The Crow's Foot

Overview

Cascade Mountain, laying just under 11,000 feet, is located just south of its bigger sister Timpanogos and north of Provo Peak. This Mountain overlooks Provo/Orem and displays many fabulous winter and spring routes to its elusive summits. One of which is the Crow's Foot located on the southern west face of the mountain, over looking Rock Canyon and Provo City. The Crow's Foot is actually 3 separate routes, referred to as "Toes" and are connected at the bottom by single couloir called "The Foot". Together they make up what is known as the "Crow's Foot".

Getting There

Two Approches:

1: Via Squaw Peak Road:

From I-15 take the 800 north exit in Orem. Head east and 800 north will merge into the Provo Canyon Road. Go up Provo Canyon for approx. 2 miles and then take a right on to the Squaw Peak road (There are signs for this road). Once on this road follow the signs to the Rock Canyon Campgrounds. If coming before June (or so) the road maybe close with gates about 4 miles up the road where the road forks. From here you can walk or in our case we took a motorcycle up the road until an avalanche from the Upper Pole Couloir blocked the road (2.6 miles), at which point it was only a easy 2.3 miles down the road to the Crow's Foot.

2: Via Rock Canyon:
I personally have not hiked rock canyon yet but here are some links to more info:
http://www.rockcanyonutah.com
https://www.summitpost.org/rock-canyon/226928
The approch is shorter when the gate are closed on the Squaw Peak Road but it involves a lot more elevation gain.

Route Description

The Crow's Foot begins right off the Squaw Peak Road (~.3 miles before the Rock Canyon Campgrounds turn off). If climbing this during the spring or winter there will most likely be a avalache path across the road from this couloir as it is prone to large avalanches that will cover the road. From the road you will encounter a view of an avalanche path the will appear to end in cliffs some 600 ft up the couloir. As you climb up the coulior toward the cliffs, you will see that the couloir takes a sharp right. After taking the couloir as it turns to the right you will see a long staight section and seems to go along ways. In reality what you are looking at is the last part of the Crow's Foot ( which is the part of the Couloir before it transitions in to Toes) and beginning of the Right Toe. Continue down this section for a .08 miles and 300 ft until you are standing at the top of the foot and the beginning of the Toes.From this point you should have a clear view up the Right and Left Toe, with the Middle Toe slightly hidden a hundred or so feet up the Left Toe at which point it breaks off to the Right
The Picture above was taken at the confluence of the Left and Middle Toe.


Right Toe
I personally have not been up the Right Toe but more will be added to this section once more information is gathered or a personal accent is made.
This route lead to ridge on the far south end of Cascade Mountain, topping out at 9757 ft. Giving a elvation gain of ~2646 ft yeilding the longest ridge route to the South Summit of Cascade Mountain.

Middle Toe
This this the view you will be greeted with looking up the Middle Toe from where it begins. From here on out it is pretty straight forward with no where to really turn. The coulior is completely enclosed for the first 1,100 verticle feet by mountain walls.

At this point it has a breif narrowing of the Toe, then it opens up walls a replaced with typical steep snow and spare rock walls on each. From here the couloir takes a slight left and continues up through a brief section of walls then it turns to small pines. Here you will find an old dead silver tree that and the top of the couloir is just beyond there.
The middle toe is very straight forward with a very distinct couloir pretty much the whole way. From the Crow's Foot to the top of the Middle Toe the route runs between 32-43 degrees steep.
We climbed this route on June 2, 2011, with a historically high snow pack.
We started climbing from the road at 10:19 am and topped out at 12:53, taking us roughly 2 and 1/2 hours and completeing 2994 vertical feet.






Left Toe
I personally have not been up the Left Toe but more will be added to this section once more information is gathered or a personal accent is made.
This route will bring you to the top of a nob about .20 miles south of the South Summit of Cascade mountain, making it the closes and best oppion for a South Summit attempt. Elvation gain is about ~3581 ft to top out over ~ 1 mile.

Essential Gear

Crampons, ice axe, helmet, possibly avalanche gear. This route also provides some great ski/boarding in the right conditions.

External Links

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Images

View The Crow's Foot Image Gallery - 16 Images