Rampart Ridge, Day 4

High on Rampart Ridge

Tuesday, June 28, 1983
Day Four, Rampart Lakes

Glorious, glorious sunshine! I passed a restless night – the ground seemed very hard and Mica wanted out every ten minutes. Finally at 8:10 AM I got up. I should have let the dogs out an hour earlier however so I could have had one hour of interrupted sleep.

After a leisurely breakfast on 'the terrace' in the sunshine, we headed back up to find Lake Lillian. This time we took this steeper snowfield to the right of the one we ascended yesterday. The bottom half was quite steep – I'd say close to 45° – and I found myself hoping to find a way to get back onto the other snowfield because I knew that would be a much easier descent on the way back.

We reached the so-called pass in about 45-minutes of straightforward step-kicking and was able to see a delightful snowy basin below, almost as large as that in which the Rampart Lakes sit.

We stayed high on the ridges for a while then descended to the completely snow-covered Twin Tarns.

Can't remember if that's Lila or Lillian, but it's on of them!

Clouds were beginning to come in over the summit of Rampart Ridge, so the three of us took a vote and decided to retreat short of Lillian. The vote was two to one, with Mica dissenting.

Much to my delight, or perhaps more to my relief, we were able to find a route from the top of the ridge that led directly to an easy snow gully dropping down to Rampart Lakes. Woo-hoo! The lengthy butt-glissade down was an excellent reward for all the hard work I'd put in earlier in the day. Mica joyously romped along side me all the way down while Micki disdainfully picked her lady-like way down the slope.

All in all, it was a good exercise in steep snow travel, with lots of step-kicking and a little stair carving practice. Nothing like ascending 600' on a steep, hard snow slope and trying to edge with nylon boots. It did require a certain concentration! It was safe though; I could have fallen 200-300' without hurting myself because the snow slope was featureless and had a very soft run out. Besides I had my trusty ice ax and could have arrested my fall within 10-20' easily.

– Continue reading.