Mt Galatea via Three Lakes Valley Scramble on 6-Aug-2025

What an amazing day. The weather cooperated despite volatile forecasts all around, a great group of ramblers with lots of positive energy and plenty of wildlife.

We set off at 0830 at a steady pace reaching Chester lake swiftly. After a short break / warmup bouldering session at the Elephant rocks we started the real climb enjoying the bonus (unnamed?) lake and making our way up through a small collection of larches. Recognizing the futility of hoping for a glissade, your coordidator finally tied his ice axe to a tree, safeguarded against the thieving marmots!

With peak fever we diverted left a little early making our way through the boulder field instead of the easier meadowy area below us. A quick regrouping made us decide to pick the (default) line towards the broader looking scree slope on climbers right. It turned out to be a good decision as we later confirmed the enticing gully up slab further left would have likely ventured us beyond SC7 terrain on the narrow SW ridge and the need to bypass a pinnacle. We donned our helmets, enjoyed the sun who now warmed us as we hiked up on the many ribs. It didn't feel that long, but my GSP says that we reached the E ridge approximately 90 minutes later after some solid effort on mostly good footing. Following the ridge was a blast and 3 of us enjoyed the bouldery move onto the solid slab, avoiding the bypass. The team agreed this was the only real SC7 portion.

After a relaxing lunch with great views in all directions, celebratory photos and coffee we headed down. The skies became slighly more worrying at this point and we opted for a more direct skiers right route alternating between scree and boulders. Many shouts of "rock" could be heard until we made it onto the almost decent scree run. Migrating skiers left lower down to avoid downclimbing the ribs we had ascended, we quickly reached the tarns below. On our way out, we were greeted by many more marmots. A ptarmigan family was exploring around the path so we decided to give them a wide berth following some slab off-trail. Encouraged by a light sprinkling the group kicked into high gear past Chester lake and swiftly reached the cars. As a bonus treat we saw a mother bear with 3 cubs cross highway 40.

Thanks to all participants for coming out on this great trip and tolerating my approach to driving comfortably on the Smith-Dorrien!

Stats: 7h40 moving time, 8h10 elapsed time.
4h20 ascend, 3h17 descend.
1300m elevation gain, approx 17.5km? (my GPS claims 19.5 but all the others are more correct)

Participants: Alda, Pam, Sebastiaan (c/s), Stephanie (photos), Matthew