Beautiful Century

This really good route is one of the best in the Bow Valley area for sport multipitch. Has a bit of everything and is really good and varied. It was established in excellent style of bolting on lead and it's ease of access and amount of traffic have really cleaned it up (almost no loose rock on this climb, which is something to be said about the chossies).

It is the third route in and is approached via the Nanny Goat Approach. Look for a 3rd class ramp that goes into a right facing corner. Those are the two fist pitches that are linked and listed as pitch 1 in the description.

We followed a party in August 2015 and had no trouble at stations sharing the smaller one. They decided to rap but our gut told us that the decent would be faster. It was, and it was our first time on the route and we were unsure where to go exactly.

One of the first ascensionists made several upgrades in 2025 to include a new (improved) start pitch, a variation on the crux pitch, adding some protection bolts and moving the belay on top of pitch 7 to a better ledge .

The climb

1. 20m, 5.7 (7 bolts) Step up to a brushy ledge(bolt) then climb several slabs and steps to a steep step. Pass this on the left and angle up to two ring bolts at the base of a steep corner.
 Variation (original) 20m 5.10a (6 bolts). From below the new start, angle up under an overlap (bolt). Pull this and climb the slab to the corner. Previously friction slabs have become slick and the climbing awkward.

2. 30m 5.8 (6 bolts) Climb the steep corner on surprising jugs to belay on the higher of two ledges.

3. 40m, 5.10b/c (10 bolts, 1 fixed piton). Climb up and right to a difficult mantle – (getting harder every year) at the second bolt. Continue up then traverse left along a seam to a break. Climb easily up and right to a short left facing corner and a bolted and chained belay below a small roof.

       Variation – 40m 5.10a (10 bolts, 1 fixed piton). From the belay move up and left to a bolt. Challenging positive pulls past a               second bolt (5.10a) leads to a stance with a bolt. Continue rightwards past 3 bolts to join the original line.

4. 30m, 5.7 (7 bolts). Pass a small roof on the right then angle right to a head wall From the third
bolt climb right then up and left to a bolt above a slab. Climb up slabs and headwalls before stepping left to a chain belay below a treed ledge.

 5. 15m, 3rd class. Scramble up on slabs to a bolt belay at the left end of the large treed ledge.

Note that Dark Decade climbs to this belay. Beautiful Century moves up and left, while Dark Decade goes up to the right.

6. 40m, 5.9 (10 bolts). Climb up left along bolts towards a small overhang traversing left under it, almost to the large right facing corner, then up to a bolt belay on a small ledge below an overhang. Note that there is a Dark Decade anchor 5m to the right and is a better destination for a rappel descent.

 7. 25m, 5.8 (7 bolts). Pass the overhang traversing right on small holds, then weave up to a good ledge with ring bolts.

8. 25m, 5.10a (7 bolts, 1 fixed piton). Continue on slabs to the large right facing corner where the wall gets steep at a bolt. Step right to reach a crack and then climb the undercut wall and crack right of the second headwall bolt. Continue up slabs to a ledge then a layback feature to a fixed piton below a small roof. Pass the roof to a bolted belay on a small ledge. Either rappel from here or continue up and angle left (bolt) 10m to a bolted station on a treed ledge. The walk off starts here.

The descent

Recommended:

Top out and do the Nanny Goat descent. From the top of the route, hike up a short distance (past two bolts which are good for bringing up the second as the trees are small) and walk down to the drainage between Nanny goat and Kid goat. There is a short rappel or class 3 down climb at the bottom.

Rappelling:

The route can be rappelled in 8 rappels on a single 60m rope. Knot the rope ends – especially for pitches 2

and 5. Note that rappelling pitch 6 is best straight down to the bolted belay for Dark Decade rather than traversing hard to the left.

3 route to the left from the approach.

Bolts galore. If not linking pitches the FA recommends 8 quick draws, 4 long slings, 2 anchor slings. 60m rope. a 80m rope could be used to link larger sections as a 60m cannot link some smaller sections