Mount Mclaren, Mount Parrish

Mount McLaren and Mount Parrish – July 10, 2008

Mountain height:
    McLaren                     2320 m
    Parrish                        2566 m

Elevation gain:
    To McLaren                800 m
    Traverse to Parrish     approx. 240 loss, 420 gain

Ascent time:

    To McLaren               3:00
    Traverse to Parrish     3:15

Descent time:                   3:30

Solo scramble.

Having failed an attempt of Parrish the previous day, Mount McLaren was the day’s only objective. Instead of the straightforward southwest ridge, I wanted to try to ascend the very interesting southeast face. From below the face appeared to be very steep, however, there were definitely weaknesses that could be attempted to circumvent the difficult sections. This turned out to be a terrific exercise in route-finding. There were many variations possible but all routes involved difficult scrambling on exposed terrain and once again I was very glad I opted to bring along approach shoes. As the lowest of the peaks in the area, the summit view was not spectacular, but neither was it dull.

Since it was only 11 am, I now had to decide whether to make another stab a Mount Parrish. The south ridge didn’t go 24 hours earlier, but I thought I could ascend slabs on the southwest face and then make an easy descent via the west ridge. After a lengthy “try”, “don’t try” battle with myself, ambition won over common sense and I once again made my way up to the Andy Good/Parrish col.

Losing elevation, I found a potential slabby gully to go up, put the approach shoes back on, and started up. Initially, this was a terrific route with tons of hands-on slab scrambling. Soon, however, the terrain steepened and at one point I found myself ascending a dangerously steep gully with few good handholds. Being alone, I found the ascent of the gully to be very unnerving. Upon reaching the top I decided there was no way I could downclimb the gully and again hoped the west ridge would offer an easy route off the mountain.

A draining scree slog to the west ridge followed. That’s where I received the bad news. The west ridge was a jagged array of vertical pinnacles with a severe drop on the north side of the mountain - absolutely no way I was going down this way. I scrambled over to the summit, again over exposed terrain and tried to enjoy the view. Unfortunately, I was far too worried about how I was going to get down.

The descent was slow and very unnerving. I found a huge slab/gully to descend, west of my ascent route. For most of the slab I was able to crab-crawl down. Other sections required careful down-climbing. A slip in this gully would have been disastrous. I was extremely relieved to reach the tedious scree and rubble below. The remainder of the trip was obviously very easy compared to what had preceded it.

Overall, an “exciting” way to end a very productive and exhilarating two day trip.