Cascade Mountain

The left side of this buttress forms an attractive prow which is very prominent from the highway and is the line of the classic, moderate route Mothers Day. Currently, there are only four routes on the buttress despite it having some of the best rock on the entire band of cliffs. One particular area of interest is the steep, gray rock in the lower part of the buttress to the right of Mothers Day and each side of Ant Tease Day. A few bolts and some effort may produce some good one or two pitch sport routes in this area. Farther right, the relatively recent route, Oedipus Complex, climbs a big left-facing corner system.

This section of cliff is the most extensive of all the buttresses in the long line of cliffs that runs along the base of Cascade Mountain. It stretches eastward (northward) from the deep gully that separates it from Mothers Day Buttress to the long, southeast ridge of Cascade Mountain (Minnewanka Buttress) where the cliffs curve around to the north and drop down into C-Level Cirque. Most of the climbs were established during the 70’s by Chic Scott, Lloyd MacKay and Ken Baker, all of whom were prominent Banff pioneers at that time. They generally follow the more obvious corner systems but a more recent semi-sport route, Valley View, ventures out onto sections of blanker rock and indicates an encouraging direction for future development. The most recent addition, Lipburner, is a difficult, four pitch semi-sport route that climbs through large roofs at the left end of the cliff.

Some of the early climbs are slowly being fixed up: Dan’s Delight in particular, and Ken’s Cave to a lesser extent. Bolted belays now make these climbs much more enjoyable. Farther right, where the cliff becomes more broken, some of the climbs are scrappy and discontinuous and barely worth repeating. Hiker’s Delight and L’Dublie (Forget It), for example, are included only for completeness, as their route names would suggest!

Overall, the quality of the rock on the buttress is not good. The rock tends to be shattered and loose in places, and the cracks are often shallow, making good gear placement difficult. Consequently, pitons are recommended for the less traveled routes and in addition to being prudent on such a big face, two ropes are necessary for the descent.