With one final full day of sunshine in the forecast we had a tough decision to make. Press on towards “Curious Peak” and the Dean Channel or try and climb the highest point along our current ridge. A set of twin peaks that we dubbed “Strange” and “Charm”. The prospect of climbing the two tallest summits handily won group opinion and so we elected to go for Curious Peak during the next weather window, if we’d get one.
When we awoke on the morning of the 6th there was a bit of a high cloud base, but the weather otherwise looked perfect. We were on the move late in the morning and with light packs we quickly ascended towards the base of Strange Peak. Our line followed through undulating slabs and snow patches with expansive views on either side towards the Dean Channel and East from where we originated.
As we neared the base of Strange Peak we spotted goats on the south east side and elected to cut west to avoid interfering with them. This lead us to one of two options. Drop a long ways down to the snow below and ascend to the Strange-Charm col or try to find a route up the steep south west face. The face looked to be mostly scrambling with one steep headwall near the top. We had climbing gear with us as well, so unanimity to ascend was quickly reached. Our route wended its way through sections of steeper rock to various ledges and then up one finger of steep snow followed by a low 5th section below the final head wall. Here a large terrace granted us a nice place to hang out and set up a belay. Alex took the lead and climbed one pitch up to about 5.9 through some mediocre, but not abysmal rock. That landed him on another large ledge system that would take us the rest of the way to the summit.
After we all followed up, it was a short scramble to the top. We found no cairn on the summit and built a small one before heading towards our next objective: Charm Peak.