• Mountain height:       3,097 m (10,158 ft) - we came up about 250 m short
• Elevation gain:          approx. 1150 m
• Roundtrip time:         7:25

Scrambling and mountaineering with Mark.

An enjoyable, but somewhat disappointing day, as we failed to make much more progress, on the tallest mountain of the Opal Range, than I had made on my first attempt this past April. Our original goal was Commonwealth Peak, however, since we had to be back in Calgary to see game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final (vs. the Tampa Bay Lightning), and Mount Evan Thomas was shorter and closer, we made the last minute change and also left Calgary at 5 am (a good decision, since the weather turned was fairly miserable from noon on).      

It took us about 2 hours, 45 minutes to make it to the point where I had stopped on April 13. On that day, there was a fair amount of snow on the narrow and exposed ridge, and I had no intention of trying it solo. Almost 2 months later, there was even more snow, but at least we had the right equipment to make an effort. Unfortunately, after roping up and progressing about 50 m along the ridge, we decided that since the summit block was plastered in snow and the ridge precarious at best, it was useless to continue on. This summit would have to wait once again.

As a consolation, we descended back to the saddle and then up to the north summit of Grizzly Peak and finally traversed to the true, south summit. By this time, the skies had clouded over and so the view was not as good as our first trip on July 1, 2001.