The plan was to do a Castle Wildlands PP Front Range Traverse starting in the south that included a bit of Waterton National Park. If we went from Lakeview Mountain all the way to Victoria Peak as one long ridge walk it would be 48km. The crux was likely the section up the southeast of Mt Dungarvan thru Cloud Ridge and Mt Glendowan and I couldn't find any reference on the web to anyone that had traversed the full distance between those peaks nor who had ascended Dungarvan SE.

After dropping bikes at the exit ridge of Victoria Peak and one further south near Loaf Mountain ridge, we drove the van up an unmaintained range road north of Lakeview Mountain and headed out on the prairie at a healthy 11am towards the start. We ascended the east valley towards The Horn deciding not to ascend Mt Dungarvan east face (good choice) which looked like continuous loose, steep terrain and looked back at the Horseshoe Basin trail switchbacks which became very evident from above with all the burnt out forest and emerging green grasses and flowers. On the summit by 2:30pm, we then looked at our first difficult objective.

Descending 200m to the col, we crossed snow and headed up the SE ridge and enjoyed the adventure of seeing no trail and having no beta other than get to the summit. A nice adventure after all the other beaten Kane paths on so many other peaks. We found a break to the right (east side) near the top and ascended some difficult terrain to reach the summit ridge and then after a quick up and over a false summit, we saw the only cairn on the trip which marked a southeast facing steep gully. We ascended that and instead of the chockstone we chose the steep wall to the right with nice grippy edges. A rope helped one party member to ascend with 60 lb overnight pack. On the summit, we enjoyed a sparse summit register with no 2018 posts and our first 2019 note. Nice to see our colleague Mike Samson who had summitted in 2017.

5pm and it was time to continue west and north. Once down to the col, we could see the "normal" scrambling descent to the SW-W gully but we headed along the ridge up to "Dunwey" peak. It was 8pm at this point and windy as hell. We sat and pondered how far we'd come and how far we had to go. A quick calculation suggested we had 10 hours to go on the ridge to reach Newman Peak and that would be the end of the technical section and that would leave no time to get down ridge, to bike, ride back to vehicle and get home Sunday night. As reality settle in, we pondered existing east off Dungarvan the next day after a bivy there on the ridge.

2 of us bedded down. A third decided our east descent wasn't possible due to cliffs and instead wanted to descend west towards Red Rock Parkway (which had just opened late Friday night) We would hitch from there. At 10pm after nearly falling asleep in hurriculain winds, the third returned without pack which he had tried to lower off a small cliff and dropped which then tumbled a couple hundred feet out of reach. He was facing a cold night with no bivy gear or extra warm gear. So we broke camp and moved down the ridge to the west as the twilight faded. We concluded we couldn't get off ridge or get pack that night so bedded down and shared gear to ensure we were to get thru the night. By 4am we all were pretty much freezing as the radiative cooling of a clear starlit night took its toll.

5am we were up and at it. We rappelled a short section and scouted for the pack. A 60m+ rappel meant it was out of reach so we tried to descend to the NW and wrap around to ascend from below. This led to the third member climbing up until he got to a spot he couldn't retreat from. After contemplating pushing our inReach device for a helicopter...we concluded they couldn't land and it would require a short rope rescue so we did that ourselves. 11am and we were packless and still hours from the road.

A wood clogged creek descent and then steep sidehilling in burnt forest finally got us to the roadside pullout which appeared to have ribbon closing it off...bear? Nope contaminated site - do not enter. Just then a Parks Canada vehicle passed by to which we flagged them down. We explained our situation and found out the road was only open to bikes not cars. After pretty much begging for a ride (at this point we'd gone 35km...they refused even though the truck had 3 free seats, an empty bed in back, and no cars on the road. They said 10km to the gate but cell service in 3 km ;} So much for our hitching plan...

2.5 hours later walking with sore feet down the hot paved road, we reached the main highway. Next up was an AMA tow truck. After convincing them we weren't nuts ("this isn't a taxi service") we got tow truck ride number one to Claresholm after a scolding for having to unlock the van (lost keys in pack), no wallet (in pack), a locked ski box with our other wallets and car keys that the tow driver couldn't open, and having parked down a "closed" unmaintained road. Surprisingly we made it to Claresholm on the 160km free km per tow by 7pm!!! Next up tow number 2. Important note: always ensure you have multiple trip participants with their own AMA account. Each can get a 160km free ride. So by 8:30pm we had the van up again and were enroute in a tow truck home to Calgary. Home by 10:30pm and lucky enough a second set of ski box keys and our wallets and car keys were released.

The story doesn't end there. The determined third member returned the next morning to Waterton to recover the pack alone. Needless to say an epic story in itself. Spoiler alert: no one died, pack recovered, needed bike ride both ways, 3 ropes attached together and jumars to ascend 3 times to get pack, weather came in forcing another bivy at 2am and return the next afternoon.

9 hrs day 1, 11 hrs day 2, total 45km and 1500+m ascent

Dungarvan you are memorable ;}