Mount Joffre Assault !

Looking at Mount Joffre (3,450mts)
 


Epic touring trip to say the least early in May as the season is almost over. 

With temperatures raisin quick we needed an early start. So we met at Upper Lake by 5:00am and with headlamps we started the almost 40k traverse. 

Crossing the late was easy, but boring. We soon enough found the trailhead and started our way up towards Hidden Lake. After that, the next waypoint was Aster Lake. Once there and with only 500mts of gain, we crossed the lake and had a great view to our right of Mount Northover, amazing view. To the left would be our objective of the day Mount Joffre (3,450 Mts peak, the highest in Peter Lougheed), but with a glacier to cross and an icy north face to climb we could only had very low expectations. 

The climb to the base of Joffre was nice and smooth. Once with Joffre in front of us we targeted the first ice band visible, with the idea of going to the far right and conquer the summit with little boot pack./ 

We skinned as mush as possible, and then decided to boot pack. I was in the front and stared to set the steps, 500 steps later we hot ice with only about 20cm of non consolidated snow on top. We then decided to put the boot crampons on, which on such a steep slope was quite a challenge !! we probably spent to much time on this "not so safe warm spot" and after a few more slow steps with the crampons and just under a 100mts of vertical to the summit decided to abort and start our descent. 7 1/2 hours and 18.3 kms to this point with almost 1,800mts of vert.... 

We boot pack down to a spot where there wasn't much ice and did the transition. 

Skiing down was fun, very steep at the start, but with nice snow to take some awesome turns. We ski all the way down to Aster Lake in a fairly fast pace. 

We looked back a few times and discuss what other approach we would have taken... well next time Mr. Joffre next time. 

The way down from Aster Lake wasn't that bad, we stayed to skiers' left most of the time and found our way down to Hidden Lake. From there it was less prettier.. bushwhack and soft snow wasn't precisely our definition of fun, but we needed to get it done. Once at the Upper Lake those were the longest 4kms ever to get to the parking lot  .. wow what a incredible day !



Hidden Lake




Aster Lake

Mount Northover





Boot Packing the North Face of Joffre



100mts vertical to Summit Joffre





 

       

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