Mount Romulus Scramble

Lat/Lon: 50.78889°N / 114.99306°W- CLICK FOR TOPO MAP
Mount Romulus is part of the horseshoe shaped Fisher Range at the front end of
Kananaskis Country in the Elbow-Sheep Wildland Provincial Park. Kananaskis Country is
a maze of provincial parks which encompasses over 4,000 square kilometers of foothills
and mountains bordering Banff National Park to the east and south in the central
Canadian Rockies. Mount Remus starts one end of the horseshoe and Mount Fullerton
the other. In between lies Mount Romulus and Fisher Peak. Mount Romulus was officially
named in 1940 along with Mount Remus after the legendary twin brothers and founders of
Rome.

The only published route on Mount Romulus is the moderate rated scramble up its
southern ridge. Alan Kane’s Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies is pretty easy to follow
on this one. The crux, as for Mount Remus, is the Little Elbow River crossing,
particularly if you are going early season during a rainy day as we did. I suggest you
consider biking in with a pfd and study up on your river crossing skills. I was glad I was
with a river rat this day and actually learned a better river crossing method than I have ever
employed before. Those of you not used to our local river crossings will also need to
brace yourself for the temperature of a snow and glacier fed river. The easy-moderate-
difficult aspect of this scramble is where you access the south ridge from the
southern drainage. We climbed in low visibility. By ascending to the ridge too early, we
were forced to climb a short and loose 5th class section to attain the ridge and avoid
loosing elevation. If you ascend loose scree further north, this becomes more of an easy-
moderate scramble.

There is more evidence of human traffic on Mount Romulus than Mount Remus. In fact we
were the third ascent in June, 2006. I attribute this to the well equipped Romulus camp
ground site at the river crossing.   The views from the summit (if one has visibility) would
include Mount Fullerton and Nihahi Ridge to the north, Tombstone Mountain to the south,
Mount Blane and Mount Brock to the west and the eastern group of Mount Cornwall,
Banded Peak , Outlaw Peak and Mount Glasgow. The guidebook references covering the
11kms+/- in via the Little Elbow River Trail on a mountain bike in 1 hour and that seems to
hold true. It is not the fastest bike terrain. We completed the route roundtrip in 7.5 hours
including the bike portion, the book sites 7-9.

Getting There
The Bragg Creek and the Elbow-Sheep Valley area of Kananaskis Country can be
accessed from Calgary via a number of roads. The simplest is to take the Trans-Canada
exit for Bragg Creek, Highway 22. Travel south through Bragg Creek on Highway 22 until it
dead ends into Highway 66. Turn right on Highway 66 and follow it until a dead end into
the Little Elbow Campground. Park on the right at the sign for trailhead parking. Watch for
cattle and deer on the road as you will be driving through open range land. Highway 66 is
closed from December 1 through May 14. There are restrooms at this location.

Watch where you park, despite a bad weather mid week day without a soul in the Little
Elbow Campground, provincial park enforcement took the time to issue warning tickets to
us in regards to parking outside of the campground unless we were camping there. The
warning indicated that such a ticket would be $170.

Red Tape
There are no permit requirements to enter, climb and/or park in Kananaskis Country. The
Elbow Valley Information Center is located on your right after you turn right on Highway 66.
Any recent notices will be posted on the bulletin board at that location.

This is active grizzly country, therefore, you should always have bear spray on your person.
I found the remains of an elk kill along side the Little Elbow River when ascending Mount
Remus in 2005. I do advise checking with the park website link provided above for
possible wildlife trail closures.

When to Climb
As with most climbs in the Canadian Rockies, the driest time is from June through
September. I did this scramble in June in very wet conditions. Beware of the river crossing.
There are no published backcountry ski routes on Mount Romulus, but it might be
conducive to ski up the south drainage and onto the ridge in winter. These would no doubt
be avalanche prone slopes however.

Camping
This is actually an excellent scramble for camping due to the Romulus campground
at the river crossing. This is a nicely fitted out campground, firewood was chopped, a
porta-pottie was in place, tons of tie outs for horses, picnic tables galore and a nice
grassy area to share for R&R. There is also the Little Elbow Campground in which you
park to start your bike approach. Do not expect much of a backcountry experience
however, as many city residents use this campground as a holiday type resort. There are
several other backcountry sites further down Little Elbow Trail. You cannot camp outside
of the marked specific camping areas in Kananaskis. Refer to the Kananaskis Provincial
Park website for more information regarding camping and/or lodging.

Mountain Conditions
The Kananaskis Provincial Park website is a very thorough park website, including trail
conditions or closures, wildlife notices, weather conditions, avalanche conditions,
camping permits, whitewater conditions, etc. It is an excellent source if you are going to
spend any time here and comparable to any National Park website I have used. Outside
of the parks web site, Canadian Avalanche Association is also useful, particularly for
winter travel. Canadian Alpine Accident Reports are also extremely useful.

Route
This is a 4000’+ ascent day. The ideal time to climb Mount Romulus is from late May
through September. The issue with late May through June is the water level in the river.
Even if you are a hardened river rat, you might bike in with a pfd to use for the river
crossing. Of course I always take booties and sandals and leave them on the opposite
bank. On return, I just keep boots and gaiters on to avoid the cold shock since you bike out
from the river versus walk. Biking in is the only way to do Mount Romulus or Mount Remus,
the Greek twins. Mount Romulus is farther in on the Little Elbow Trail, approximalty 11kms.
Park at the trailhead parking at Little Elbow Campground (you more than likely will be
ticketed at $170 per vehicle if you do not follow their instructions for trailhead parking) and
bike through the campground to the start of the Little Elbow Trail. This is not fast biking by
any stretch, it does take an average biker about one hour to reach the Mount Romulus
Campground by the Little Elbow River on your right. You pass Nihahi Ridge, Mount
Fullerton and Mount Remus on your right. This is a wide fire road like trail.

As you arrive at the campground sign, turn right and ride to the campsite and take another
right once you get to the “boil the water” sign. Park your bike(s) at the rivers edge. The
horses use a crossing here and have caused erosion on both sides of the bank to show
you what is probably the best line across. If it is running high and furious, it all looks pretty
precarious. If it is late summer, you should have zero problems.

Once you reach the opposite river bank, go straight north into the woods. There will not be
a trail here, but you are looking to intersect an east-west horse trail in a very short
distance. Turn left on the trail and follow it to a deep drainage that is probably dry. The trail
crosses the drainage and continues west. You want to ascend the east bank on up into
the south drainage of Mount Romulus. Eventually it makes sense to hike right up the
drainage itself as it becomes more shallow. This is all good and fast ground compared to
your other option, which is scree. Stay in the trees until they absolutely phase out.

If you want to climb, turn left as you exit the trees and ascend up steep slopes to some
water worn rock bands. Maneuver through these to the base of the steep cliffs on the east
side of the south ridge leading up to Mount Romulus. There are a variety of loose climbing
options here. If you want the traditional scramble, continue north out of the trees and
wait a few gullies until you turn left to ascend the ridge. There are several easy breaks
farther north along the ridge that involve more scree than climbing. Either way, you will hit
the ridge at about 8000’ or a little higher. From there follow the ridge for about a 1000’ to a
fake summit at 9000’. If you have low visibility, from looking at the map you might feel like
you should descend a ridge to the right, but in reality, you want to take the left ridge 300’
down to a broad saddle. Head back up the summit ridge which becomes broad. The
summit is somewhat uneventful. There were two summit logs in 2006. We were the third
ascent of the year on June 8.

There no doubt might be a quicker descent on your left before retreating back down to
8300’ or so. Our visibility was limited, so we returned to some scree at about the 8300’
mark. Descend back through that water worn band of rock and constantly traverse right on
descent until back to the tree line that you emerged from and return the drainage back to
the trail below. The river will be higher in the afternoon, no matter what time of year
you attempt this peak. The bike out is quite a bit faster.

Essential Gear
Old runners or sandals, maybe some booties and a pfd, hiking poles help with the river
crossing and are useful in this scramble in general, gaiters