Mt. Peter - South West Ridge/North West Face Scramble

 

Great road side camp with great views.

Fabulous day out with the intrepid Steve on Mt. Peter in the Purcell Range. To avoid potential thunderstorms on Monday afternoon, we pitched a tent Sunday night on the Farnham Creek FSR to allow for an early start. Our road side camp has great views to the Commander Glacier. Moving before first light on Monday August 5, we made great time on the trail to the South West Ridge. 

Very well defined trail for the scramble route start off the FSR.
I think a famous YouTuber may have put in this excellent trail.
Thanks Forest!

Typical slog from creek to gain lower 
West/South West Ridge.

Cloud and dark skies to the west.

Lots of scree slogging to gain the interesting scrambling on the solid quartzite cliff band at the top of the ridge. As the ridge steepens, traverse to the upper North West Face to gain the easy North East Ridge to make the summit. A little glacier exists on the upper North West Face. 

As you gain elevation, the South West Ridge 
becomes more solid and less of a slog.

High up on the SW Ridge a 5 class nose bars easy travel.
I am sure this goes as a 5.8? route, but we traversed north
to easy terrain on the NW Face.

Traverse to NW Face, small glacier and great views to 
Mt. Farnham (right) and Mt. Hammond.
Both 11,000'ers.

Slog up final NW Face to North East Ridge.

Easy hike up final North East Ridge to the summit.

Great summit views and the weather start to improve. Enjoy the summit and reading the register. Easy hike back to the lower North West Face. On the descent we used a snow/ice ramp to avoid some of the nasty wet down climbing we did on the ascent. Incredible views to the surrounding mountains. Weather improved throughout the day with skies clearing as we descended. Awesome day out on a fabulous Purcell 11,000’er.

Steve checking out the summit register.

Summit posers.

OSWB on the summit of Mt. Peter.
(Photo by Steve)

Our summit register entry.

Famous people in register. 

We did a short fun snow/ice climb up on the descent.
It allowed us to avoid a very wet section of scrambling the rocky ridge.
And it was fun and scenic. 

A few tricky steps on the South West Ridge descent. 

Warm sun and improving views on the descent.