Mount Worthington

Mount Worthington and Mount McHarg – August 24, 2006

Mountain height: 2915 m ( Worthington , a few less for McHarg)
Elevation gain:   1200 m
Ascent time:        5:50 (from car)
Descent time:      1:30 (to camp at Three Isle Lake )
                            2:45 (from camp to car)

Scrambling with Kevin.

Kevin and I previously attempted Mount Worthington as a day trip in June of 2004 and failed because of excessive snow and dismal weather. This time, we chose a more leisurely two day affair, with the hopes of reaching the summits of Worthington and McHarg on the first day, and then some else close by on the second.

After completing the 3.5 hour hike to Three Isle Lake and setting up camp, we started the easy ascent under increasingly cloudy skies. We planned to head for the col south of the summit and then hike north easily to the top from there. However, as we approached the once daunting-looking the east face, I thought it might be more interesting to head right up face, as it didn’t look so daunting anymore. The east face was fun, with lots of hands-on scrambling and a one fairly steep section. The rock was solid where it needed to be and before long I was at the summit. Kevin had chosen to take the south ridge route and followed shortly afterwards.

The summit panorama was absolutely fantastic, even in less than perfect weather conditions. Worthington occupies a position pretty much in a centre surrounded by 4 spectacular and unique 11,000ers: the “white fang” of Joffre to the south, awesome King George directly west, the pyramid of Assiniboine to the northwest, and beautiful Sir Douglas to the north. Of course, innumerable other peaks of the Royal Group, British Military Group, French Military Group, and Opal Range did nothing to deter from the spectacle.

Getting to Mount McHarg was as close to a joke as one can get - 10 minutes of scree slogging, with about 50 metres of elevation loss, followed by 30 odd metres of gain – nothing more than a little bump to the west of Worthington. I ranted to Kevin about why this “bump” had been designated as a separate peak with an official name. He conjectured that from the Palliser Valley, to the west of McHarg, the mountain probably appeared to be a distinct summit and not part of Worthington . Later, Linda Breton pointed out that McHarg was named in 1918 and Worthington in 1956, which probably gives credence to Kevin’s observation. We both took the south ridge descent route and were back at the camp before 7 pm.

The following day, we made an attempt at Mount Beatty. Putnik was much closer, but Kevin had already done that, so we started up the very long south ridge of Beatty. Unfortunately, the weather, that looked promising in the morning, quickly turned into heavy and low-lying cloud cover, the potential of rain or snow, and very cold temperatures. When we closed in on a section that looked to be technical and very exposed, we decided to back down. Both of us had very cold hands and the threatening weather conditions were not about to improve. Back at the camp, the sun came out and we returned to the car in great weather!