Stats include all five peaks + overnight stay
Elevation Gain: 1,724m
Distance: 18.64km
Total Time: 10 hours 54 minutes
Date: August 14th, 2021
Caboose Peak is the third and shortest peak along the southern side of the Train Glacier. Similarly to Tender Mountain, it’s best accessed via the ridge starting from Locomotive Mountain and is only a short 300m trip or so to reach from the summit of Tender Mountain.
From the summit of Tender Mountain we could see two options for reaching Caboose. One was descending down the south eastern slopes of Tender and then re-ascending the tame talus slopes of Caboose. The second was sticking along the ridge line which involved a slightly more exposed line with some 2nd class scrambling. Taking the ridge line looked like the best/funnest option and we could always divert down if the route had any impasses so down the ridge we went.
As the route was so short, there’s not much to speak of but a bit of route finding was required to avoid any 4th class terrain. We down climbed a few meters at the mid-way point but mostly stuck to the ridge all the way to the slopes of Caboose Peak. Then followed up the broad and moderate slope to the summit without issue.
We were now three peaks in and Madi and Kate were ready to head back to camp for some swimming and relaxing. By now we had closed the distance between Faceless Mountain and ourselves so Mike and Jacob were both still interested in continuing on. In the back of my head, I was also thinking about linking up Face Mountain to avoid having to back track all the way to camp over the same terrain. From where we stood, Face Mountain looked steep and imposing, but I had a feeling getting close enough to it would reveal a line up from Faceless. In the meantime, our focus was on getting to Face Mountain first and from the summit I planned to make my pitch for Face Mountain as well.
With the group now split in two, we started our way over for our fourth peak of the day.