Mt Whymper

 

Mt Whymper from the parking at Stanley Glacier

 

July 25th 2019

Mt Whymper is the mountain directly across from Stanley Glacier parking on Hwy 93 S. Start from the parking but walk back east towards Castle Mountain turn off. The Gaia route shows going up the first avi chute but you would then have to cross over to the center one. So walk past that cairn and start as shown on photo. Most of the blogs on this hike are confusing !!! Spirko found a chimney. No one else mentions it and we never saw it. Others talk of turning left to early. Then talk about traversing across on a ledge. Don’t do any of that just keep going up the center gully until you see and pass the chock block. I don’t think we went much further before we saw the edge of the ridge and turned left at the snow patch see photo. The rest of the way is obvious. Now coming down we went  into the big cirque south and west. NOT shown on GPS track it stopped working UGGG. Anyway it may be best to go to the COl  we did not and the going was not good. Once in the big Cirque it is easy going until the drainage drops away and you need to turn left into the burnt trees and bushwhack across and down until you see the clearings in Photo. We split up and both ways took the same time. Question? Which way to come down. I don’t know it would have been hard down climbing the way up but a lot less frustrating than the loop around.

Avi Gully starts here not the one before with cairn

Mt Whymper approx route

Starting the hands on climb

The big slab steps

In the gully looking at Stanley Glacier

Keep heading up the gully

J.R. scrambling up

The first sign of the Chock Block

Go past the chock block

Don’t go this way

This is the place to turn left. It would be nice to have snow all the time to make it obvious

Popping up onto the Ridge Summit in the back ground

Start of the summit ridge

At last you can see your destination 15 mins away

The Goodsirs in cloud from the summit

Vermilion Creek fore ground ,Numa Mountain and one must be Mount Verendrye

Stanley and Ball all over 3000 m

Boom Mt with Castle looking good behind

Coming down the South West side from the Ridge

More S.W descent

Heading down there got in a bit of bum glissading on the snow patches

Big Cirque

Paintbrush with blackened trees

Bushwhacking across because drainage narrow and steep

After a lot of bad language we see the Stanley Glacier parking. Route out choices

NO TRACK BACK. UP ONLY

 

No GPS Track down so need to double km to 7 to 8     Time was  about 6 hrs.

 

GPS Download

Google Earth  KML

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