Mushroom peak is a nice moderate scramble for those who want to add another tick on their list before heading up Mount Woolley or Diadem Peak. For those people who have an aversion to glaciers then the view on Mushroom Peak is the next best thing to what you would see on Mount Woolley and Diadem Peak and is a worthy ascent. Beware that doing this peak the day before heading up Woolley and Diadem might drain you and make the ascent up Woolley and Diadem more difficult. It took me about 5 hours round trip time from base camp to ascend Mushroom Peak.
I signed up for this trip to settle a score with Mount Woolley over my previous disappointing ascent in a white out. We drove out early Saturday for the hike into base camp. We had wonderful weather and the crossing of the Sunwapta River was only calf deep. The hike in was pleasant and not very demanding. Once at base camp we set up our bivy sacs and admired the view. We met another group that had already been up Woolley and Diadem that day. They mentioned that snow conditions were excellent as well as the weather. The forecast for Sunday called for rain and since I didn't want to come back without a summit view again I decided to try scrambling up Mushroom Peak while the weather held. Rob and Ken made the intelligent choice to save their energy for Woolley and Diadem.
I hiked up glacial till beneath the Woolley Glacier toward Mushroom Peak. My plan was to scramble around a glacier coming off Diadem to access the West slope of Mushroom Peak. Once closer to the glacier I had some interesting scrambling to do to reach the glacier and get around it. There was an initial ledge about a meter wide with a drop off on one side followed by moderate scrambling up steps and through a stream to reach the toe of the glacier. Once there I had to carefully cross a snowy area beneath the glacier making sure with pole/probe that I didn't step into anything unpleasant. The snow was very supportive and soon I was scrambling some more to get around the last section of the glacier. Once on the West slope I ascended a snow run most of the way up the slope before reaching the East edge of Mushroom Peak. The drop off was immense to the glacier below and was even overhanging a lot in places. I took some photos of the interesting rock pinnacles near the summit that gave this peak its name. Once on the airy summit I took a lot of pictures, including one of a cool lower peak with impressive walls.
On the way down I enjoyed an awesome glissade down the slope for about 400m until I reached the glacier. It took about 25 minutes to get down to the glacier from the summit. I retraced my steps and found a cairn that I had left in an important section. This pointed me in the right direction for the remaining scrambling back down to base camp. Soon, I was back at camp eating dinner before getting to sleep at around 10:30. Since we were getting up at 2 for Woolley and Diadem, I did not get as much recovery time as I needed
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