North America, Canada, Canadian Rockies, "Mount Perren"

Publication Year: 1969.

“Mount Perren” Nothing like admitting to error, even if it is to your own benefit. With the happy admission that the 1966 edition of the Climber’s Guide to the Rocky Mountains of Canada has a slight flaw*, known only to the inept clod who perpetrated it, I persuaded Andy Kauffman to accompany Morgan Broman, my son Lowell and me up the Siffleur valley to the highest unclimbed summit of the Canadian Rockies. We were only one day to the crossing of the Siffleur upstream from its junction with the Porcupine and then had an easy half day from there to our camp beside a tributary we called “Laughing Bear Creek.” The next day we left camp early enough to enjoy the sunshine when we got into it 2000 feet higher. The climb was uneventful, requiring one strenuous lead up a steep frozen snow slope and somewhat farther along, a slippery squeeze up a verglas-covered scree-filled slot. We named our summit (10,818 feet) after Walter Perren, the late chief guide of the National Park Service.

William Lowell Putnam

* On page 168 it states that Peak 10,818 was climbed in 1925 by W. O. Field, J. Hubbard and G. D. McCoy. Actually the peak they climbed and which they identified as Peak 5W lies two miles to the south and rises to 10,050 feet.