Joined Bert, Blake and Jason at the last minute since my boyfriend decided to go mountain biking and let me out. So, a few hours before bed I got ready after getting the go-ahead from Stephan and welcome aboard by Bert. Woke up at 4:15 am, met the guys at 5 am and drove to K-Country. We started at about 7am and got back at about 10 pm. It was great doing this as a single push because when I did Warrior and Cordonnier I had the big ass pack and I felt so fast and light going up the headwall this time. I only carried 1L of water all the way to the end of Aster Lake, then filtered 1.5 for the summit push, then filtered about the same for the way back from the nice little waterfall at the base of Northover. I had already decided to do the descent route because I don't like exposure too much and it worked out well. It was still sketchy on the descent route and I never like to do sketch solo, but I made good time and summited just over an hour ahead of the guys. I had a great view of them as they tackled the ridge! Super cool. We found the proper descent route on the way down, as I had gone further climber's right by a bit on the way up. We had a perfect, hot day and it was nice to get sun as my tan is already fading ... sigh. Where did summer go? This was only my 10th new Kane this year, but it's better than nothing and it's done. Northover is a pretty cool mountain. Still have to go back for Sarrail one day as a single push too. Apparently, Northover counts as a peak, but I don't have street cred like those that do the Kane ascent along the gnarly ridge. Still alive though lol, so good for me :)
Taras
Great report! How would you rate the descent route? Marko Stavric described it as "upper moderate/easier difficult scramble". Do you agree with him?
leigh-annewebster
Hey Taras, From the col up to the summit, if you follow the right path heading from the right upward left it should only be a steep scree slog for the first let's say 40 minutes or so. Then you get into some options of gullies / slab. If you've trended left the entire time, you'll be in right place. The proper descent route is right at the leftmost edge of the mountain. There are some grippy, slab ribs you can do a little hands-on, or deal with scree on slab bits if you can navigate it well. It's a bit exposed in the sense that you would tumble a long ways down super steep scree and slab if you slipped. It reminded me a little bit of the first bit of Kiwetinok there. I was a little bit right of the "proper descent route" as I could read it better and felt it looked the safest. However, it might be best to keep to the far left. There is one slab traverse where the bolt and cordelette are that you definitely want dry! I would personally still rate that last little bit difficult (say the last 30m gain or last 15-20 minutes). Once you're on the ridge it's exposed and a wee bit loose but wideenough.
Taras
Thanks a lot Leigh-Anne for the detailed answer! I couldn't reconcile Marko's words with Raff's who told me he'd rappelled on the descent route.