McRitchie Cavern

This is an open event for a Saturday group outing to McRitchie Cavern on Mt. Broadwood, during the July SAGM.

About

McRitchie Cavern is a 600m long cave. It's mostly horizontal with some moderate scrambling inside, including fun stemming and chimneying movement to progress through the passage. There's one 16m vertical pitch toward the end, plus lots of Moon Milk on the walls, a fun squeeze out to a new entrance not on the survey, and two impressive large rooms at either end. A little taste of almost everything! Not much in the way of speleothems though.

For more info, check out the forum for a trip report I wrote up from my recon trip.

Requirements

Participants should ideally be proficient enough with SRT to negotiate the one vertical pitch. The pitch is toward the end, so those who prefer not to continue past, can hang out in the passage before it and/or explore the surrounding area. The pitch has one rebelay and one deviation. Make sure you know how to pass these features up and down.

The approach is 4km each way with 800m cumulative elevation gain, including some isolated bushwhacking, talus slopes, and a final moderately steep snow slope to the main entrance.

Participants should be comfortable with some scrambling type travel & movement, both on the approach, and inside the cave.

Schedule

This is rough and conservative. My recon trip went considerably faster, but the below covers worst-case with a larger group.

Time	Waypoint	Notes
7:00am	Rendezvous at SAGM camp	Meet at/near the Friday night camping spot (Henry Bruns' Property). Sort carpools, aim to be on the road and driving west by 7:15am.
8:30am	Trailhead (49.3137, -115.0351)	~1hr 15min drive. Gear up (~15 min), hiking by 8:45am. Allow ~2.5hr approach time to cave entrance.
11:15am	Cave entrance (49.3046, -115.0069)	30 min to suit up and pack caving bags. Enter cave by ~11:45am. Budget 5.5hrs underground.
5:15pm	Back at cave entrance	30 min to pack up for hike out. Hiking by 5:45pm. Allow 2hrs for descent.
7:45pm	Back at cars
9:00pm	Back in Crowsnest

Additional Resources

• Trip Report for Recon Trip (June 2026)
• Cave Map
• Cave Approach
  • Interactive Map
  • KML Download
• CC69 Article (p. 22 | p. 23)
• JOSM 171 (Oct 2008)