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Old School WB - Sep 24, 2012 11:12 am Date Climbed: Sep 22, 2012
North Ridge and traverseGreat two day trip to Mt. Assiniboine which was in perfect conditions on Sept. 22, 2012. Vern D. and I (Kevin B.) approached from the BC side via Assiniboine Creek and Lake to the Assiniboine/Strom Col. Made this col in 5 hours, dropped the packs and walked to the summit of Mt. Strom, simple walk with great views. Spent Friday night at the Hind Hut; had the whole place to ourselves.
We left the hut at 6am and the temperature was +8. We had great scrambling with dry conditions; we scrambled the full North Ridge route without using the rope. We had prefect conditions, there was the odd small patch of snow/ice, but all easy to avoid.
We made the summit in 4 hours. No wind and a summit temperature of +12. We spent nearly an hour enjoying the summit and descended the SW slopes, on route to Lunette Peak. Took us 4 hours to reach the summit of Lunette Peak from the summit of Assiniboine. The SW face of Assiniboine is a nightmare; crazy loose, very exposed and just plain miserable. From the Lunette/Assiniboine Col scramble up Lunette was better quality rock, easy/moderate ledges were choss, but the steeper rock bands were pretty solid, all scrambled no gear or rope used.
Descent to Lunette Lake was a pain, took about 4 hours from summit to reach tree line, but lots of cliff bands above lake were tiring to traverse around, about 8 hours from Lunette summit to truck.