Mt. Chester

Note for July 8, 00: - We started from the parking lot at about 10:00. The route to go to Chester Lake is 4 Km's in total. Follow the directions from "Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies." The weather was once again over-cast. The climb is a great one. I would recommend doing it when there is still some snow going up to col. That makes for a fun glissade on descent. The scrambling is pretty solid. While we were going back to the parking lot, from chester Lake, after the descent, we got POURED down on. Even after getting rained on and losing a BRAND NEW can of Bearspray, I still had an excellent day out. This scramble is fun.

Dates Summited -July 8 00(Kyle)

Elevation -3054m(10,019Ft.)

Elevation Gain - 1150m

Location - Smith-Dorrien Area

July 8, 00- Here is Kyle (left) on the summit. I climbed this with my friend Ben. In the background, right above my head is Gusty Peak. I know it doesn't look like a summit photo, but we couldn't find the cairn cause it was covered in snow. But trust me, I am on the summit! The Peaks surrounding Chester Lake had alot of snow on them at this time. I found this kind of weird considering it was almost the middle of July. On the other hand, the Spray Lakes area get's alot of precipitation. Either way, the Chester Lake area has excellent mountains with magnificent views.

July 8, 00- I took this picture from the col on Chester. When we ascended to the col we had a choice of ascending the snow up the gully, or the dry slabs to the right of the gully. We chose the snow filled gully. In my opinion ascending the gully was the most enjoyable part of the scramble. To ascend the gully it took one hour of tedious step-kicking. To descend it took five minutes of glissading! Once you gain the col, you have a great view of Mt Smuts(left Peak in the photo),The Fist,(small, Mountain below Smuts), and Mt. Assiniboine (hardly seen in the background because my scanner sucks.)

July 8 00- Here we have (From left to right) Mt. Smith-Dorrien, Mt. French (Pointy peak in background), Mt Murray, Mt. Robertson, Cegnfs, Mt. Sir Douglas (The tallest peak in the group), and my knee at the bottom. I think that this is the nicest view we had all day. The view towards this spectacular cluster of peaks would have been better at the summit, but when we got to the summit, it started to cloud over.

July 8 00- The summit of Chester shows you an unparalleled view of the routes up Gusty Peak (Right in photo), Galatea (middle of photo), and the Tower(left of photo). Gusty peak in this photo looks almost vertical. Don't use this photo as evidence of how steep Gusty Peak is. Gusty peak is NOT as steep as it looks in this photo. The summit shows an excellent 360 degree view. We stayed on the summit for quite a while soaking in the views around us, until we saw some lightening about five kilometers away, so we ran like little girls down the mountain. As soon as we got off the mountain it started to pour. So I guess it's a good thing that the lightening scared us off the summit, or else we would of had to spend more time out in the rain.

Mt. Chester-3054m(10,019Ft.)