Mount Aylmer Scramble

Lat/Lon: 51.32°N, 115.43°W
Mount Aylmer is part of the Palliser Range located in the Lake Minnewanka Valley adjacent to
the Ghost River Valley. The summit is actually located in the Ghost River Wilderness area, but
much of the mountain is located in Banff National Park as well. Banff National Park is one of
four connecting national parks in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. This is a mountaineer’s
mountain in that it was officially named by the person who made the first ascent (1889), JJ
McArthur, who was from Aylmer, Quebec. Mount Aylmer forms a pyramid when viewed from the
east and rises above its immediate neighbors, catching considerably more snow. Its summit
can be viewed to the east from downtown Banff on a clear day. As an objective, it sits relatively
alone across from Mount Inglismaldie with the long (24 km) and narrow Lake Minnewanka
(water of the spirits) in the middle. Lake Minnewanka is no pond at 466’ deep. Despite its
lengthy approach, Mount Aylmer is a mountain that does get climbed frequently. (My camera
broke and I had to use a cheap video camera for the climb-sorry)

The only published route I am aware of is the scramble up the southwest slopes. I would be
tempted to ski this route, but have no knowledge of it being done.

Getting There
The Trans-Canada Highway dissects Banff National Park east to west as you come in from
Calgary. Take the first Banff town exit and turn right (east) on Lake Minnewanka Road for 5.5
km to the Marina. You are almost guaranteed to see plenty of mountain sheep on this road and
at the Marina.

Red Tape
You will be required to purchase a national park pass as you enter the park. This pass is good
for all four national parks. If you plan many visits to Canadian National Parks within one year,
you should purchase an annual pass. There are no permit requirements to climb in Banff
National Park, but all camping is regulated. There is also a backcountry permit required if you
plan on spending a night in the backcountry versus the town campsites. This can be obtained
via the parks website which is included in the camping section below. Park headquarters are
located in Banff and you will drive through the manned kiosks as you enter the park.

This is active grizzly country. We just had a grizzly attack and death in Canmore yesterday,
June 5, 2005. Therefore, you should always have bear spray on your person. We have had an
increase in activity so far in 2005.

When To Climb
As with most scrambles in the Canadian Rockies, the driest time is from June through
September. I climbed Aylmer in October. There are no published backcountry ski routes on the
mountain but I am tempted to put one up.

Camping
This is mountain worth camping for. Lake Minnewanka offers tons of good camping sites up
and down the north shore. I have canoed up and down to several of these campsites. They all
offer great shoreline camping. For Mount Aylmer, you will want to obtain a permit for
campsite LM8. You can go on line at Banff National Park to pick your camp site and obtain
your camping permit. You will also be required to obtain your backcountry permit which is
separate, but can be obtained simultaneously.

Mountain Conditions
Banff National Park’s website has weather, wildlife reports, trail closures, etc. Outside of the
parks web site, Canadian Avalanche Association is also useful, particularly for winter travel.

Route
This is a 5800’+/- ascent day. I chose to camp at Lake Minnewanka's #8 campsite. This
allowed for the spouse and dog. Also in late October, you will have this area to yourself.
Wardens even questioned us going in, but all was good. Whether you camp or not, allow 2
hours by foot or 1 hour by bike to travel the 8 km along the lake shore trail to the intersecting
Aylmer Pass trail (campsite). It took me 6.5 hours from this intersection to summit and return
to the campsite.

From campsite LM8, proceed on the Aylmer Pass trail. This will take you past the Aylmer
Lookout trail. Once you pass this intersection, continue to 7000'+/- where you are forced to
cross a rock strewn gully/stream bed. The pass trail continues sharply left up hill, you on the
other hand need to ascend the rock gully to the right as it twists around eastward, following it
up to a perpendicular north-south ridge at 8000'. Tons of sheep graze this area (as does at
least one bear). Once on this soft ridge, you will see your objective to the north. Now you have a
choice, the easy scramble (still long day) is to descend from this ridge to the east and traverse
left angling slightly higher until you see the notch in the SW ridge of Aylmer. It should be
obvious that this notch circumvents the more difficult ridge climbing. You can pretty much angle
your way up different scree slopes to this notch. This is the best descent route as well.

The more challenging ascent is to not descend from the north-south ridge and instead,
continue gaining elevation to the northeast aiming for the intersection of dark brown scree on
the left and light colored larger scree on the right. Once you obtain this southwest ridge of
Aylmer, take the ridge all the way, knowing you will have to down climb some moderate-difficult
sections towards the end of this thrust to reach the same notch previously discussed. This is
the route I took. Once you are at the notch, you will have about 1300' of large scree to go.

There is a summit register. The views were limited to the east by a large cornice. You have
great views of Inglismaldie, Lake Minnewanka and the Palliser Range. Return is quicker via
scree down from the notch aiming for that 8000' ridge. The ride down from 8000' to 7000' on
that dark brown scree is sweet to say the least.

Essential Gear
Helmet (do I have to keep saying it??? actually good for a grizzly scrape as well….they do not
like the taste of foam), Alpine ax is better than a hiking pole for the soft steep sections, and
again, great tool fighting off a bear if you can’t work things out. Spouse, dog, camping gear, etc.
make for a pleasant outing. These are great campsites!

Trip Report
We saw every animal in the book. It was late October and no one but us at LM#8 on the lake
shore of Lake Minnewanka. My wife planned to trail run to the col while I scrambled, but turned
around due to grizzly scat. Tons of sheep, elk (one of the largest bulls I have ever seen) and
deer. One ewe took her lamb into the lake to avoid us (felt bad about that). Great trip, mountain
is not much of challenge though, but good long day close to Banff if that is what you are looking
for. Cheers!