Mount Field
Completed when dry. Possible with snow (avalanche terrain), although significant snow may stop parties at the crux or at avalanche gullies. Mount Field is also skiable via another route. The only somewhat considerable exposure is really on the cliff band, otherwise it's just a scree slope. There is potentially an easier weakness in the cliff band guarding the summit that is referenced in the picture in Alan Kane's Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies and is a bit farther north than the one that we used. As of now there is also a rope up the cliff band, which may help especially in snow conditions, perhaps as a rappel. This peak is not a very popular ascent, but other parties may be attempting the peak, so a helmet is advisable, especially since the slope is fairly steep below the cliff band. The approach to the scramble on graded trails to Burgess Pass from Emerald Lake or Highway 1 and may have annoying deadfalls.
Mount Field is essentially a high point at the end of Fossil Ridge coming off of Wapta Mountain. It looms high above the Trans Canada Highway northwest of the town of Field. When driving on the highway, this peak is very visible, along with its many old mining tunnels low on the face. The peak seems daunting, but from Burgess Pass, a relatively easy route can be found. Mount Field has a very interesting history. Apparently, Cyrus West Field (creator of the transatlantic telegraph communication cable) was visiting the town of Field and Mount Field was named after him in the attempts to secure his investment for continued rail construction for the Canadian Pacific Railway. The town of Field was later named after Mr. Field after he passed, to commemorate him. Another interesting bit of history that lies on the slopes in between Mount Field and Wapta Mountain (below Fossil Ridge) is the Walcott Quarry, the famous Unesco fossil excavation site. Varying amounts of the same fossils in the Burgess Shale can be found all around Yoho, some of which may even be able to be spotted on the scramble route up Mount Field.
There are five access points for Mount Field's three distinct routes. The easiest and most common access point is a small gravel road and parking area approximately 2.2 km SW of the Takakkaw Falls Road on Highway 1 or 1.3 km NE of Field on Highway 1. Once you turn off the highway, head left down the short gravel road to the Burgess Pass parking area. Another common option is parking at the visitor centre in Field and crossing the highway. Another summer option begins at the Emerald Lake parking lot (must arrive early). There are two options for the ski route parking, the first is at the Spiral Tunnels viewpoint and the other is the gate. Total driving time from the Calgary city limits for all access points is similar, at about 2 hours.
Although there are plenty routes for this peak, this section describes the summer ascent routes. From the Burgess Pass Parking area, walk past the sign and on the trail. This is a very straightforward and graded trail until the pass. There are a couple areas where the trail is a bit skinny and 48 switchbacks overall. From the visitor centre parking lot in Field, cross the highway and walk along the other side, before spotting a good trail heading up into the woods, follow this trail and soon meet up with the Burgess Pass trail, from here, the route is the same as the previous option. From the Emerald Lake parking lot, walk across the big bridge and into the buildings, follow the Emerald Lake Loop Trail until it turns into dirt the and walk along it for 0.85 km, before turning right and heading on to this side's Burgess Pass Trail to Burgess Pass (probably more switchbacks than the other side). Once all three routes join up at Burgess Pass, hike east along the Mount Field/Wapta Highline Trail and by a scary sign that shows where the restricted area of the Walcott Quarry is situated so that you don't accidentally wander into it. The turnoff for the Mount Field scramble route is right where the Highline Trail turns north. The scramble route continues east up an obvious gully (GPS route such as Alltrails recommended here). Head up the gully and then up the large scree face, trending heavily right until the next drainage gully. It is worth mentioning that you must stay as close to Mount Field as possible while in this area, do not venture to the climber's left at any point, since you could enter the Walcott Quarry restricted are, where heavy fines will be imposed if you are caught, but you already knew this because you carefully examined the sign on the way up. Below a minor rock band, traverse over this gully and then head up and to the climber's right on more scree. Once you reach the furthest drainage to the south, cross it on easy terrain and ascend the climber's right side of it as the slope steepens, until you reach the cliff band. Notice a weakness about 10 m to the climber's left of the ridge crest, where there should be a well anchored rope. Scramble up this 3rd class step and then up rubble to the summit. Descend the same way, or even better make a point to point day out of it by leaving a car at Emerald Lake and biking or bringing two cars. Even better yet, complete Mount Field as part of the Emerald Lake triangle, but I'll leave that up to you to plan those ones out if they sound fun!
To finish up our Takakkaw Falls backpacking trip, we decided that while we were up in Yoho and the weather was good, one more peak would be in order. Thanks to my rather genius idea, we hiked out early from the Twin Falls campground and headed to the visitor centre. Since we couldn't obtain a permit for Mount Stephen (and it was too late and the route was snowy), we decided on Mount Field. We really didn't have much info on it, but knew it was pretty straightforward, plus I always have my Alltrails map for navigation if needed.
At 11:00 am, we set off up the Burgess Pass Trail.
Here's the large parking area with the trailhead at the far end. According to the Parks officer at the visitor centre this is supposed to be a popular scramble, but judging by the lack of cars apparently not. Perhaps they parked at the visitor centre?
I guess we're looking for a jacket today! Hopefully we can find it.
The first part of the trail goes right beside the loud highway for a bit before meeting up with the visitor centre shortcut. I guess maybe that would've saved some time and distance, but oh well. Perhaps that's where everyone else had parked and we were just the dummies that made it longer by starting at the trailhead.
The forest is very lush at the start. It was good that we started after most of the water dried off the plants. We would've been soaked otherwise.
At the first switchback we decided that we were going to count all the way up. My dad didn't really believe me that there were 48, but it said it on the sign so there probably is. I decided to take a picture at every 10 switchbacks just for fun.
The first 10 are probably the longest and most useless. You can barely put on a sweat on this wheel chair grade trail as you rack up unnecessary distance and begin to doubt that you will ever make it the full 48 switchbacks. I noted how poor the trail building design was, but upon looking at the 100s of fallen trees in the bush, I decided to be grateful that there even was a trail.
This is around switchback 10. The forest really changes in the couple hundred meters that you gain until here.
Around switchback 20. It was starting to get a bit old, but you can move fast and don't really feel the elevation gain.
Right around number 30. Still going strong and getting pretty close to the pass.
40. Getting very close.
50? Either we counted over by a bit or they lied. Not sure which one it is.
Now we were finally on the ridge heading to Burgess Pass.
I think we counted like 52 total switchbacks, so not terribly far off, although I'm not really sure what the exact definition of a switchback is either, so we must've counted some unqualified turns in the trail. Also, we took about 2 hours to get to the pass, and that was pushing decently hard so expect a long day for sure.
Around the pass we got a good viewpoint of the once again cloudy Presidents.
A little further up, we got a good view of Wapta Mountain.
We even spotted some goats on the scree right in the restricted area from this viewpoint. I got really excited here and really wanted to go up and get as close as we could to see them (better picture later).
I started getting sick of having to get through these at this point. There were probably at least 10 the whole way and some were really quite hard to get through. You have to be comfortable playing in the mud a bit on this one!
Soon we got a great view of Mount Stephen.
And of our cloudy objective.
We then ran into yet more deadfalls! Lovely trail maintenance on this one for sure.
Here's the scary sign right before the turnoff for the scramble. Make sure to read it and just don't go in there. Just because the goats are there doesn't mean you should be. It isn't worth it.
Here's the turn off for the scramble up Mount Field. Looks to be a delightful ascent. Not really, but at least it's straightforward.
This is the closest that we got to the goats (for now). Too bad they were in the restricted area, otherwise we would've totally gone to check them out. I think goats are secretly my spirit animal and it's just crazy that I've never seen one up close.
Anyways, enough goats, now time for the slog.
Coming up to the first drainage crossing now. We crossed up a bit on scree.
Walcott Peak (R) and Mount Burgess (L). We could've done those today but weren't in the mood for a tough scramble up Burgess.
After crossing the middle gully and making our way up, we had a snack from our limited food and put on the helmets. This is where things start to get "serious". The best way here is to cross the drainage and head up by the ridge, then angle back to just left of centre of the image where the cliff band weakness is.
Me hiking up with Emerald Lake making its appearance below.
This is your warning to stay to the climber's right of the "drainage". My dad got stuck over on some very steep and loose terrain on the left.
Now for a tiny bit of fun on the crux cliff band!
I was wondering when we were going to come across some of these. These fossils were about the size of a thumbnail, but still very cool.
My dad making his way up the crux. Very straightforward. Not sure why there's a rope...
Look at what we found! I'm sure someone will be happy.
Now for the final steps to the summit.
And here we are, look at that. Yet another one down.
Unfortunately the view was bit gloomy on this day, but I'm sure you can still make out a few peaks/areas from this pano.
Now for the other angle. The ski route comes up on the left half of the image.
Emerald Lake and the still cloudy Presidents. I gave up hope of the views clearing to be honest. I guess it is what it is.
It's a long way down to the Kicking Horse River. Looking down the steep SE face even made me a bit woozy.
I would say that our summit stay for this peak was quite average. Very average. It was cloudy, a bit windy, and cold, but still worth it if you ask me. After polishing off the remnants of our backpacking food and signing the register, it was time for the longgg walk back to the car.
Package secured. Now time to descend.
No proper downclimbing technique required on this one. Oddly the downclimb was easier than scrambling up.
Now we would head to the gully at right on fairly good scree skiing slopes.
Almost back to the trail now. We sure made quick work of the descent.
Looking back at Mount Field. Here's our route to the right and another possible variation to the left.
We then headed back to the pass and just before we turned down our trail to descend endless switchbacks, I heard some rockfall that sounded unnatural coming from just around the corner. I went off on to a little view point and found a goat staring up at me. How wonderful. He immediately began galloping over the slope, along with his friend, surely very pleased to see me. I soaked in the moment and they quickly scampered over something that would take us humans at least 5x the time to traverse.
My dad did get this picture of one of the goats running across the slope. They were somewhat far away, but it was still an incredible moment.
Here's Mount Stephen with Cathedral Mountain and Cathedral Crags to its left.
The descent down the endless switchbacks actually passed rather quickly and painlessly. Perhaps the trail construction was good after all, although I still didn't enjoy crossing back under all the fallen trees. The trees were annoying enough that we even thought to see if trail maintenance was allowed to be done by non parks officials. I'm sure it would be easy enough to just bring up a hand saw and take an hour to get rid of some bothersome trees for fellow hikers. We're still not sure if it's allowed, but if we're ever back in the area we might just have to bring a saw.
An artsy photo by my dad of some berries near the bottom.
The walk back close to the highway was lightened by thoughts of lying in the moss all around.
Mount Stephen from the parking area.
We then grabbed the sign and headed out.
A 6:00 pm finish was a bit late, but we were extremely satisfied with our trip. Mount Field wasn't the best scramble and didn't have the best view, but sometimes you gotta go through that for the good days. Not to say that this was a bad day by any means either, in fact we got to experience so many different types of Rockies coolness like seeing the goats and seeing the fossils, something that would've never happened if we hadn't done this. This proves my thinking even more that even if it isn't perfect, it's better to get out than not, and you'll probably be surprised by some of the experiences that you have along the way.
Now for the trip reflection. There's more than a few words to describe it, but I will say what a great time. For our first trip in Yoho, I feel like it was a massive success. Just from these few summits and all the terrain that we traveled through, I do have to say that my preliminary judge of Yoho puts it at #1 for my favourite areas. There's just something about it. The views on a clear day are magnificent, plus there's such a high concentration of climbable mountains, not to mention you can kind of feel at home in the park. It's big enough that there's plenty to explore, but small enough that you can get familiar with it. Perfect if you ask me, but anyways, we will definitely be back many, many more times. I'm also excited to show it to Ezra whenever he's back around. Two scrambles in the area that are on my list are Mount Carnarvon and Mount Stephen, and both are supposed to be fantastic. We'll also surely be back for the Presidents and Isolated Peak and I'm sure there's many more trips that we haven't heard about out here. I'm just excited for our next one. Hopefully it'll be soon.
And for those wondering about the jacket, we ended up returning it before our Stoney Squaw Mountain trip, which was our next little adventure the following weekend.