Warden & Victoria Peak
Getting There
We took a 7hr drive from Victoria, and camped at the ed of the logging road, where we found one other party already sleeping. Keeping our distance to not wake them.
Day 1
Alarms for 5am, we were hiking by 5:30, first through thick shoulder high blueberry bushes,
without any real trail.
Following the slope to the ridge, and over the other side to a mosquite infested lake. Circumnavigating the lake, through swampy grassland to the foot of the glacieated alley (the glacier being out of site above us).
We followed the valley up, sticking to the side of a river, which we refilled our water bottles from.
Hitting the base of the glacier we found a place to drop base camp, it was on some flat rocks just below the base of the glacier, near some runoff.
We travelled up and over the glacier, to the base of Warden Peak, where we got into our harnesses. Climbing with the intent to drop a rope or two if it got too technical.
It was just within our safety tolerances for a 4-5th class scramble, and we still had the ropes on our backs when we got to the peak.
We met the other party at the top, and when everyone packed up after lunch at roughly the same time, we let them go first, nd waited about 10-15min before descending. They were slow. We caught up with them after our second reppel and had to wait again for 10-15min before continuing our descent.
They took a different route down, and we decended to base camp.
Lots of calories for dinner, and an early night made for an alpine start the next day.
Day 2
We started up, opting for an easier route we had done less reading on since the prominence of the ridge line we had initially planned for was shook our nerves.
We crossed the glacier, roped up, traversed a narrow step to attain the southern edge, and then realised we couldn’t get to the base of the route (there was a large moat between the cliff and the glacier’s foot).
We opted for a 3rd route, something that looked fun from the ground, but after the first pitch, decided to rappel since it was above a comfortable grade given the lack of gear placement options.
Decent went smoothly until the blueberries on the initial slope above the car, where we got lost for a while, and eventually chose a compass angle to travel, hitting the tip of the logging road almost dead on!
Drove home with a stop at a pub, where Bernie bought the beers, since he lost two bets. One for which peaks were warden/victoria on the drive in, and the other for how long it would take to get back to the car.