Highlights
- Tallest mountain in Kananaskis
- Highest peak between Mount Assiniboine and the US border
- Southermost 11,000er in Alberta
- Is most often climbed via the Mangin Glacier, on the northern aspect
Routes
8 summits • 35.5 km • 1,300 m gain • 19 hr 5 min
6 summits • 42.1 km • 726 m gain • 12 hr 33 min
5 summits • 38.8 km • 1,732 m gain • 17 hr 35 min
1 summit • 40.1 km • 1,750 m gain • 11 hr 23 min
1 summit • 14.4 km • 1,853 m gain • 11 hr 22 min
1 summit • 15.4 km • 1,146 m gain • 5 hr 25 min
1 summit • 17.9 km • 1,021 m gain • 7 hr 47 min
1 summit • 7.7 km • 710 m gain • 5 hr 46 min
Latest summits
"Three day trip, up and down the north face. Early start but conditions deteriorated for decent, 4 parties on mountain summited via different routes, gully route sounded like a better decent? Beautiful weather, smoke over towards BC but clear elsewhere. " — richardnorton • Aug 1, 2022
"Amazing three day ascent of Joffre. The conditions are still good but not for long, there is lots of exposed ice and rock. The approach was a colossal grind but worth every step." — yuri • Jul 31, 2022
"3rd time is the charm, even though it was in a complete white out. 15cm of new and blown snow since summiting made for an interesting descent. Ski out including hidden lake now melted out, skied along the lakeshore ice back." — ken_hercules • May 17, 2020
"Mt Joffre Ski - Sun Apr 21 2019 - Access is still good - we were able to ski right from the parking lot. Only had to take the skis off a couple of times at hidden lake. Our freeze improved as we went along and made for very easy travel up to Aster Lake and beyond. Ski crampons were an asset. Made it to Aster Lake in 4 hours flat. Melt-freeze conditions until about 2500m then dry snow from there. This area was not hit with much precip lately. -10c during our climb of the Mangin glacier. Didn't find wind slabs on the face, some unconsolidated powder on a supportive layer (old thin windslab) We did not probe depths but found no crevasses. We were able to skin quite high up.Bootpack was straightforward. Views at the top were epic. The ski down was incredible, run of the season for me for sure. Exit was great until the descent down to hidden lake where everything was isothermic. Bit of a mess from there but the upper lake trail held up OK. This part sucks regardless. It'll get ugly pretty soon but is still "in" for now. 14.5 hour day (14 for Majo) - 39km 2400m total gain. " — jakefinnan • Apr 21, 2019
"Second attempt, glad we went the first time to figure out the winter approach on the north side of fossil falls. One of the best of all time, amazing climbing and weather conditions with infinite visibility. Great skiing on 5-10 cms of creamy spring freshies. A long day at ~40km and 2400m gain." — BobbyG • Apr 21, 2019
"Well, we saw a small weather window predicted, it didnt happen... we attempted to summit in one day from Upper kananaskis lake. Made it to the toe of the glacier before visibility and high winds made us turn around. Still some good turns coming off the moraine, and down the winter route to aster has some awesome tree skiing. " — ken_hercules • Apr 6, 2019
"Tried Mt Joffre - access was pretty good -we skinned right from the parking lot. We had an "acceptable" freeze. Travel was surprisingly alright all the way to Aster lake which we made in 5 hours including getting a bit lost after hidden lake. We would have been about 4.5 hours if not for that, potentially less. The idea is to take the summer trail past hidden lake, and once it ascends the scree on the left, ski directly downhill to the RH side to find the drainage though the forest on the RH side of fossil falls. It is actually more straightforward and better than we all expected once we figured it out! The ski down it is pretty easy tree skiing. It is still winter at Aster Lake. The outhouse is blown over on it's side. Wind was absolutely insane and a blizzard rolled in when it was forecast to clear up for the afternoon - so we bailed in a total whiteout. The wind was intense! I can only imagine it on the summit.... We'll come back with better weather and bag it - we felt great. The full trip for Joffre car to car is actually ~38km return with 2700m of elevation gain!!!!! I estimate it to take 16 hours. It's not 2000m or less like a lot of trip reports state. It is well over 2500m..." — jakefinnan • Apr 6, 2019
"Climbed the north face of Joffre passing through one of the right-most gullies in the rock bands. Started from Aster lake around 2:30am, had very good snow conditions on the glacier and on face. Down climbed the top 3/4 of the face and glissaded about 200 meters. A tiny bit of rain just before returning to Aster Lake." — MichaelDyck • Jun 23, 2016
"After work Friday, left the parking lot at 6:50pm and arrived at Aster campground after some messing around at 11:45pm. Dinner and 5 hour nap and we were up and off by 6:30am for Joffre. Summitted before noon in clearing blue skies but heavy winds. Snow on headwall was some postholing and some ice. Downclimbing went well although punched a foot through the bergschrund to my surprise...Gerry held me. 3:45 down to Aster to pick up sleeping bags...then a long 4.5 hr out to parking lot." — alexjoseph • Sep 20, 2014