Mt. Wedge attempt (unsuccessful) / Parkhurst Mountain

June 29, 2022

Mt. Wedge attempt (unsuccessful) / Parkhurst Mountain - June 25/26 2022

Here is a big one.

I was convinced to attempt Wedge Mountain with some guys I wanted to do Baker with after much packing off we went. I headed out on Saturday at noon and met up with Todd at his house in Coquitlam. We hopped in his car and picked up Sean in Vancouver and then proceeded to Squamish. In Squamish Todd and Sean rented some equipment and got some food then we continued to the Wedgemount Lake parking lot / trailhead.

We arrived at ~4:45 and checked gear and headed up the trail. It was ~6km and 1200m elevation to the hut which I expected would take us 3-4 hours and we were right. We got there at about 8:30. Not much interesting to say about this part, its standard SWBC approach slog. There was one fun part where the last 150m or so of gain before the hut was quite steep rotten snow. We had put our snowshoes on but it was steep and we were slipping a fair bit.

At the lake we saw quite a few people. We had brought our tent but no one was using the hut and since we were only sleeping a little we decided to use the hut. We chatted, ate and went to bed by 10. Full of anticipation I didn't really sleep and when 2am came around I hopped up and woke everyone up to get ready.

We did our morning routine and were out the hut at 3. We roped up and put on crampons and began the plod. This was my first time as part of a rope team and I was in the middle and it was kind of awkward having to time your pace with everyone else. Off in the distance I could see headlamps going up our intended route (the NE ridge) and initially I thought they were coming down but eventually realized they were going up.

The going was slow and it took us probably 2 hours to get to the large flat-ish part of the glacier where the routes split for the NE ridge and the west face. We wanted to do the NE ridge but I knew it was more technical and the crux was committing. At this point Todd was slowing down quite a bit and he said he didn't think he could make it to the top. I suggested we go the West route then because it was simpler, I didn't realize how much longer / more elevation it was. We set off for the Wedge/ / Parkhurst col.

It took us till ~6:15 to get to the col and once I got a good look at the next part I could tell we were done. Sean and Todd definitely didn't seem to want to do the rest of the route. We were at ~2300m elevation but we had to go down and back up ~200m so we would have probably 1000m more elevation to gain and everyone was pooped. I figured I could slog it out but I didn't want these guys to have to wait and I didn't want to get back home too late anyways so I agreed to not continue.

However Parkhurst was right beside us and the trail looked easy. A quick map check showed it was only 200m to the summit and so we plod up that. About 30-45 minutes later we were on the top, yay! It wasn't the summit we wanted but it was the summit we deserved :)

We headed down and the rest was uneventful. Back to the hut by 9:30, packed up and headed down around 10 or 10:15. The going was slow because Sean was really feeling it in his knee and we were all pretty tired. We got down to the car at 1:30 and headed home.

Amazing trip, I will definitely go back to do this route and finish it. I am not looking forward to the slog up to the lake again though...