The below story is written by Ally Gandy, former mentee, current mentor and staff member with Mountain Mentors
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I moved to BC five years ago from Ontario and specifically came here for the mountains. From the moment I got here, I have spent every spare minute exploring this beautiful province. The lesson I keep seeing repeat itself is the importance of choosing your adventure partners wisely.
Last summer, some friends and I had an adventure that turned into the true definition of the term ‘having an epic’. Three friends and I set out to climb the North Ridge route up Tricouni Peak. It is an alpine climbing route involving glacier travel, rock climbing and scrambling. The route was phenomenal - one of the coolest adventures I’ve had to date full of interesting ridge climbing and views for days.
After crossing the glacier and jumping the moat, the first pitch of the climb begins (Photo by Rosie Langford)
Unfortunately, the day hit a snag when the party in front of us was moving slowly. Given the location and exposure, difficulty communicating with them and our desire not to split up our group, we decided it was best not to try to pass them. The route consists of two climbing pitches off the glacier followed by what is officially deemed a ‘scramble’ up the ridge (scrambling is terrain that usually requires hands, as opposed to hiking with just your feet, but not hard enough that you need climbing gear for protection). The scramble along the ridge is definitely a beefy one (the photo below is part of the scramble!). Given the difficulty and exposure, we decided to ‘pitch it out’ and place climbing gear along the way for added safety. The group in front of us was doing the same thing. Each of the ~8 pitches along the ridge was taking them a long time; we were catching up to them on each pitch and waiting anywhere between 30min and 1h before we were able to start climbing again. As the afternoon went on our progress was much slower than expected so the 4 of us went over our options. We decided that the route didn’t feel safe to down climb, as the rock quality was poor for protection, and the standard exit off the summit was much less technical than the way we had just come up. We decided the safest thing to do was finish the climb and take the safer route down.
The final push to the summit, after sunset (Photo by Ally Gandy)
We summited by headlamp in the dark and started to make our way down, setting up a few rappels and belays on the more exposed terrain, and very carefully down climbing in the dark. We ultimately called it a day when the fog rolled in around midnight - making it impossible to even navigate by headlight and GPS (satellite navigation devices) as the terrain was very steep, cliffy and the ground was getting slick from dew. I had never been stuck on the side of a mountain in the dark, exhausted, with storm clouds in the distance (despite the forecast) and with the wind picking up significantly. I can confirm it’s every bit as scary as I imagined.
The four of us got creative with what we had in our packs and settled in for a cold night, tied into a clump of trees intermixed with the cliffs and huge scree slopes. Think climbing into your backpack like a sleeping bag, SAM splints and branches under your body for insulation, using your rope flaked on top of you as a blanket, helmets on, etc. Luckily, we only got sprinkled on a tiny bit by the storm clouds - but we weren’t really sleeping much anyway!
We woke up at first light and spent the next few hours making our way out. We were luckily to have enough cell service to keep our partners left at home appraised of our progress and to get in touch with work to explain our predicament. Fortunately we all work for really amazing employers who were kind and understanding of our unusual situation.
En route to the false summit as the sun is setting (Photo by Ally Gandy)
A few things really stick in my mind about this situation and I thought I’d share.
First - the group you adventure with is beyond the most important thing. I had full and complete trust that this crew had my back, they cared about my safety and they listened to my opinion. I was comfortable voicing my concerns when I was scared and needed a hand. It’s SO important that you be with a team that you can admit your vulnerabilities to as it’s what kept us all safe. “I don’t feel comfortable on this down climb, can we do a body belay?” may have been the difference between a very serious situation vs. the inconvenient night we had. I never worried they would wonder why they were out here with me if I didn’t want to down climb a section. I knew they trusted me and my abilities - but take away your vision, add in some intense adrenaline and a very long day, and I knew they understood I was just being extra safe. A few years ago, I might have not spoken up because I would worried the group would think I wasn’t strong enough to be out there with them but that mentality is so much more dangerous as it could have put us in a much more dire situation if something, even just one slip, had happened. We all said many times how happy we were to be with that particular crew.
Secondly, the one time you don’t pack ”that item” is absolute the time you need it. I’ll admit I didn’t pack my shell jacket. I ALWAYS bring my shell but it was being washed from my last adventure a few days before and I was careless. I also don’t usually bring an emergency blanket in the summer months. My theory had always been that I bring a warm enough down jacket to survive a night if need be. While I was right in theory, the emergency blanket is SO small and light that I will never adventure without one. I ended up crawling into a friend’s emergency blanket in the morning when she was done with it and packing up just to warm myself up for a minute and it made such a difference. You never think you’re going to need to spend the night sleeping on the side of a mountain in an emergency shelter, but things happen.
After we got home, we all spent a few days resting, eating, staying in bed too long and all the usual post-adventure rituals but we agreed to meet a week later and do a formal debrief. We took a few days to reflect on our own and then came together to discuss what we did well, what we could have done differently, what our overall take-aways were. We also took a few minutes each to give shout outs the rest of the team for what they had done that had really stood out to us. The debrief is just as important as the pre-trip prep and can really instill some good lessons learned.
Ultimately I’m SUPER proud of my crew for being so calm, safe and communicative during that crazy ordeal - happy to have suffered my ‘be-nighting’ alongside an emotionally intelligent team of caring, considerate and skilled humans!