Goat Mountain Traverse (Goat Traverse) - Yam to Door Jamb - Jun 22, 2024 - Bow Valley PP, Alberta

Darren Steffler and Doug Lutz traversing Goat Mountain in Bow Valley Provincial Park, Alberta
I had wanted to do the Goat Mountain Traverse (Goat Traverse) for a number of years, but I had always understood that it was climbing terrain... rope required. It is most efficient if one car is positioned at Jura Creek (base of Door Jamb Mountain), and another at the Yamnuska parking lot. This also meant that I would have to find someone interested in taking on the route.
Darren Steffler was interested in this route. Darren is one of my mountaineering friends that has taken on many difficult routes with me, so I not only trusted his ability in the terrain, but I also trusted his ability to effect a rescue if one should be needed... We were intent on tackling the route and soloing as much of it as we could. If we got to an impasse, we would turn around.
We were not interested in accessing Goat Mountain from Jura Creek, via moderate terrain - we wanted to experience the traverse, and our plan was to traverse the route starting at the Yamnuska parking lot, and finishing at the Jura Creek parking lot.
There is a fair bit of beta available for the route - some information I was able to source first-hand (Devan Peterson), and others, I had to read through their content (Andrew Nugara, Bill Kerr, and Steven Song). The variety of perspectives allowed Darren Steffler and I to fairly clearly understand what we were getting into, and also feel fairly confident about out choice to not take rope or climbing gear on the route.
I am still uncertain if I should label this route as a "scramble" or a "climb". Clearly, for me, if rope was used for top-roping or rappelling - or if there were cams or other climbing gear used, it clearly puts the route in the "climbing" category. The insurance industry similarly categorizes terrain based on gear being carried by the participants... rope, harness, axe, or other mountaineering type gear such and cams, pitons, slings, etc. all mean that a person is clearly out to do "climbing" activities.
In this case, there is historical information that says there is a Class 5.3 gully at the Yam-Goat col, a Class 5.3 slab feature east of the Goat Mountain summit, and some rappelling on the south end of the Unnamed Peak southwest of the Goat Mountain summit. My issue is that we did not use the Class 5.3 gully, and feel that we were on 4th Class terrain to gain the ridge crest between Yam and Goat; we felt that the Class 5.3 slab rating was generous - we would only have graded it as Class 4; I didn't downclimb the 5th Class terrain at the south end of the Unnamed Peak, and I didn't rappel from there either.
My only 5th Class step that I felt that I took (for the route I used), occurred between the bypass route and the GR southwest of the Unnamed Peak. The line we downclimbed clearly was 5th Class, but I did not check if there actually was an easier line - I just don't know if there was or wasn't one.
A route is supposed to be graded according to the most difficult move that is NON-OPTIONAL on a route. The slab feature certainly was non-optional, so I can understand that if people believe that slab is Class 5.3, then the route would be graded as 5.3 overall.
Maybe I am sandbagging my grading of the route since I am comfortable on slab... so, while it felt like 4th Class to me, others may feel like it truly is 5th Class... So, I can't responsibly contradict a historical rating of the slab without being certain that I am not sandbagging... and I am not certain of this.
Call the route what you want - I do know that it was fun for me. I hope that you enjoy the video! Thanks Darren for joining me on this challenging route!
Disclaimer: While I purport this route to be largely 4th Class, if a person is uncomfortable on slab with very few crack features, they may feel more confident using climbing equipment on the terrain. Additionally, at the south end of the Unnamed Peak, there is some serious 5th Class terrain. While the bypass side-sloping can be used to avoid this, if there is significant snow on that slope, the bypass may be unwise to utilize. Even if a person uses rope at that south end, a person needs to be skilled enough to recognize if an anchor is suspect or not. When rope and/or anchors are left in the field, they are subject to weather and wear/tear. We noted that the anchor that the rappel rope was strung through had a tear, and the sling was weathered as well - it should be treated as not reliable.
I have referenced labels that match Bill Kerr's description in summitpost.org for "Goat Traverse". He labels a bunch of highpoints starting at the ridge crest gain from the Yam-Goat col, and proceeding along the ridge all the way to Door Jamb Mountain. His labels are "Peak 1", "Peak 2", "Peak 3" (slab historically graded as 5.3), "Peak 4" (Goat Mountain), "Peak 5", "Peak 6" (Unnamed Peak), "Peak 7" (GR), "Peak 8" (Loder Peak), "Peak 9" (Door Jamb Mountain).

[@robrobinson9162]

What an awesome route!!!

[@outdoor-explorer]

"Show me your crack" had me dieing. 🤣

[@patmichael1231]

Great adventure and video! I've done it a few times, but always the other direction - mainly so we could run the scree at Yam. In that direction the main hard bit (which we belayed up) was about 5 metres at 17:30. Lots of intricate route finding, thanks for the memories.

[@DougLutz]

Great job! Yeah, that seems to be the typical line. What I don’t get is that “Unnamed Peak” doesn’t have prominence, so it would seem that the only reason to go over that bump is if the northeast face is full of snow… so in dry conditions, I don’t get why people would even bother with it.

[@c.5376]

​@DougLutz Its the fun part!!!! Thats why!!