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Mount Niblock |
| Elevation 2976m Height Gain Time to Reach Summit Degree of Difficulty Scenery Date of Most-recent Ascent |
Drive to Lake Louise and follow the road to the Chateau. Turn left just before the hotel and park in the public parking area (GPS reference 51d24m55s N, 116d12m49s W). Get there early or you'll have to fight for parking space amongst the campers and tour buses. Make your way towards the lake. Follow the lakeside trail counter-clockwise, when you're in line with the end of the hotel Lake Agnes Hiking Trail branches right. On the good trail, a brisk pace will put you at the Tea House in just under 45 minutes. Continue along the right of the lake which takes you to the west end. Most tourists would have parked their rear-ends back at the Tea House. Those with more zip will keep going to Big Beehive. The scramblers' objective is still some 850 vertical meters away. Leave the beaten path and follow the stream draining the eastern slopes of Mt. Niblock. Your immediate objective is to make your way to the top of the scree fan under the lower cliff band. A vague trail makes a couple of token switch backs before you're faced with some steep rubble. At the notch scramble up ledges which may have water flowing down. Be careful of slippery rocks! Once out of the notch start angling left as you gain elevation on scree-covered terraces. You may be able to find traces of trail if you're lucky. When you reach the upper bench you are at the far end of the huge bowl formed by Mt. Whyte on the left and Mt. Niblock on the right. Boulder-hop your way up rubble and aim to flank the orange-coloured cliffs to their left. Above this point angle right. Scramble over more terraces and rock bands before finally gaining the Whyte-Niblock col (GPS reference 51d24m59s N, 116d16m28s W). Turn right at the col. Mt. Niblock's true summit is blocked from view by a line of pinnacles. Duck down to the left behind the first craggy rocks rising up. Continue traversing under the ridge bypassing a couple of ribs before moving back up to the skyline ridge. The scrambling on the last couple of pitches is loads of fun, and only slightly exposed. The summit (GPS reference 51d25m05s N, 116d16m19s W) view is splendid. Mt. Victoria and the Victoria Glacier certainly takes on a different perspective from this point. To the southeast are Mt. Aberdeen and Haddo Peak. To their left in the distance is Mt. Temple. To the east is Mt. Fairview, and if you had a set of binoculars you should be able to pick out at least 20-30 people on the summit on any given day. Northeast across the road is the Lake Louise ski area. Mt. Richardson is the most-prominent landmark. To the north is Mt. Hector. The ice-field in the distant northwest is the Bath Glacier. If you're considering combining this scramble with Mt. Whyte be aware that the later is much more technical effort, requiring good route finding skills. From Niblock summit I watched a group of 5 plod along the saddle over towards Whyte. At the end of the easy ridge they made the mistake of descending left instead of scrambling up to the right. After much fussing about on narrow ledges the two lead hikers encountered an unclimbable gully. Flabbergasted, they gave up and turned-tail down the mountain without reaching their objective.
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