Stats include all five peaks + overnight stay
Elevation Gain: 1,724m
Distance: 18.64km
Total Time: 10 hours 54 minutes
Date: August 14th, 2021
Tender Mountain is 2329m that makes up the second of 5 peaks surrounding the Train Glacier. It’s most easily accessed by continuing along the ridge from Locomotive Mountain and involves some easy 2nd class scrambling to gain the summit. After Madi, Kate, Jacob and I had just finished Locomotive Mountain, we were now starting on this route to gain Tender Mountain as well.
The first portion involved a fairly straight forward descent along the Western slopes of Locomotive to reach the Tender-Locomotive Col. There was a bit of route finding to avoid having to down climb too far and for that, we managed to to avoid any unnecessary elevation loss. Once at the col, there’s a mix of talus and scree that’s easily walked over before starting the ascent of Tender. At climber’s left was an obvious scree ramp, but directly ahead was more fun 2nd and optional 3rd class scrambling up the ridge. I aimed for the 3rd class lines with Mike to make the most out of the day, while the others navigated more carefully to take 2nd class terrain up. There was minimal exposure on either variation of the route and before long were above the steepest part of Tender’s slopes. From the there it was a short walk on moderate talus to reach the summit.
We paused again for some photos and then got group consensus that another peak was still in the works. So without spending too much time we were off to Caboose Peak next.