I’ve spent countless winter days in The Real Big Drip cirque over the past three years. Sending RBD, retrofitting RBD, establishing The Real Small Drip, and occasionally wandering in without climbing anything at all.
Through all that time, a deep cleft in the steep wall across the way whispered to me. In quiet (bored) moments at the belay, I’d stare across at it, passively contemplating a summer mission to discover what it was all about. Sometimes the sun would rise high enough above the ridgeline to kiss it. I would stuff down dreams of rock climbing season, and return to my frozen adventures at hand.
Into the Ghost
But this fall, the time finally came for a Ghost Rock adventure. Nick and I were optimistic that it could be a Type One Fun option, instead of another dice-rolling mission to Castle Mountain. We hoped for the best, but feared the worst. Deep chimney systems in the Rockies are not known for their rock quality. We gathered our choss-sieging gear, piled into my Tacoma, and drove into the Ghost River Wilderness.
The drive in the summer, with a freshly graded road, was lovely. And the approach trail has really improved over recent years. We found ourselves at the base of the wall with minimal hassle. Question marks loomed above, but spirits were high.
How is it this good?
I’ll forgo my usual rambling narrative and get straight to the point. We climbed about 300 meters of rock before topping out at 2:30pm. About 200 meters of it was beautiful chimney climbing on immaculate grey rock. Like Juggernaut only a month before, it felt like a gift from the Limestone Gods.
It wasn’t even the thrashy squirming that I’ve come to appreciate in tight chimneys. It was dance-like stemming and back-to-one-wall feet-to-the-other shuffles. And plenty of jugs and perfect edges. I can’t think of a better chimney route I’ve done, even on my beloved Yamnuska.
The way down
Our descent proved slightly involved. We added and moved rappel anchors, placed a few more protection bolts, and trundled any loose rock we could get our hands on. For good measure, we made sure to mess up our tag line system on the last rappel, forcing us to ascend 50m of rope to free it.
There’s still a bit more tidying to do, which will happen during another lap at some point. But even as is, this is the easiest to recommend route that I’ve ever put up. Get after it!
Route Description
Keep on Stemming
Orient Point, Alberta
5.9 310m
Nick Baggaley, Greg Barrett
October 7, 2026
Interested in stemming your way up endless chimneys on bomber rock? This is the route for you. “Keep on Stemming” follows a pronounced chimney system near the mixed climbing test-piece “The Real Big Drip”.
Approach
Drive into the Ghost River, heading south from the base of The Big Hill. Continue 1.5km south of Devil’s Gap to a pronounced cutline/road leading west up a hill towards Orient Point.
Ascend this cutline for 1km until a trail breaks off left. Follow this trail down into the creek. Head up the creek on a well established trail following flagging and cairns. You will find a steeper step with a hand line, which cuts through the first major cliff band. Head up this, and continue up easy scrambling above until you reach a steeper final rock band. From here, look north across the cirque to see the obvious left facing chimney system. Follow your nose toward it. The first four bolts are easily visible from the ground.
From when you leave the road/cutline, the approach is approximately 3km, 400m, 1-1.25 hours.
GPS track
Start Coordinates 51.2635° N, 115.1490° W
Ascent
P1, 5.9, 55m
Good face climbing leads past four bolts into a broken left-facing corner. Follow this corner to its top. Climb up and leftward on solid, easier rock toward another bolt on a rib feature. From this bolt, continue up and rightward, targeting a more solid left facing corner. Another bolt protects trickier movement traversing into this corner. Follow the corner, and continue up more broken ground above to a two ring-bolt belay at the base of an orange buttress.
P2, 5.9, 60m
Step leftward from the belay and let the glorious chimney climbing begin. Stem, shimmy, and yard on jugs in an immaculate sea of grey to a trad anchor on a beautiful ledge.
P3, 5.7, 60m
Head upward and cross left onto the larger ledge, targeting the base of the deep chimney system. A moderate boulder problem gets you off the ledge and back into groove/chimney land. Continue up and rightward in this groove to two ring bolts on the left wall of a nice ledge.
P4, 5.8, 30m
Walk across the ledge to the steep chimney. Lovely stemming leads upward. A large roof caps the chimney above you. Build a trad anchor on ledges somewhere below it.
P5, 5.9, 45m
Sneak around the roof on easier ground to its right. Above, pull back leftward into the deepest part of the corner. Keep the theme of steep, immaculate stemming going. Continue up the chimney, stepping left at a small ledge to reach a two ring bolt belay on a small pedestal. Ignore two hangerless studs on the right wall about 5m below.
P6, 5.9, 60m
Head up past a steep bulge on techy but fun stemming. Past the roof, continue upward on easier ground to where the groove eventually breaks off to the right. Follow this to a large ledge at the top, reaching a two ring bolt anchor on a face to your right (if you have enough rope). Alternatively, build a gear anchor shortly before this.
Descent
Rap 1: 15m rappel from the final anchor. Head off the end of the buttress (cairn). A couple body lengths below the lip, you will find another rappel station. Do not rappel back down the gulley you came up.
Rap 2: 45m down to the station at the top of P5.
Rap 3: A full 60m down to the ledge at the start of P4. Pull your ropes down to the anchor at the top of P3.
Rap 4: 30m down to the large ledge system. Continue climbers left across it another 15m past two small trees, to a two ring bolt anchor.
Rap 5: Rappel 50m down to the anchor at the top of P1.
Rap 6: Rappel 50m to the ground.
Gear
- 60m single and tag recommended. Most of the chimneying is wide enough to be comfortable with a pack on, but a couple sequences are more enjoyable if you tag packs.
- 12 draws, mostly alpine.
- Single rack .2-4, doubles .3-3.
- A small selection of medium to large nuts.
Photo Topo
Keep on Stemming Route Description and Photo Topo by Greg Barrett is marked CC0 1.0
