Mount Perren

Mount Perren – August 14-16, 2006

Mountain height: 3051 m
Elevation gain:    1000 m
Ascent time:        6:20
Descent time:      3:40

Mountaineering (and much suffering) with Kevin.

Suffering is often an element of any long scramble, climb, or mountaineering trip and anyone who can’t deal with that will quickly find another hobby. Normally one wouldn’t associate suffering with an ascent of the smallest of the ten peaks that surround beautiful Moraine Lake – Mount Perren – but that’s what Kevin and I got over the 3-day trip.

Initially we planned ascents of Mount Allen and Tuzo, but thought some nearby and more ambitious objectives might also be possible. Thus, we took everything and the kitchen sink! 2 - 60 metre ropes, climbing protection, ice screws, snow pickets, bivy gear, and food for four days. We were prepared for everything – that is, except for the weight of our backpacks. I was already suffering about 1 km into the 13.6 km hike to the Fay Hut. It took us 5 hours to make it to the hut and I was a vegetable by the time we arrived.

A very restful night of sleep followed and then we were back at it with the heavy packs, heading for a spot in between Mount Allen and Mount Tuzo , from which we could make ascents of both peaks. Unfortunately, although the contour lines of the topo map revealed the grade of the approach slopes to be very gentle, such was not the case and scrambling up and over the steep slopes with our heavy packs was not an option. We were both a little discouraged by this turn of events and decided instead to drop our excess gear and gain the col, via a small glacier, between Allen and Perren and then see which one looked like a go.

The lower glacier was easy to ascend and walk across, but above the bergschrund, the steeper upper slopes were getting a constant bombarding from rockfall. We therefore ascended very loose and sometimes steep rubble slopes to gain the col. We couldn’t see a non-technical route up Allen, so we settled for Perren, which was an easy scramble. The summit view was excellent – beautiful Moraine Lake and all its surroundings peaks, snow-covered Mount Ball to the south and many others. The profile of Mount Hungabee was particularly striking from this angle.

Upon returning to our gear, we unanimously decided to cut short the trip and head back to the car. Of course, we couldn’t do that in the few hours of remaining daylight and so we just hiked back to the hut, spend the night and then out the following morning. The hike out was possibly more exhausting than the hike in, even though it was downhill. A good learning experience regarding my (in)ability to deal with heavy backpacks - or now anyway. Mount Perren was a decent objective in itself, however, and it was still a very enjoyable trip.