Nestoring on Mt. Nestor?

Mt. Nestor is a prominent mountain in Kananaskis Country, with pleasing lines, and the height of almost 3000 meters (2975 m to be exact). It is a moderate scramble with the altitude gain of 1250 meters.

There are basically two ways to get to the top, as illustrated in this picture. With my companions we took the right gully as recommended by Alan Kane in "Scrambles of Canadian Rockies." (Clicking on the pictures allows to see them in bigger size.)


The first difficulty with Mt. Nestor is that it requires 8 km approach from the last available parking, over a fire road on the west side of Spray Lakes Reservoir. That is why, as is done by most of the people, with my companions, Mike and Boris, we decided to cover it on bikes.

The ride is quite scenic, so we didn't mind that much. It warmed up our legs. 

We stopped at this cairn, dismounted, and secured our bikes. 

Drive from Banff and the bike ride took longer than we anticipated. It was already 9:20 so without further delay we hit the trail.

The trail is rather inconspicuous, over "thickets of willow and poplars choking the dry streambed." (Kane)

Soon we reached "stunted krummholz (what ever it could mean) and carpets of bearberry giving way to rubble." (Kane)

Around this rock scramblers have to choose - either left or, as recommended by Kane, right gully. We followed Kane, but, in retrospect, left gully could have been a better choice.

The problem with the right gully was that it was becoming progressively steeper and in narrow places covered by snow.

Sensing danger ...

... we pulled out our Petzls!

Boris who, although wearing a traditional Russian name, is of Croatian descent, and roughly 20 years younger than Mike and myself, led the pack, at times leaving us far behind. He shared with me that he was named after "Boris Godunov" because his grandma so much loved this opera.

Some of the snow fields were not pleasant to cross.

In spite of these difficulties, we were making decent times, reaching the upper part of the right gully around noon.

This is when "the hell broke loose." We were hit by a storm with thunder and high winds, sending particles of ice against our bodies. (Boris' yellow jacket seen in the middle of the picture below).

There were practically no place to hide. In spite of two jackets, in a minute I was shaking from cold, uncontrollably, and I lost feeling in my hands.

Facing this adversity, Mike, a couple of hundreds meters below, decided to turn back (you gotta have "sokole oko" to see him in the picture below).

After about 30 minutes it cleared up.

Though still shaking from cold, we decided to continue our ascent.

Facing some steep snow fields above, some with nasty looking overhangs ...

... we opted to follow the scree right of the snow as high as we could and then try to traverse to the summit ridge.

Perhaps luckily for us, we didn't have a chance to implement this plan, as another bad storm was approaching. Boris calculated that it would hit us exactly at the time of summitting, when we will have nowhere to hide.

It was ten minutes to two o'clock. After gaining 1128 meters, and reaching the altitude of 2723 (roughly 250 meter below the summit), we decided to "pull the plug."

To speed up our descent we used ... the snow.

The threat of electric shock appeared quite realistic a couple of times.

Feeling more secure down below, we looked back at the summit. We generally agreed that the broad gully we were taking down, would be much easier to ascent, comparing to our path in the morning. It also gives easy access to the ridge, seen on the left skyline, which looked like an uncomplicated way to the summit. However, we didn't walk it so we were uncertain if it could hide some technical difficulties.

Again, it cleared up.

The lower part of the left gully steepened a bit, but still looked like a better alternative to our morning route. It also had a few cairns, which attests to its popularity.

Soon we reconnected with Mike who fearlessly "down-scrambled" our morning route. With him, we were wondering if we are not "too old for this s ...t." I promised myself a few times in the past to go easy on the choice of the routes, and yet, every year, some powerful force that I don't fully comprehend, makes me to pick up these challenges.

 

Then there was another 8 km bike ride back to the parking.

Finally relaxed, Mike and Boris reinvigorated their tired feet in the cold waters of Spray Lakes Reservoir.

As for myself, I was wondering - perhaps it would be time to graciously nestor (retire) on Mt. Nestor?

In Truth, Simplicity and Love, Piotr.

P.S. If you would like to see our adventure in motion, check out this link -  https://youtu.be/n-rbM1WQQNk. It contains Boris' video on the subject.