Mount Denny is east of Opal ridge and though it has a summit elevation of 3000m it is not readily visible from a highway. We left the trailhead just after 7:30 am after a little checking for the trailhead location in the fog.

Valley fog - unusual for the Rockies

We branched off the trail north of Grizzly creek too early but managed to get to the hanging valley east of Opal ridge via a grotty gully in about 2 hours.


Vi, Toshiko and Sim rest stop in the beautiful hanging valley east of Opal ridge

There is a lot of bear diggings in the valley and we could have used Brian's tuneful singing voice to keep the bears aware of us rather than our tuneless yells. We easily found the "roof" described in the book after descending a bit north.


Ascending Denny - the roof described by Alan Kane in the Scrambles book

Sim found us a nice route around this obstacle.


Route goes up the ramp on the right of the photo

Higher up we crossed to the climber's left side of the drainage but a good call by Vi pulled us back to a better line. Much of the ascent is on slabs covered in small rubble which required care as the rubble acts as slippery ball bearings. We did have a couple of inconsequential slips on the rubble during the day.


Sim carefully ascending one of the many rubbly covered slabs on Mount Denny

After gaining the ridge north of the summit we headed south along the narrow ridge arriving at the summit around 12:30 pm for lunch to enjoy the extensive views.


Sim, Vi and Toshiko descending Mount Denny (whoops forgot to take a summit photo).

The register had been placed in July 2018 by Brandon replacing one from 1994. Brandon had placed the new register and recorded his 500th summit in it. Brandon was vaguely familar to some of us - I think he is / was very active with the scrambling club. Our entry was the second in the new book and the only record so far in 2019.For the descent we went down the other(south) side of the drainage from our ascent. Still some rubble covered slabs but more scree in spots so it worked better for descent I think.We were back at the car just after 5:30 pm.
I enjoyed the perfect conditions and weather we had scrambling this "hidden gem" in the Opal range - well with a bit less rubble the slabs would be fun scrambling so maybe not a total "gem". Great views from the summit

Thanks to: Sim,Vi,Toshiko from John for coping safely with the slabs and good company on my second attempt at this one. Special thanks to Vi and Sim for help route finding.