Pemberton 2011: Day 3, Saxifrage and Cassioppe’s col

After spending a day and a half off the mountain, we all returned for another few days of camping and hiking around Lake Valentine. Luckily for us, we managed to skip two days of harsh rainy conditions. Yep, basically everything we had left up at camp was soaked! Coming by helicopter early in the morning was super cool though because we had to fly very low, under the clouds – a beautiful scene to observe from the helicopter (see below).

Before I continue with the story and pictures of our third expedition, I recommend you read a few of the related articles I’ve posted over the past few weeks, if you haven’t already:

• Pique Magazine’s article on Jon and Rachael
• Tim’s press release before the searches
• Day 1: Bushwhacking near Peq Creek
• Day 2: Cassioppe’s Ridge

View of the clouds in the lake Valentine area from helicopter.

So, our third expedition took us to an even better place than the first two. As the map above and the image below show, we walked all the way up to the col between the two peaks. It’s easy to see the area from the Lake Valentine pictures, which show the two peaks. It doesn’t look very far in the photos, but as we learned during this trip, mountain walks are always longer than they look. It took us about 3.5 hours to get to the col, but it gave us the opportunity to see the huge cliffs that are hiding behind Cassioppe Peak. We also saw the whole valley behind the col, which is one of the possible exits off this mountain ( though a somewhat hard one due to some swampy areas). We also saw (partially) the glaciers behind Saxifrage, which is another potential route people take on this mountain (en route to Cirque Pique).