Thompson Peak Jan 16, 2021
 

So the Midnight Club did all the beta on this trip, they drove up a few days prior to check out the road and summited and reported back that you could drive up the Paleface FSR to basically the washout section. Knowing this good news, the Cariboo Crew ( Jenn and I ) decided to be the next group to go get it.

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Anymore snow and I wouldn't have driven my Toyota any higher but it was just the right amount to keep going and we made it to where Matt and them parked a few days earlier. This trip is ALOT of fsr walking, and the snow depth this time of year didn't quite cover all the alder. Early on there was some clipping done, but further on it was bobbing and weaving through thin alder patches. It wasn't that thick so you could pretty much just walk normal stepping over it, or pushing through it.

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After a healthy amount of km's snowshoeing the FSR we finally found the spot were we would descend a cutblock and then start working our way up a mellow snow covered drainage. Up to this point it was just steady gradual elevation gain, but in order to get into the alpine, and find the start of our ridge we would finally bail into the forest and start working our way straight up.
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The start of Thompson's ridge is steep! it was around this point we noticed wolverine tracks following the previous parties tracks. I have never seen wolverine tracks before so that was kinda cool.
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On the upper part of the ridge the views started to open up and we noticed two skiers nearing the summit. I got up to one of them while he was filming his partner skin up the sheet of ice. It turns out it was Dean Perez and Alex Romanciuc.

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It was a typical winter summit, stiff winter breeze blowing that had a bitter chill to it. We managed about a 15 to 20min stay, found another on of the Neil Grainger Mountain Project crosses which was awesome. I have found quite a few in the last few years. We were both getting cold so that makes for an easy decision to leave the summit.
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The skiing for the guys was absolutely brutal, it was a sheet of ice, a few spots lower down would have been fun, and then they had to deal with the alder road on skis. They were well ahead of us on the descent but eventually we caught up to them on the road.
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Jenn and I hung out for abit, then drove into Hope to grab a motel to get ready to head up to Lytton the next morning for Laluwissen Mountain. Once the word got out that Thompson was in, and a few posts on the Facebook hiking pages over 50 people would summit Thompson.

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Thanks for posting this, a great delight. Looks like a wonderful destination with wonderful views. I had hoped to join up with another, but felt a iittle sick that day.

Hope can join up with someone to go up there.


K