Distance: 8.9 mi.
Elevation Gain: 4,000 ft.
Craig and I have a word for any mountain after two failed attempts….NEMESIS! And Church Mountain is now a nemesis for me. We had attempted it before in August 2018 but decided to turn around at the old lookout site due to extreme smoke from the British Columbia wildfires that year. This time I chose a beautiful day to tackle the mountain with Nancy and Katie. Nancy went ahead with her doggo while I climbed the switchbacks with Katie. When we finally reached the alpine meadows above the forested switchbacks they were largely snow-covered. We had to detour left (south) around Deer Horn Creek quite a ways because of a snow bridge that we didn’t want to punch through.
From here we climbed a moderately steep snow slope northwest as I taught Katie a few snow safety skills. We continued traversing north on snow after the switchback where the trail normally would go, but Nancy took the ridge northwest directly to the lookout site and said that the route went well. Katie and I cut off the final switchback to the lookout on snow and then began hiking southwest on dry trail until we reached one short, steep snow patch and Katie didn’t feel too comfortable crossing it. The views here were beautiful so she decided to have a rest while I joined Nancy for our summit attempt.
When I reached Nancy (and Riley) at the lookout site, she was looking a bit downtrodden. The climber’s trail to the summit was entirely covered in steep slow. We had the correct gear to make an attempt for the true summit but between Katie waiting below and Riley waiting at the lookout site, it just didn’t make sense to begin an attempt that would probably take 2 hours minimum. We enjoyed the lovely views for a few moments, though, while we had a snack.
Nancy and I split back off after descending from the lookout site because she wanted to take the ridge back down and then do a trail run, and I had to connect back with Katie. I was shooting the breeze with her about our failed attempt at the summit while I lazily hiked across the steep snow patch to meet her, when I slipped on the firm snow and started going down, down, down. I got myself in self-arrest position with my ice axe but as I dug it in it made almost no difference whatsoever. I turned around as I started sliding on dirt and duff and was able to aim for a small bump in the grass in order to stop myself. After my 90 foot slide (see GPS track below), I wasn’t too much worse for the wear besides a scraped forearm and knuckles and one seriously broken fingernail that I had to pop back into place like an actor in some war film. Luckily I was wearing my helmet!
Katie came down to meet me as I realized that I had lost my GPS, so she looked at the base of my fall while I climbed back to the top. I realized that the snow on this patch was only about 3 inches deep over slippery grass, which made sense that my ice axe couldn’t dig in properly. Katie yelled out that she had found the GPS so I hiked back down to her and then we had an uneventful hike the rest of the way out. Considering she was new to snow travel, Katie was a real trooper about my slide and kept cool as a cucumber, cementing my opinion that nurses make the best adventure partners. They’ve seen some shit 😋 Hopefully next time you read about me on Church Mountain, it’ll be after a successful summit attempt.
(Download the free Gaia GPS app on your phone to view tracks and then get a Gaia GPS membership if you want offline access. Discount below!)
Gear Used:
- Aluminum ice axe
- Approach shoes (Vanessa and Nancy)
- Day pack
- Glacier glasses
- GPS
- Helmet
- Hiking boots (Katie)
- Microspikes
- Trekking poles
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