The Fist 148302 Scramble on 11-Aug-2025
Participants: Sim, Carolyn, Stephanie, Matthew
Trip Distance 14.85km, elevation gain 855m, total time (including summit lunch) 7h9min
The trip started out through the muddy Mount Smutwood route. As we exited the tress, I mentioned the possibility to another ascent line that Pam Cox had spotted last year, and after discussing with the group we decided to give it a go. Instead of grinding up the normal bushwack ascent gully, we traverse further along the path to Smutwood peak and used the open slope left of the normal asent route.
While this route was also steep, it offered us good footing, and zero bushwacking required. Once we gained the gully and lower slope, we traversed over to the connecting ridge to the base of The Fist. Although there is no bushwaking, this was a very steep ascent line, where we all commented how much we hd to work to push up it. We scrambled up to get into the gully staying as close together as possible to avoid the rockfall. Rockfall is a real hazard once the scramble begins, so caution must be taken. Here we bumped into a resident marmot who popped his head out to say hello.
As we continued up the ascent gully, we ran into the first real scrambling test, which was to get over the choke-stone in the gully.
Once over the choke-stone we continued up the gully, to a slabby rocky that needed to be scrambled, where after completing it, we all remarked that we did not want to scramble back down that. Fortunately, further up the gully and to climbers right we spotted what could be a possible decent gully. There was one last exposed scramble before the final summit push, where the exposure certainly wakes you up!
Once on the summit, we enjoyed the beautiful summit views, and ate our well deserved lunch.
After our well-deserved break, we carefully made our way back down the exposed downward slopping step to the gully, where this time we made our way to skiers left to scope out the alternate decent we spotted on the way up. This gully was much better, and after a short downclimb, we were able to scree run along the side of the gully we had scrambled up, helping us to avoid all of the exposed and difficult downclimbing.
After carefully making our way back to the connecting ridge between Mount Smuts and The Fist, we discussed the option of an alternate decent down across towards Tent Ridge and down and out through Tryst Lake.
We all agreed the alternate decent would save us from the muddy trail we walked in on, so we agreed to give it a go. We traversed across the lower slopes of The Fist on a very well defined trail, all the way up to the connecting Tent Ridge. We then dipped down on the other side, slide slopping and scree running where possible to the lower Tryst Lake. Although we all enjoyed this route, caution should also be taken here, as rockfall is also a hazard.
Once at Tryst Lake, we again followed the very well defined and dry trail back to the beginning of the Smutwood trail and back to the car. The alternate decent route was a real treat, and allowed us to take in all the beautiful wildflowers down by the lake.