Galwey North - Waterton Lakes National Park - Alberta, Canada

2024-08-22 - one of my favourite scrambles of all time is Mt. Galwey in Waterton Lakes National Park (Blackfoot: Paahtómahksikimi). It is a relatively short trek altogether and has some great scrambling and fantastic views.

Galwey's official summit is located at the southern edge of a long ridge that rises up like a wall. It is especially striking from the east as you come into the park from the Highway #6 or Highway #5. One thing that is hard to notice about this long ridge is that although the southern point is more striking the northern point is higher.

This was pointed out to Alan Kane so much that he decided to add to his entry for Galwey in his "Scrambles" book a description of how to scramble to "Galwey North". I had read this account before and also Sonny Bou's online account where he followed the Kane route.

Wanting to get another Waterton unnamed summit under my belt I decided that I would make my way to the peak. So, on a hot summer day Melissa and I made our way to the park. Melissa had some work to do that day so she dropped me off at the Coppermine picnic area with the plan on returning 7 hours later.

I took the usual route up to Galwey. This route begins with significant elevation gain and doesn't really let up. It does get the heart pumping but this also gets a hiker up to the peak in a relatively short time. Before too long I was below the summit block of Galwey.

I had intended to just bypass the peak as I was concentrating on "Galwey North" but it was too close to pass up so I quickly popped over the one difficult cliff band and to the famous 'Galwey Window' a natural human-sized hole between the ridges that has offered many a scrambler a photo-op or selfie. From here I went up the steep gully to the summit of Galwey. I only stayed there a couple of minutes as I had the north summit on my mind.
This diversion took me just less than an hour and is highly recommended, especially if a scrambler hasn't been to Galwey before.

Getting back to where I went up to Galwey was easy enough but the next leg looked daunting and highly exposed. However, this turned out to be a bit of an optical illusion as the grade along the ridge line is not as steep as it first looks. I wouldn't want to cross it in snow or heavy rain but when dry it was easy to get across. Within less than an hour I was below the summit block and on firm, solid rock. From there it was an easy scramble up to the top of "Galwey North".

The views are outstanding, especially of the craggy form of Dungarvan to the north, massive Mt. Blakiston (Blackfoot: Ahkoinimaiistáko / Pipestone) to the west, the saw-toothed shape of Galwey to the south and the endless prairies to the east.

When considering a descent the easier route would be just to return the same way. But, wanting to make this a loop hike, I decided to go on yet another ridge line that runs directly west of "Galwey North" and curves all the way back to the trailhead.

I found this route challenging. I cliffed myself out multiple times and had to backtrack and squeeze myself through gullies in order to bypass them. This wasn't really much of a concern as I could see that any time I could have just decided to either go down to Copermine Creek on the left or Lost Horse Creek on the right and follow one of those out. But I was determined to stay as close to the ridge line as possible.

After a lot of scrambling and route finding I was finally onto the easier terrain and was soon motoring along. As I was strolling I received a text message from Melissa, who had returned to pick me up. She could see me on the final slopes and warned me that a black bear sow and 2 cubs were coming up the slope that I was due to come down. I could see that I would soon be in a forested section so quickly diverted to Coppermine Creek and made my out to the picnic area.

It being berry season there were a lot of bears out that weekend. In fact, we saw another black bear sow and cubs on the way out and then a male juvenile black bear a short distance from them.

I would recommend this scramble but if I were to do it again I would do the loop in reverse order. It'd be easier to tackle the tougher route on ascent and use the well-known Galwey trail on descent.

References:
Alan Kane. (2017). Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies. 3rd Edition. Calgary, AB: Rocky Mountain Books.

Online:
http://sonnybou.ca/ssbou2020/galweyno...
See also:
https://peaksandstreams.com/2024/08/0...

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