Mount Whiting

July 20, 2020

2594m

Clendinning Area, BC

Mt. Whiting along its sub-summits and Sergent and Corporal Mountains form the undulating Ross Ridge that guards Ross Arm of Clendinning Glacier on the east and north-east side. Mt. Whiting is the tallest of these peaks and also offers the best views. A traverse of Mt. Whiting and the sub-summits offers some of the finest views in the southern Coast Mountains. This was the 3rd day of our grand adventure traversing the Clendinning Range. Earlier in the day Alex, Vlad and I had ascended Mt. Boardman, Sergeant Mountain and Corporal Mountain. Our objective of the evening was to carry over Mt. Whiting and the sub-summits and camp near Pivotal Mountain.

The section from Mt. Boardman to Blumlisalp Mountain.

The first section was to plod over the north summit which was done mostly on snow but a few narrow sections needed to be done on rock slabs. I thought we could have bypassed it but upon closer examination we decided to just plod up and over it. The descent down to the north/central summit col was easy going on snow and glacier.

Heading for the north summit of Mt. Whiting

Mt. Perkins to the right

Pivotal Mountain in the foreground in the middle of Clendinning Glacier

Looking back at Sergeant Mtn. and the fractured glacier we just ascended

This is looking over the upper Whiting Glacier towards Sims Creek valley

Plodding towards Mt. Whiting on easy snow and glacier

From the col we then easily ascended gentle snow slopes to the base of the summit pyramid where we took a long break ditching the backpacks. To reach the highest point involved some class 2 scrambling on loose rocks and then I went at least 100 m further east for more open views into Sims Creek valley. This summit had some of my favourate views of this entire trip so that’s why I went a fair bit further than necessary.

Indication that the ridge was on a pretty sizeable glacier

Alex plodding up with Howitzer Peak behind

Partial Summit Panorama from Mt. Whiting. Click to view large size.

Looking back over Whiting Glacier towards Howitzer Peak and beyond

The tongue of Whiting Glacier where we came up from the day before

The north face of Mt. Tinniswood properly displaced

A zoomed-in view of Sims Creek valley

Mt. Vanstone et al. in Sims Creek valley

Our group shot on the summit of Mt. Whiting

Me on the summit of Mt. Whiting

The south summit could be bypassed on snow slopes on the west side but we were kind of tired of side-hilling at this point so opted to ascend up and over the south summit, which turned out to be a great call. The south summit had some nice views towards Mt. Tinniswood area. Once taking enough photos the next objective was to reach the bump right next to Pivotal Mountain, at the end of Ross Ridge. We didn’t bother to ascend any unnecessary bump at this point as we were tired. The side-hilling was pretty easy on the soft snow but we did have to be extra cautious about crevasses, working around some obvious sagging. We found a nice spot to set up camp and I even managed to camp on rock for the first time in this trip. Alex and Vlad weren’t as lucky as their tent was much bigger than mine. At this point we had a little over an hour’s day time left and after some debates we opted to hike up Pivotal Mountain for sunset.