. 
We made it back to the car in 7:15, record time for us since we were banking 10 hours !! had a beer and drove home thinking about the next adventure.   




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