Summit Elevation (m): 2940
Trip Date: Friday, September 8, 2006
Elevation Gain (m): 700
Total Trip Distance (km): 6
Quick ‘n Dirty Rating: Class 2/3 – you fall, you sprain or break something
Difficulty Notes: Easy scrambling with some route finding and slight exposure on the summit ridge.
Technical Rating: SC5; YDS (Hiking)
GPS Track: Gaia
Map: Google Maps
Rod, Jon and I scrambled Mount Putnik as part of our Northover Ridge backpacking trip in September 2006. We first ascended Sarrail Mountain before camping at Aster Lake. The following day we ascended Warrior Mountain, Cordonnier and Mount Northover. On the third day we got up early and continued up and across Northover Ridge before descending into the Three Isle Creek valley towards Three Isle Lake. On the way we decided to bag McHarg and Worthington. For some reason, on our fourth and final day, we decided that one more peak was in order…
Jon and I woke up around 06:00 on Friday morning and set off for Mount Putnik to the northeast of our camp. I had done a lot of thinking on the route and had come to the conclusion that if we got lucky we should be able to bag the summit from the Three Isle Lake campground without losing too much elevation. As it turns out, we got lucky. The correct way to bag Mount Putnik from Three Isle is to head for the bear poles and keep going straight for tree line on the lower ridge of Three Isle Mountain (unofficial name of mountain right above camp to the north). Once you get above tree line you should simply traverse around to the slopes. Keep traversing without losing or gaining too much height and you will come to a sort of land bridge near the head of the valley separating Three Isle Mountain and Mount Putnik. Go over this land bridge and you will be on the west side of Mount Putnik. It may actually be possible to go straight up through the cliff band at this point but we didn’t have the energy to try any unsuccessful summit attempts – we wanted the summit!
We followed the rubble slope all the way around Mount Putnik towards the south and then even further around to the southeast. On the way we ran into a big group of goats and tried our hardest to stay clear of them. The big Billy kept staring us down and I know Jon was getting a bit nervous, as was I. The key to our route is to not lose or gain too much height while traversing. This will ‘save’ you over 300 meters of height loss down the Three Isle Lakes trail you would have to lose in order to go up the avalanche slopes. Of course if you’re coming from the Kananaskis Lakes you’ll want to go up the avalanche slopes on the south side instead.
Once on the south slopes of Putnik we found ourselves struggling up a very steep rubble slope in between the cliff bands on our left and a steep gully lined with cliffs on our right. At the top of this rubble slope we crossed over to climber’s right and the summit ridge. The ridge was moderately exposed but nothing too bad and soon we were at the summit – very tired but happy that we made it! Once we read the summit register we were even happier because we were the first to summit this diminutive peak in 4 years! As a matter of fact there were only 8 recorded summits in the past 19 years. It was a pretty cool feeling. I think I’ll be ascending more obscure peaks in the future, somehow they’re more rewarding. Alan Kane and Kris Thorsteinssen were one of the 8 parties, which was interesting. I wonder why this peak never made it into Kane’s (2nd edition) scrambling book?
We spent a few minutes on the summit just enjoying the morning breezes and munching on our last granola bars. Too soon it was time to go, as we still had to hike down and then 16 km back to the cars. The slope was so loose that on the way down we started numerous small rock slides.
We managed to navigate back along our approach route and made it back in time for a last breakfast before packing up camp and heading back to the parking lot.
