As this updated version of Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies goes to press, 25 years have passed since the first edition appeared in 1991. Scrambling has long since become a mainstream mountain pursuit, and scramble guidebooks have since been written for other areas such as southwestern BC, Washington and Oregon. While I only suspected my original book spawned these, veteran scrambler Steve Tober’s sharp eyes confirmed it beyond a doubt. Several years ago, while reading an online excerpt of a then-new U.S. scrambles publication, he noticed a familiar-sounding sentence and brought it to my attention. Sure enough, without even realizing it, I had crafted an opening sentence so memorable that another author had copied it verbatim. Since she is a professional writer, I was most flattered and I let her know. Although she did not acknowledge the source of that apparently unforgettable sentence, she did thank me for my interest in her book!
But not only are there more scrambles books now, one can now find innumerable online scrambling websites, and at least one mountain school offers a course in scrambling skills. While I don’t know how many scramble enthusiasts actually do take a skills course first, it seems that a lot more should. The Kananaskis Country rescue service is often kept busy bailing out scramblers who in some cases didn’t seem to have much of a clue at all. One example would be people taking a shortcut down a gully, encountering cliffs, and then getting flown off instead of climbing back up and going the correct way. Yes, this has really happened. Beaten paths, cairns and flagging exist like never before, making it harder to get off route or into trouble, but people still do. One interesting footnote to this is a conversation I had with a group of young people, new at scrambling, just as they returned from an ascent. One fellow didn’t seem to understand that existing flagging already shows the correct way. He intended to carry uniquely coloured flagging of his own so he could mark his own route and not get confused by flagging already in place. Occasional accidents and deaths still occur but no amount of detailed information will completely prevent this. What has become obvious over the years is the sheer number of ascents made without incident. Many peaks now see more ascents in one summer than they saw in an entire decade before the original Scrambles book came out in 1991.
So, why an updated version of Scrambles now? The promise of colour pictures this time around enticed me, and there have been enough changes to approaches, starting points and terrain that an update was justified. Park policies and park trails change, and with severe enough weather the scrambling terrain itself can change. Record-setting rainfall in June 2013 affected the landscape of the southern Rockies more than any other single event since people began hiking these mountains. Many approaches changed drastically and needed to be checked. This update also presents an opportunity to clarify discrepancies, adjust height gains, mention variations now in use and add a few new scrambles as well. Nineteen, in fact. Four are located in the French Creek–Haig Glacier area of Kananaskis and four in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park. Other new scrambles are located in Yoho and Banff national parks and have seen very few ascents in the past. Most of these can be done as day trips, although for some new Kananaskis routes, bivying in French Creek allows for multiple ascents from one location. Although I don’t get up many new peaks anymore, as in previous editions, I have personally ascended each of these new peaks and it is those ascent routes which are described. In a very few cases I have changed the difficulty rating on existing guidebook entries based on user feedback and online reports by parties who have done a significant number of other scrambles from my guidebook. Inevitably I will have missed updating something and can only hope it will be relatively insignificant. Any errors can be forwarded to the publisher.
Finally, as a matter of interest, the first two people to complete all the routes in the original 1991 edition of Scrambles were Roberto Pavesio and Steve Tober, as of 1998. Then, in 2000, the ever-energetic Roberto became the first to complete the expanded 1998 edition. Every peak in this 2016 edition has already been completed by Sim Galloway. (And by me, too!)
To all who venture onto the trails and head for a summit, I wish you a happy and safe scramble to the top as well as many happy returns.
—Alan Kane