Mount Packenham

Mount Packenham – August 6, 2007

Mountain height:           3000 m
Total elevation gain:     1340 m
Ascent time:                  6:50
Descent time:                3:50

Climbing (5.7?) with Mark.

Thank God we made the summit of this infrequently ascended peak, because the Chinese Red Army, 5.2 million dollars, or free anchovies for life couldn’t persuade me to repeat the ascent. Mark, on the other hand, could probably be coaxed with a couple of Sleeman Honey Brown Lager.

The trip started with the pleasant hike around the south side of Grizzly Peak into the valley below Packenham and Evan-Thomas. This has to be one of the most beautiful valleys in the area – the interesting orientation and colour of innumerable ribs and slabs of rock, green, grassy slopes, and of course several mountains to complete the vista. Following Rick Collier’s route description, we hiked around to the north side of the mountain and then started up the last one of many narrow gullies leading to the ridge. Scrambling up the gully was fun at times, on good rock not covered in scree, and unsettling at other times, on dangerously unstable scree and rubble. Dislodging even the smallest of rocks would often unleash a torrent of dirt and scree that would tear down the entire length of the gully. You would never want to be behind another party in one of these gullies. Near the top the terrain became quite steep and was all scree. Descending the top section of this gully was not going to be fun.

Once on the ridge, we followed it up and over several bumps, some a touch exposed. The summit block eventually became visible and looked quite intimidating. I decided to put on rock shoes to ascend the 5.3 terrain. Lucky I did, as the terrain was definitely not 5.3. The crux involved only three or four moves, but was on a steep, exposed face with virtually zero handholds and nowhere to place protection. It took me several minutes to psyche myself up to ascend the face and even then the ascent scared the heck of out me. Mark then came up and we walked to the summit, a couple of minutes away. There was a cairn and the remnants of the canister for a register, but we found it strange that there was no evidence of a rappel station to get down the final steep section we had just come up.

The weather wasn’t great, but the summit view was still fantastic. Especially impressive was the serrated, narrow, pinnacle-studded ridge of the Opal Range, extending north to Mount Evan-Thomas and south to Hood, Brock, and Blane. We stayed only for a few minutes as the ascent had taken far longer than expected. In the interest of time and safety, we did three short rappels to get down the summit block. The reminder of the descent was easier than expected and Mark descended the dangerous gully with amazing speed. As we hiked out, the sky above the peak cleared and we were rewarded with some terrific views of Packenham and the valley.

A difficult and sometimes stressful ascent, but totally worth the effort. (In retrospect, maybe I’d do it again for the anchovies).

Note: after careful scrutiny of Mr. Collier’s description and the ones found in The Rocky Mountains of Canada South, we discovered the reason why the climbing was more difficult than described was because we had used a different route and arrived at a different summit than both descriptions. The Rocky Mountains of Canada South states that in 1972, “D (Don) Forest descended a notch and climbed a slightly higher summit to the E (east)”. This is the summit we had reached (the true summit, in my opinion, since it is the highest point of the mountain). Obviously we didn’t even consider descending to a lower point to the west to reach the other “summit”.