Ptarmigan Mountain

October 05, 2025

Ptarmigan Mountain

Ptarmigan Mountain - 2365M

445M Prominence

52.04432, -119.24273

October 5, 2025

3H 30M C2C, 3H moving

925M Ascent and descent

8.06KM

I was looking to get out this weekend again before winter really hits. I was originally planning to do a more interesting objective in Dunn Peak, but I was unable to find a partner, and with the rumored extended class 4 scrambling, I did not want to be alone for that one. I looked around a bit, and as I have been learning more and more about this area around Clearwater, I have been finding out that most of the peaks don't have any info at all on them, and probably almost never get climbed aside from heli skiing. I looked at some maps a bit and found that there was a logging road up to 1420M on the West side of Ptarmigan mountain, which was not even in the PeakBagger database. The terrain didn't look steep either, so I thought I would go out and make an attempt at it. I left Clearwater at 7AM, as I did not know how long of a day it would be. it was only about 900 meters of ascent, but a good two thirds of the distance would be in the bush, as there is no trail or direct logging road. The logging road from highway 5 was in quite good condition and I never even had to put the Tacoma in 4 wheel drive. I parked at 1420 meters in a large pull out, and got going. I immediately dove into the bush beside a large clear cut, at first the pine trees were quite simple to navigate, but quickly the bushwhack became far more dense, with heaps of blueberries and spiky currant plants. Starting at around 1600M to 1700M there was already a dusting of snow over the bushes. It was a cold morning with clear skies though, so the snow was dusty and I managed to stay dry on the ascent. Eventually I bushwhacked my way to a quite clear logging road at 1730M, that I followed for a short while before diving back in to the bush on the edge of an old cut block where it met the forest. I think in theory this logging road could have been followed all the way up from where I had parked, but it was old, overgrown, and not a very direct route based on the satellite images I looked at the day before. After leaving the logging road the bushwhack was much more pleasant, and the trees and blueberry plants were much more sparse. Right around 2000M, after coming up a small rock slide, the terrain opened up in front of me and there was no more vegetation aside from the mini shrubs on the ground. I quickly hiked up to the summit with an inch of fresh snow on the ground. The summit had three big green towers on it, and the views as I crested onto the summit and was able to see North and East were magnificent. I spent half an hour basking in the warm sun on the summit, despite the cold temperatures. Views of remote, unexplored and unnamed gnarly peaks were all around. Mount Robson was even visible far to the North. To my surprise there was a summit register, with the last entry 3 years ago, and then only a few entries between then and the 80s / 90s, when I assume the road was drivable much higher up. On the way back I tried to follow my footsteps in the snow from the ascent, which was quite easy. Once I made it back into the denser part of the forest I wasted a little time by not checking my track, and ended up taking a bit of a different and less direct route back to the truck, it was pretty much all the same though. At around 11 the temperature was finally rising above zero, and the snow was melting a bit, so the bushes and ground were a bit wet. I descended back down 925 meters in 1 hour and 15 minutes, which is pretty quick for bushwhack time. I was quite surprised that I only had 3 hours of moving time for the day, and I made it back to the truck just before noon.