From the trail head, I followed a moderate incline up old logging roads, passing by the old parking lot, until a footpath was reached. The narrow twisting trail ascends through spruce forest for about 15 minutes. The trail then levels off into flowering meadows and my first glimpses of Mt. Chester ahead on my right. It took me 1h 20m to reach Chester Lake (2220m/7281') from the trail head (310m in 5.5km/1015' in 3.4mi). I then backtracked to assess the lower slopes leading to the col (to the right of the picture).
From afar, the gully looks far more steep and intimidating that it really is. A standard route
to the Mt. Chester Col is straight up the broad gully. However, much of this gully was still
full of snow. A trail can be seen on the far right but at the time I did this ascent, it
was very wet and muddy. I decided to scramble my way up to the left of the gully between the
two upper snow fields. This is a moderate to steep ascent over mainly grassy slopes on the
lower section. As you reach the top of the ridge, above the col, frequent hand holds are
needed but the ground is firm with many slabs to speed progress at this point. As I topped
out, another party of two, who had gone up the snow in the gully using ski poles, was just above me.
Once the ridge is reached, I took the quicker route by ascending the many slabs leading
to the summit. Mountain sheep were on the summit when I reached the ridge. A few minutes
after starting this final section, a large rock was knocked loose by the sheep and headed
in my direction!. Fortunately, it broke into smaller pieces but one piece came within 40
to 50 ft! About 10 minutes from the summit, a light rain started, making the slabs a bit
slippery. I reached the summit @ 12:45pm.
The summit offers a panoramic view although on this day it was hampered by heavy cloud cover.
A register is located in the summit cairn. I noted that Alan Kane had been there July 19/96.
At 1:50pm, I began my descent from the summit. Since there had been a light rain on the
way up, I decided to head for the scree on the descent rather than tackle the slippery slabs.
Even so, descent was slow due to very loose scree. I also encountered some unfamiliar terrain
that I had bypassed by scrambling up the grassy slopes.
Once the col is reached, a quick glissade down the snow field in the gully gets you to the
bottom quickly. From there, it's an easy descent back to the trail head on the marked trail.
About 15 minutes from the parking lot, the rain finally began.
