I made plans with Chris Gulka, who I climbed Welch Peak with on my birthday, to go up and climb Baby Munday and The Still. I was unfamiliar with either of the routes but recall seeing them both from the top of Welch the month prior. Feeling quite confident and not having a lot of time to look things up I decided to eschew beta and just figure things out as we went. The one thing I knew was that Baby Munday had two peaks with the more common one being not the true summit and the true summit being a bit more involved with most parties opting to use a rope and place protection. Not sure which one Chris had in mind and not wanting to ask I just asked him how long he thought it would take and placed my gear in the truck. He said it would take 8-12 hours and closer to 8 and wanted to meet at 4. I needed to be back in Abbotsford for 5pm to pick up Jebby and Sam at the airport so I asked to start earlier and he agreed to meet at 3.
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| Start |
We met at 3am and headed out to the CRV and turned off up Airplane Creek FSR. For some reason it seemed to take longer than when we went to Welch even though they are very close together. The road was atrocious as I was expecting, and I was glad Chris drove up. I am a big sissy with my truck and would’ve parked near the bottom and walked up. Luckily Chris isn’t so we shaved off a good amount of distance and some elevation. Chris had been on this FSR recently so he knew where to park and we started hiking basically at 5am.
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Emerging in to the sub-alpine
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The first 1.2km were on the logging road to the trailhead but we blazed through that part in 15 minutes or less. The next ~3km of the trail followed an overgrown FSR that gained little elevation but covered some good distance before descending to Airplane Creek where we crossed. This part of the trail was horrendously overgrown and having rained the prior two days everything was sopping wet. I opted to go first and foolishly didn’t put on my shell and was nearly immediately soaked to the bone. I actually felt like I had just walked out of a shower in all my clothes, it was ridiculous, and it wasn’t even 5:30am. Eventually Chris took over as he is more fit and hardier than me and we made it to the creek where we crossed on a log.
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Our view upon reaching the alpine
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After the crossing the trail ascends steeply through old growth forest until the alpine. I was soaked and it wasn’t super warm so I hiked shirtless for most of this part as it was easy to stay warm in the relentless ascent. We took a short snack break but there’s not much to say about this part, it is very boring. Along the way there were a few posters stapled to trees about a missing hiker who had been missing for nearly 7 years now, I recognized the missing person from previously seeing it online and it’s a very sobering reminder of the dangers of the area.
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Snow section going up the Still
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We emerged in to the sub-alpine 6:45 and it was still pretty foggy and overcast out. Weather forecasts had been good when we looked the previous day but now doubts were starting to creep in to my mind as we could not see the summits but we pressed on. We continued up the trail for a bit before traversing a bit and making the true alpine area at the bottom of Baby Munday where there is a small alpine lake.
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The final scramble to the top
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At this point it was very windy and we weren’t sure what to do. We were basically at the base of the serious climbing and we wanted to do Baby Munday first but the conditions were awful and the climbing there is much stiffer so we decided to head over to the Still and see if things improved. We headed over there and made it to the base of the Still at ~8:00 and with the clouds still hanging low we decided to wait and see if better weather would come.
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Chris making some optional 4th class moves to the summit
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There was a nice boulder problem with some bushes around it where we chilled for the next nearly 2 hours. We got out of the wind because Chris was quite cold. I had taken my shirt off long before and had my puffy and shell on and while I wasn’t super warm I wasn’t cold either. We messed around on the boulder for a while, Chris had his approach shoes on and I had my mountaineering boots so I didn’t want to commit to much. I had my rock shoes with me in my pack and I toyed with the idea of putting them on but the thought of having to put my wet socks back on after made me decide not to.
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On the first summit looking towards the second
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It was quite frustrating because the clouds kept hanging around but to the south we could see beautiful sunny clear skies. Around 9:45 nearly 2 hours after waiting I said we better shit or get off the pot, so to speak, and we opted to just head up The Still and see what the visibility was like. At this point I wasn’t too worried about it raining anymore since I felt like it would have started already if it was going to and figured what the heck. Although I did think what was the point in waiting around if we were going to head up anyways.
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Beautiful view of Baby Munday, Stewart (L to R)
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The scramble up The Still turned out to be way easier than I expected. We went up a loose boulder / scree hill for 100m then traversed to climbers right close to the ridge crest for 50m where we gained a snow patch. We didn’t have crampons so we only got on the snow where the slope was mellow which necessitated some slippery rock maneuvers but it was better than risking a long deadly slide. We did have our ice axes and used them here but neither of us slipped. After gaining the snow we rounded the ridge corner and the summit was in sight. It looked far away but my GPS said it was only 100 vertical meters and of course it was right. There was ~30m of the loosest steepest dirt that was probably the worst part of the whole day before we gained some good rock and scrambled to the summit. None of it was hard, definitely not class 4 but I’m generous and I’d say it was class 3. Chris disagreed and thought it was even easier at Class 2+. At the very top Chris opted for a Class 4 detour for fun but it was unnecessary, I was tired and my pinky was really bugging me (injured at the gym) so I went the easy way.
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Chris on the summit
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From the top it appears the adjacent summit (5 minutes away) is higher and Chris said it isn’t but that everyone goes over anyways and the summit cairn is on the other peak so we headed over after taking some pictures. There was some exposure near the end but the moves were protected, if a bit loose, and very short and soon we were standing on the eastern summit. Oddly enough once we were on that summit we looked back and the other one looked higher.
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A nice look at the route on the way down
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We didn’t dawdle long before descending. Chris really wanted to do Baby Munday still and it sucked because as soon as we had headed up The Still the sun came out and it became a gorgeous day but I had to be back in town to pick up Sam and Jebby so I declined. He seemed a bit upset and I felt bad for letting him down but c’est la vie.
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Me on the summit
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We made great time on the way down and were back to the car by 3 for a C2C time of 10 hours which included a near 2 hour break at the bottom of the Still. Great time!
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| Downclimbing |
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