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Trip Report

Instead of losing any unnecessary elevation, we cut off the trail early and side-sloped on skiers left for the base of Mount Worthington. We really didn't have any idea where to head up or what the terrain would be like but we got lucky and managed a relatively painless traverse right around the base of Defender Mountain. We dropped the heavy packs on the lowest north slopes of Defender and kept traversing southwest to Worthington's flanks with the small day packs on.

The going was slow but easy as we made our way up Worthington's shoulder and started heaading climber's left for the ridge that we assumed would lead to McHarg. The only reason we went for McHarg first was that there was a ridge leading that way as opposed to a scree ramp leading up to Worthington on climber's right. We reached the summit of McHarg no problem and after trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to take pictures of the royal group we traversed over to Worthington. From the summit of Worthington we could see our objective for the next day, namely Mount Putnik. It looked to be another nasty scree slog! After spending a few minutes on the summit it was time to head back down to our packs and continue on to our camp at Three Isle.

Yet another rubble slope!

Jon finds another cravasse, but this one's in the rock.

Looking down into the Pallisor River Valley that separates Mount McHarg from the Royal Group.

Rod comes up Mount McHarg.

Summit of Mount McHarg.

Rod can just be made out coming down the snow slope from the summit of McHarg.

Jon makes his way to the summit of Mount Worthington.

Three Isle Lakes and Mount Putnik as seen from the summit ridge of Mount Worthington.

Summit of Worthington.

Vern at the summit of Worthington.

Rod and Jon walk down from the summit of Mount Worthington. Mount Kind George looms to their right through the smoky haze.

A last look back at Mount McHarg from the summit ridge of Mount Worthington.

Rod and Jon work their way down the rubble slopes of Mount Worthington.