Elevation Gain: 1,356m
Distance: 12.5km
Total Time: 8 hours 34 minutes
Date: May 13th, 2025
Includes stats for Clandestine Peak and Wiretap Peak
Several fantastic turns and a long straight away took us to the south eastern end of Classified Peak after we finished summitting Clandestine Peak. Our final objective for the day was a 2437m summit located a mere 2km north east from our camp site. There were two competing theories on how to get to the top. The first was a narrow ramp on the west side that lead into a steep bowl and then what appeared to be a 3rd class rib to the summit. The second theory was the standard affair of following the south-north ridge to the summit. There appeared to be a gendarme that may cause problems, but given the heat of the day less exposure to the west slopes seemed like the safe play.
With that, Calum lead a speedy ascent up to the ridge just east of our camp and negotiated a few tricky sections of skinning to reach the false summit just south of our intended goal. We ditched skis and made quick progress down the ridge until reaching the gendarme. Sure enough, it was a tricky proposition. Easy snow slopes were available on the east side, but even the smallest rock fall was triggering wet loose avalanches. We were leaning towards a rappel, but I down climbed a some mixed rock to get a better view of the drop off. I confirmed it wouldn’t go easily as the rock was held on precariously in a vertical fashion. Gabe set up the rappel in the mean time and we dropped down below the gendarme and regained the ridge without much difficulty.
The remainder of the route to the summit was a walk up and we took some time hanging out and building our third cairn of the day. With our fill of views we shipped off to get a camp site set up. I ascended the fixed line we left for our rappel and Garrick followed suit. Calum and Gabe opted to try their hand at the mixed section, so I put them on belay and they climbed up without a hitch. We retraced our steps along the ridge, grabbed skis and then made one phenomenal run back towards camp.
At the bottom we had a short 15 minute ascent back up to our camp site proper and then we spent the evening building snow fortresses for the impending storms in a day or two. We’d go on to call our final summit of the day: Wiretap Peak.