Eric Coulthard and Doug Lutz scrambling "The Soulsucker" - Mount Loudon - Mount Peskett
Mount Loudon and Mount Peskett in David Thompson Country have been two mountains that have both been enigmas for me. The only beta I had for them was that I could see them from Highway 11, and I had read brief trip reports on them written by Rick Collier 25 and 30 years ago respectively. These mountains are deep enough in the backcountry that they would require a multi-day trip to ascend them.
I was determined that 2023 would be the year for me to attempt to get to them. I noted a strong weather opportunity based on SpotWx forecasting, and so, I reached out to all the guys that I knew of personally that also had these mountains on their mind. Sadly, my chosen timing didn't work for all of them, but the timing and motivation DID work for Eric Coulthard.
Eric immediately jumped on board with my invite, and proffered some ideas for route choice. He suggested approaching from Banff National Park via Totem Creek instead of the route that I had in mind coming from the Siffleur Staging area. I would already be in the Lake Louise area from a trip into Skoki Wilderness for the Wall of Jericho on the day prior, so this worked well. We were set... approach the mountains on Day 1, ascend both mountains on Day 2, and exit on Day 3. I did not know how my body would react to that distance and elevation over a 4 day period, but I was hopeful that I wouldn't let Eric down. As it turned out, I would be requiring my body to endure about 100 km distance, and almost 8000 m of elevation gain for the Skoki and Siffleur Wilderness trips combined.
I felt strong pretty much all the way until we got to Spreading Creek, and needed to start re-gaining elevation through a burn area - the major forest fire in 2014 really scarred the area. We were prepared to take on serious travel through deadfall. What hit me like a brick was enduring an ascent at the same time - with overnight pack weight. Level-walking over deadfall is one thing, but walking through burn uphill while all sorts of branches are trying to poke and claw at you is something quite different.
We wanted to get to a water source to camp for the night, and once we got above the burn, all I could see on the horizon was a seemingly unending field of scree/talus. We needed to continue our ascent of the slope leading up the ridge towards Loudon W3 (a summit 3 km west of Mount Loudon), and it was clear that water was going to be an issue... I just saw rock ahead in all directions, and a big, long and wide slope of it. Andrew Nugara called a section of scree that we were ascending towards the Wall of Jericho in Skoki "soul sucking", and that was exactly what I was feeling ascending this ridge.
We got to a "minor summit" at 2940 m elevation about 1.5 km southwest of Loudon W3. There was a large cairn there, but no register, so we left one, and named it appropriately "The Soulsucker". Since we were low on water, we elected to not ascend Loudon W3.
On Day 2, we tore down the camp with the intent of dropping the gear farther north, and then taking on Mount Loudon and Mount Peskett. I made a rookie mistake, hauling all my pack weight up a huge slope again, and we did our gear drop high on the massif that both Loudon and Peskett share. Did I somehow think that we would camp over by Peskett? - I don't know... brain was just in a fog I guess.
Anyway, the Loudon crux for us was about 1 km away at a set of pinnacles/cliffs that we needed to bypass (if we wanted to keep the route to "scrambling").
We retraced our steps to our dropped gear and walked right past them on the way to Peskett. I had intel that said that Peskett was a "walk-up"… ”this was going to be easy” rolled through my thoughts over and over. What is odd about Peskett is that the official summit is the one closest to the highway, and a few metres lower in elevation compared to the summit that currently has a glacier on its north face. We were not prepared to move the register to the highest point. After visiting both summits, I continue to feel that this was, and continues to be, the right decision. Mount Peskett obviously has an established climbing route up the east face that the Frontier Lodge ascends regularly (based on registry entries). I can confirm that my Garmin recorded an elevation for the summit at the glacier to be about 3 metres higher than the official summit that it farther northeast (3148 m vs. 3145 m respectively). Relocating the registry to the SE a couple of bumps would cause quite the kerfuffle... for 3 metres?... nah, not worth it!
On the way to the Mount Peskett official summit, we needed to discover a "key ledge" that allows access. You cannot scramble to it without using the ledge that we discovered. At the end of Day 2, we found ourselves back in the valley immediately west of the ridge connecting Loudon and Peskett.
Day 3 was the march out.
Негізгі бет Үй жануарлары мен аңдар The Soulsucker - Mount Loudon - Mount Peskett - Aug 12-14, 2023 - Siffleur Wilderness Area, Alberta
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