PRINT: Rock Climb Mothers Day Buttress, Banff National Park

Mothers Day Buttress

5.6, Trad, 1100 ft (333 m), 8 pitches,

Avg: 2.9 from 44 votes
FA: unknown
International > N America > Canada > Alberta > Banff NP > Cascade Mountain > Mothers Day Buttress

Description

Length: 335m, 8 pitches

Sun Exposure: receives lots of sun since

Time: 2 - 6 hours to climb the route

car-to-car: 5 - 10 hours

Difficulty: 5.6 or 5.7(variation P2)

Rack: Cams: single set of small to 2" (#2 camalot) and a normal selection of nuts.

An excellent moderate outting and a great route for new leaders to cut there teeth on a longer objective. The descent is not trivial and requires about 1.5 hours, but is relatively straightforward. The climb follows the buttress all on generally good rock with excellent pro opportunities. All anchors all bolted except 2 that utilize trees.

See the topo on the TABVAR site that Chris Perry made for the upcoming new guidebook:

http://www.tabvar.org/sites/default/files/MothersDayButtressTABVARver1.pdf

In 2022 there was a fatality:

This is incredibly sad news and hope the best for the partner and family of those involved.

https://www.climbing.com/news/daniel-heritage-lost-his-life-climbing-banff-national-park/

Description of accident was that on pitch 5 variation the climber fell with a lot of rope out and limited pro. Hard to say what happened, no speculating on the details will be tolerated on this page. Just so that people are aware that this happened, this was added to keep people aware.

Location

Park at the cadet pullout on the Lake Minnewanka Scenic Drive about 200m north of the Trans Canada highway just outside of Banff. Walk up the road for about 100m to an obvious gravel slough. Head up the gravel creekbed for about 5 minutes watching on the right for a good climbers trail marked with a cairn. Follow this trail to a rock outcropping. Scramble up (easy) staying on the right side of the BIG gulley. Regain a good climbers trail and follow this up to the base of the route.

Protection

Single set of cams to 2" (#2 camalot), nuts, slings.

Photos [Hide ALL Photos]

Hope this makes the descent more clear.

If you get to this anchor at the top of pitch one, it is INCORRECT. To find the correct anchor (it has chains on it,) keep to climber's left of this anchor. If you do get here.. traverse left and g…

Start of final pitch, lots of bolts to follow on the left line.

Pitch one start

Somewhere near the base of the route

Mother's day buttress

Mothers Day Buttress

Comments [Hide ALL Comments]

Monkey man403

Great entry level route for new trad leader. Harder variations can make it much more interesting.
Typical rockies- not the most straight forward route finding
Walk off is no joke Jul 15, 2014

Jon Bradley
Rocky Mountain House

All the belays are bolted now. Pretty fun route. Plenty of choose your own adventure on the climb, just start grabbing holds and go!

The descent was definitely no joke as stated earlier. Involved lots of steep steep down hill, and one rappel. The descent trail is well trodden though. Once you pass cascade falls if your not sure where to go just follow the crampon scrapes on the rocks. Jun 4, 2015

Yannick Cosmo

updates 28 May 2019; necessary beta; linking P1 and P3 by the alt 5.7, don't bother stopping at mid anchor (25m and you can see the leader at the belay, not necessary, 50m total to P3). Between P4 and P5, there is a mid anchor, again don't bother, too short. P6 hidden 2 bolt anchor, when you see a shinny single bolt up ahead, don't aim for it, aim left to the bigger tree (the hidden anchot is actually 15' below and left of that bolt, in a corner). On that, BTW, you can link P5 with P7 with a 70m rope. I did it (because i passed P6 anchor, LoL) Descent, between Mother'day and Cascade Buttress, be carefull of hidden snow! Can't see it from Parking lot, but the traverse in that gully had snow under scree-rocks with water running under... if it goes, you go. Went around it (extra 30min). Enjoy! May 29, 2019

ethan murray

excellent moderate trad outing. Lots of bolts where you need them, great gear where you don't. A friend and I did this last summer in just under 2.5 hours car to car, expect around 4-5 if you're not going for speed. the 5.7 and the 5.8 variations are both excellent, with a couple of tricky moves on the 5.8 Apr 17, 2022

Xavier Gorloo
Calgary, AB

May 31/22

I hadn't planned on linking any pitches but we did it in 6 pitches.

I think we soloed pitch 1 unintentionally and then did the 5.7 variation on pitch 2 as our first pitch (unknowingly).

From the top of the 5.7 variation I then linked pitches 3 & 4 (if you did the 5.7, pitch 3 feels really short) using long slings on bolts and a 70m rope.

Pitch 6 is where things got interesting and potentially off route but fun climbing on exposed terrain with a few hand jams. We went up and right over the ridge crest past a stuck cam. After battling rope drag, made it to a station (near trees) with only 1m of rope left on our single 70m, I placed 13 pieces but ran out of draws near the top despite the topo stating the pitch to be 40m... so maybe we missed some anchors?

The last pitch is fun. And the steeper top out is well protected. Jun 1, 2022

Mark W

Fun route. Great position. Climbing is pretty easy, lots of ledges throughout. Jul 18, 2022

Dylan Teichroeb
Portland

Check out the photo I posted of the descent. Check the guide book link above or google it for the full description. It's a very good climbers path to a rappel but the rap is far away from the climb. Great climb, perfect grade and exposure for me. I love an alpine climb that can be done in approach shoes plus bolted anchors are nice. Jul 24, 2022

Dylan Teichroeb
Portland

Also watch out. We climbed P1 to the wrong anchor to the right and started climbing whatever is there before realizing it was not a 5.7 then had to down climb on lead and climb up and left to the actual anchor. Jul 24, 2022

Tom Jones
Calgary, AB

There was a fatality on this climb 2022: climbing.com/news/daniel-he…

just so that people are aware. Nov 3, 2022

Bryan Daneau

We always love doing this route in the spring to dust off our technique and work on efficiency / transitions. It's actually more of a scramble at times, but tragic events listed above in the description are a key reminder that even if the climbing is really easy, it doesn't mean you can't get yourself into significant trouble. We've been on this route many times including in rain, and it gets real pretty fast. On a sunny day like today (May 21, 2023) it took us exactly 2h15 of climbing time (going really mellow, snapping pics and just taking in the views - but remember there's no route finding for us) and 1h05 to walk back to the car. The descent is pretty obvious if you follow the trail (and crampon marks) - just keep your harnes and rap kit avail since you'll need it before getting to the Cascade ledges and back to the main trail. May 21, 2023

Mark W

Fun route. Easy climbing, mostly just low 5th class. Jul 25, 2023

Anthony Cave
Calgary

5.6

Great one if you want to have a non epic first trad lead! Excellent protection and very straightforward route finding. Solod the slab pitch and linked the remaining pitches (70m rope let us do this, noteworthy that we did build one anchor)

After the "crux" traverse right, it appeared as though a number of potentially new bolts were added straight up the middle of the face? Probably more like 5.7 maybe 5.7+ sections on poorer rock, but nonetheless really easy and rather protected. Not sure when these were added....I saw nothing on the topos/route description about these. Jun 11, 2024