Haldan Borglum | Peak by Peak

Heart to McGillivray Traverse
May 5 2023

With summer conditions on the way, Jake Draper and I wanted to start the season off with a big send for our first mountain day together of the year. Not factoring our mountain fitness into it much, I landed on the Heart Mountain to Mount McGillivray Traverse, a technical “scramble” that covers all the tall peaks NW of Highway 40 before reaching Nakiska in a neat loop route. The traverse begins up Heart Mountain before linking to the Twin Towers and heading over to the first crux of the day, quite exposed and somewhat technical ridge before the out-and-back for Mary Barclay.

Next was the true crux of the outing, gaining the Lorette-Skogan ridge. It takes a line up slabby terrain that eventually ascends behind a large flake and the crux goes straight up above it that is severely exposed and committing. This section alone is the bottleneck to the route and significant technical scrambling experience on climber's scrambles is what I'd recommend before taking this on.

Jake and I were both properly gassed by the time we crested the ridge, but we still ended up doing the out-and-back for Lorette and then started the final section heading over Skogan to McGillivray. This ridge paled in comparison technically to the crux, so it was more a battle against fatigue, and after a lot of ridge we were at McGillivray and took a narrow exposed ledge to reach the summit. From there all that was left was the final descent. McGillivray has one of the worst exits, with sidehill and bushwhack galore but eventually we made it to the car with some very sore feet!

links: STRAVA | GAIA
elapsed time: 15.5hrs
DIFFICULTY: climber's scramble ↔ climb

Other related trip reports: Goatview Traverse | Ehagay Nakoda Traverse || Inglismaldie to Peechee Traverse | Astley Traverse

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