The Orphan-Middle Sister-The Rimwall - Jul 24, 2022 - Kananaskis, Alberta

Описание: Curtis Donaghy, Hamlet (Milet/Miletsky) Dampulay, and Doug Lutz ascending Middle Sister via The Orphan and then traversing to The Rimwall before descending via the south drainage between The Rimwall and The Orphan

Middle Sister has been a mountain that I've wanted to ascend for a while, but usually by the time it becomes "in shape" during the scrambling season I already have my sights set on other larger and longer ascents. This year there was a late snow melt, and that prevented me from ascending typical jaunts up larger peaks in June and July.... Some exciting news on July 10 of the arrival of Erin's and Cole's little boy (Theo) has me focused on easier objectives when I could carve aside some time to get to the mountains.

I decided that it was time to shoot for Middle Sister, but I was not interested in using the Stewart Creek approach. Everything that I heard about that approach seemed to indicate "SLOG"... The route that seems to now be a favoured option by many is to go up over The Orphan, and descend to the bowl east of Big Sister, and then join the Stewart Creek ascent route. This fit my criteria of a "low risk" ascent, and reasonably short day, so I put out some feelers on Facebook, and a few people accepted my invite.

I was hesitant to include The Rimwall in the trip plan as I had already been to that summit, but I let the participants know that I was ok with going there (it was only about 300 metres of additional elevation gain, and 1.3ish km one way)... so why not if the group wanted to go there!? It turned out that we did decide to go to The Rimwall, despite Curtis and myself both having visited the summit before.

I loved the route choices we made for the day and the pace that we set. The weather cooperated beautifully, and we had zippo for issues. All that said, the route was basically a hike, with a few bits of scrambling between The Orphan and The Rimwall.

The views were fabulous for most of the day, and the slab terrain that we encountered on the descent definitely was something to shout about - just fabulous!... and the soft scree descent... it was all amazing!

If you like helicopters, this may be the route for you. There were many, many helicopters flying to and from Canmore via this flight path - basically, between the Three Sisters and The Orphan... seemed to be helicopter tours. So many helicopters that I couldn't tell you how many... seemed like every 20-30 minutes!

Thanks Curtis and Miletsky for joining me on the route!