North America, Canada, Coast Range, New Routes on Mount Waddington and Stiletto Peak

Publication Year: 1966.

New Routes on Mount Waddington and Stiletto Peak. During two weeks in mid-August, a group assembled by Fred Beckey and consisting of him, Jerry Fuller, Don Liska and his wife Alice and me climbed in the Waddington region. We were flown to Ghost Lake by B.C. Airlines and hiked over Nabob Pass to an airdrop and Base Camp on the Tiedemann Glacier in two leisurely days. We first chose a new route on the north-northeast face of Waddington along a spur which leads in a direct line from the Tiedemann Glacier to the gentle snow slopes above Bravo Peak, where it joins the regular route. It took a day to scramble up the quite steep rotten rock of the bottom half of the spur. We spent another day on the upper half, cutting steps in gentle but hard ice until the spur petered out into the face of the mountain. Fred did not feel well and descended after the first bivouac. We remaining three wasted the third day reconnoitering the summit tower before resigning ourselves to the standard route, which we subsequently climbed on the fourth day. On the fifth we descended to the Tiedemann Glacier by the standard route. The weather stayed splendid, but too warm for good snow conditions. It appears that all glaciers spilling into the Tiedemann are breaking up, making travel even along the standard route more difficult than before. We had to approach Stiletto Peak over the base of Claw Peak, where we camped. Fred and I climbed Stiletto from the north-northwest, bypassing Stiletto Needle. We had excellent climbing on sound rock, using two dozen pitons. We finished the last rappel as darkness set in. We had to wait four hours for the moon to make it possible to cross the glacier to camp, where Fuller and Liska awaited us. The latter two subsequently made a quick trip up Claw Peak.

Leif-Norman Patterson