Trip Report: Mount Yamnuska

This trip report is for an ascent of Mount Yamnuska in the Kananaskis – Exshaw/Seebe area.

Elevation: 2240m/7349ft

Date: November 30, 2023

Range: Fairholme Mountains

Mount Yamnuska, also known as Mount Laurie (but that name isn’t as fun), is one of the more uniquely shaped mountains in the Kananaskis area.

It is one of the first mountains to be seen as you approach westbound on Hwy 1 towards Canmore and Banff. Its monstrous flat face is very recognizable and is an awesome depiction of the geological activity that occurred in the area millions of years ago during the ice age.

This trip was my second attempt up Yamnuska, my first (in early October) being a failure as I got caught up in some violent winds near the chain area and decided it was not safe to proceed. My boyfriend and I caught a perfect weather window this Thursday to attempt another ascent in almost near-perfect weather (aka zero wind).

We left the van at the trailhead around 11:00 am for the trail, we took our time in the morning because of some work we had to finish and didn’t want to rush.

It was a good grind up to the ridgeline before Raven’s End. Large sections were snow-covered but hard iced snow that was good to walk on with crampons and not much different than early October. Many sections were subject to the sun, so the snow was melted away.

When we got to the Chimney around Raven’s End, there was some snow around the rocks but not much to be concerned about. We began our ascent through the rock section around 12:30 pm, stopping for some short breaks along the way.

Traversing the back of Yamnuska has great views of the rest of the Fairholme Mountains, a lot of which you can’t see from Exshaw or Seebe unless you’re on top of the mountains.

Lots of scrambling across as some snow-covered rock sections required some handholds and leaning into the side of the rock. The snow wasn’t deep so it was relatively easy to walk through, but we took extra care as Yamnuska is prone to falling and loose rocks.

We got to the chain section relatively quickly, we were able to catch up to a trio that was about 200m away but we kept our distance as they were moving slowly.

During my first attempt, the chain section was quite scary for me personally, especially with the significant wind at the time. However, this time my boyfriend (the experienced rock climber) talked me through it and made it easier for me to complete (shoutout to him <3).

Once through the chains, we abseiled down and descended rapidly in a gully which was quite unsteady and slippery. Lots of “ass-cending”, as my boyfriend likes to say lol was done as the easiest/safest way down.

We then climbed up our last grind then rested a bit before our final summit push on a ledge just after one of the pole markers.

This entire trail is very well-marked, all the way up to the summit. But make sure you are consistently following the markers and not people’s footprints. This is because the markers will take you the safest way up while people will take the shortest which is not always the same.

Also, the markers change directions quickly and you may find yourself walking up a random path into a dead end if you’re not paying attention.

When we were ready we made our final push to the summit. As we ascended the group in front of us was just beginning their descent.

Super awesome to be up the with some cool views of the beginning of the valley and into Kananaskis County. We could see a lot of different weather systems across the mountains.

Once we were good to go we descended across the West Col. This is a scree descent and has a lot of loose rocks, I found myself sliding down a good couple of portions of it (rip my knees).

We rounded the corner of the last face and saw the trail divided into two paths, Scree Descent (Not recommended) and the West Col descent (Recommended).

We decided to take the West Col path because my knees were not going to be able to handle another scree descent and also we wanted a casual walk down.

The trail down was snow-covered and descended quickly so our crampons were a blessing.

Right as we rounded back to where the scree descent route met the west col descent route we noticed some falling rocks, which were coming from the group that was ahead of us.

They ended up taking the scree descent down and were very slowly descending. We passed them on our way and got back to the parking lot around 4:20 pm.

From my AllTrails log, the trip was about 10.3km, gaining 894m. Great summit and a fun trip, looking forward to doing more climbing in Kananaskis while I’m here.