STORIES,
PICTURES

Stories/Pics Index

• Bulletin Board
• Events Calendar
• E-mail Updates
• External Links

Helicopter landing on east side of Kiwa Glacier. Mt. Sir John Abbott 11,192 ft. (3411M)

I have climbed to the summit of over two hundred interesting mountains throughout the past twenty-five years. These peaks include many 11,000+ foot peaks in the Canadian Rockies and Interior Ranges. In addition I have made many first ascents in the Yukon's St. Elias Mountains, climbed several 14,000+ foot peaks in Colorado and a 20,000 foot trekking peak along the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. I was looking for a challenging summer trip for 2004 to celebrate my twenty-fifth year of mountaineering.

My good friend, Roger Wallis, had been wanting to explore the Kiwa Névé in the Premier Range of the Cariboo Mountains of British Columbia. This sounded like a suitably remote area with high peaks where I could celebrate my silver anniversary of mountaineering. Roger's extensive research into the Premier Range revealed that only a few parties had ever camped in the Kiwa Névé basin. We also knew that the current guidebooks include numerous errors that our party would attempt to sort out. The Premier Range consists of several intricate glacial systems fanning out over a distance of 20 kilometres by 20 kilometres. The Kiwa Névé is the most remote, located in the area's northwest corner, encircled by the two highest peaks in the range.

Our climbing team would be made up of myself, and three other Alpine Club of Canada, Toronto Section members. After climbing for many years together we have settled into our respective roles:

• Roger Wallis       Chief Geologist and Mountain Guru
• Bill McKenzie     Stonemason and Anchorman
• Willa Harasym     Navigation and Communications Technician
• Paul Geddes       Crevasse Detector and Wand Master

Our trip into the Premiers began on August 6, 2004 in the small town (pop. 1,400) of Valemount. Valemount is in BC, approximately one hundred and fifty kilometres west of Jasper. Most food supplies required for a mountaineering trip can be purchased locally. Just don't ask for anything too exotic. An excellent place to stay in town is the Yellowhead Motel; the proprietor, Ralph Bauer, is an endless source of local knowledge. Located just outside of the town is the helicopter base for Yellowhead Helicopters.

The mayor of Valemount has been working on a proposal to have one of the peaks overlooking the townsite named in honour of former Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. This is appropriate and will raise the profile of the Premier Range, as currently none of the peaks named after past Canadian Prime Ministers can be seen from the highway.

We waited in Valemount for two days until the weather improved sufficiently over the high peaks to allow our party to be flown in. This gave us the opportunity to learn that in August, the salmon come home to Valemount's Swift Creek, via the Fraser River after a 1,400 kilometre journey from the Pacfic Ocean. It is one of the longest salmon migrations in the world. Covering approximately 30 kilometres per day, only about 5% of the Chinook survive the hardships of this journey to reach their destination.

Our 30 kilometre helicopter flight path traced the route of the original 1924 and 1925 approaches into this wilderness area. We traveled north from Valemount towards the village of Tête Jaune Cache and then followed the Tête (Sand) Creek as it flowed off of the Tête Glacier and towards the Fraser River. We flew over a low col from the Tête to the even more remote Kiwa valley lying further west. What an adventure it must have been in 1924 and 1925 to travel by train and then pack horse to the toe of the Tête Glacier.

We arrived at our base camp in two helicopter (Jet Ranger/Bell 206 B) flights on the evening of Sunday, August 8. After many months of anticipation I was excited to finally see this remote area. The mountains surrounding the Kiwa Glacier were initially explored in 1927 on a return trip to the area by Allen Carpé and Rollin T. Chamberlin. Since that first camp in 1927, the only other parties known to have camped in the area are the Bill Crompton party (3) in August 1965 and the Grizzly Group (6) in May 1993. Several other parties (See Postscript) have bivouaced on the Kiwa Glacier, including the Bob Kruszyna party (3) in August 1976 and Alan Hugget and Steve Laing in the summer of 1988 and others in 1984 and 1986.

In addition to the two highest 11,000+ foot peaks, neither of which had been climbed more then a handful of times, the area holds the potential for second or even first ascents of lesser peaks. We were very fortunate; we arrived in an area known for its foul weather, at the start of a ten day high pressure weather system.

Our base camp was located at 8,640 feet on a rock covered buttress overlooking the east side of the Kiwa icefall (map reference Kiwa Creek 83D/13). The helicopter pilot had initially been reluctant to land there due to the rough terrain when Roger made the first flight in with a full load of gear, but did relent and landed us there safely. Our first task before the sun went down was to clear two tent sites and make a kitchen area in the boulder field. There was no sign of a previous party having made camp there. The Grizzly Group, in May 1993, camped nearby on snow and had built a cairn on a high point visible from our camp (Don Forest, Glen Boles, Bruno Struck, Leon Kubbernus, Mike Simpson, Jim Fosti). (Postscript 1993) Water flowing down from the glaciers provided our camp with a ready supply of water. A short distance from camp was a patch of snow conveniently located to keep our fresh food cold.

Monday, August 9, 2004

The next day we spent our first morning building our base camp. By 1:00pm we had had lunch and were ready to leave camp. We wanted to start our week with a couple of acclimatization climbs. Immediately above camp were two suitable peaks, Mt. Goodell 10,290 feet and Mt. Sir Mackenzie Bowell (Welcome Peak) 10,760 feet. Roger and Willa climbed Goodell by its west slopes. Bill and I crossed the glaciated Goodell/Bowell col via snow and ice, to climb the 30 degree northwest facing ice slopes of Bowell. With the ropes left behind in camp, Bill and I moved quickly, just like in the old days when I had climbed dozens of peaks with Bill. On the summit ridge we traversed from north to south. Our descent was beside the ice slope, to the mountain's base. Our parties were the respective fourth and fifth recorded ascents of these peaks.

Cairns were found on both of these peaks, with a register on Goodell from the Grizzly Group camp in 1993. The register indicated that Goodell had been climbed on May 23 by Bruno Struck, solo and again on May 25 by Leon Kubbernus, Mike Simpson, Jim Fosti. No register was found in the cairn on Bowell. We later learned that Bowell had been climbed on May 23, 1993 by Jim Fosti, Leon Kubbernus and Mike Simpson and again on May 25 by Glen Boles, Don Forrest and Bruno Struck.

Being up high on these two peaks gave us the chance to reconnoiter other peaks near and far. We had spectacular views of peaks we would yet climb. Our two groups were able to communicate from our respective summits via FRS radios. This allowed Roger to identify for Bill and me many of the peaks we saw in the distance. Mt. Robson the highest peak in the Canadian Rockies, which we had all climbed previously, was in full view to the northeast. An unnamed 10,000+ foot peak lay immediately north of Bowell. Was it yet unclimbed?

Back in camp by late afternoon, work began to prepare for the next day's attempt on Mt. Sir Wilfred Laurier. Water needed to be collected, dinner prepared and cooked, gear sorted, etc.

Tuesday, August 10, 2004

Mt. Sir Wilfred Laurier, the official name for Mt. Titan, is the highest peak in the Premier Range at 11,560 feet (Willa's GPS reading). The official name was designated on September 6, 1927 by the Canadian Geographic Board. Sir Wilfred Laurier (1841-1919) was the 8th Prime Minister of Canada (1896-1911). In 1927 the Canadian Government agreed to reserve the naming of peaks over 10,000 feet in this range for the names of past Prime Ministers. As a result many mountains in the range have been renamed and other +10,000 foot peaks will be named for our Prime Ministers in the future.

From 8,640 ft. camp towards summit of Mt. Sir Wilfred Laurier 11,550 ft. (3520m)

Mt. Titan was first climbed and named on July 5, 1924 by Allen Carpé, Rollin T. Chamberlin and A.L. Withers. The second ascent was made the following year on July 16, by well known early Canadian mountaineers, Don and Phyllis Munday. These early ascents reached the Kiwa Névé via the Tête Glacier with a high bivouac at 9,800 ft. on the summit of Bivouac Peak. They then descended to the Kiwa Névé and crossed the glacier at the base of Sir Wilfred Laurier's north face. We would follow the same route of ascent as these early pioneers, the 30 degree ice slopes of the northwest face.

Up at 3:30am, we departed camp at 5:00am. The overnight temperature fell to below freezing and provided easy travel over the snow fields leading out of camp. The approach to the northwest face was via a long gently sloping crevassed snow ramp. This kind of terrain reminded us more of the St. Elias Mountains in the Yukon than other areas of the Rockies or Selkirks that we have visited.

The northwest face has the advantage of being shaded from the sun until late morning and provided us with hard ice for the ascent. Just below the snow summit we moved onto a rock outcrop and stopped for a break. There in plain view was the summit cairn. A quick search of the cairn by Bill produced a chromed steel match cylinder. Inside this canister was a single sheet of paper in perfect condition. Written in pencil on one side was an inscription from the first ascent in 1924: "Climbed both summits via Kiwa Creek glacier from bivouac on peak 10,250' above Sand Creek glacier. Altitude approx. 12000 ft." On the reverse side, a note from the second ascent in 1925: " 2nd ascent, by west ridge, Kiwa Névé & Bivouac Peak. Reached summit 12:35 climbed both summits. Clear weather, raging gale, freezing. Had one hour cutting ice steps - 4 hrs. 10 min. from Bivouac Pk." We were totally amazed to have discovered this cairn register that had weathered the storms of this mountain for eighty years. Could we be the third ascent of this route?

Summit registers from 1924 & 1925 ascents of Mt. Sir Wilfred Laurier (Titan)

After a discussion on what to do with this valuable summit canister and register we decided to place a written copy in our own canister and to bring the original off the mountain. This document can now form part of Canada's mountain heritage in the Alpine Club of Canada collection at the Whyte Museum in Banff.

We proceeded onto the main summit snow dome, where a huge cornice had formed over the north face. Spectacular views awaited us in all directions. Nothing lay between us and the 12,972 foot (3954 metre) summit of Mt. Robson.

The perfect weather allowed us the luxury of spending a couple of hours on the summit. We traversed from the main west summit to the slightly lower (by 66 feet) northeast summit. Even the butterflies floating by in the summit breezes were enjoying the warm temperature.

Finally and reluctantly we decided it was time to descend. A quick crampon descent down the northwest face in total sun now brought us back to the lower crevassed snow slopes. We followed the few wands we had left enroute early in the morning.

The route home across the glacier was tedious; sun cups the size of bathtubs tripped us up. Eventually we were back in camp at 4:00pm, the roundtrip distance was approximately 12 kilometres. We got through the chores of dinner and retired early, tired from the day's climb.

Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Invariably the day after a big climb is planned as an easier day. I had slept soundly through the night until 7:00am. After a leisurely breakfast, we were all keen to take advantage of the good weather and get out of camp.

We decided to check out the unnamed 10,000+ foot peak lying 0.8 kilometre north northwest (NNW) of Mt. Sir Mackenzie Bowell. We had all been eying this mountain on Monday when we were on the summits of Goodell and Bowell. We headed across the dry glacial ice of the slope that Bill and I had ascended previously. Moving at a slow pace, at one and a half hours from camp Willa and I stopped to wait for the others as a rope was needed for the transition to the snow covered glacier. When Roger and Bill arrived we realized that all our ropes were in camp. I hadn't double checked who had the rope before we left camp.

Unnamed ("Mt. Burns") 10,390 ft. (3195m) Left, Mt. Sir Mackenzie Bowell 10,760t. (3280m) Top Mt. Goodell 102,60 ft. (3135m)

I volunteered to descend 1,000 vertical feet back to camp to fetch a rope. Bill added my pack to his on his back, and Roger led Bill and Willa unroped across a section of tricky glacier to the rock ridge. While waiting for me, Willa took Bill up Goodell for her second ascent. They got back down, just as I arrived by a snow and rock route, having taken just over one hour to descend and reascend the slopes.

After a lunch break we roped up and headed out onto the icefield. The snow was soft and large crevasses lurked just under the thin layer of surface snow. Within moments Willa's legs were dangling in our first crevasse. We carefully continued to put in a route to the Goodell/Bowell col where we could study the terrain ahead. We seriously analyzed two alternative routes of ascent. The climbing looked interesting on the south ridge but a loose gully had to be negotiated to reach the col connecting it to Bowell. The alternative route crossed a section of black ice to a scree slope and followed the broken southwest ridge to the summit.

In the end, we decided to return to camp. It was too late in the day to climb the peak and get back to camp at a reasonable time. If the weather turned cold overnight we wanted to be in position to attempt Kiwa (Mt. Sir John Abbott), the second highest peak in the range. On our way back to camp Willa took me up Goodell for her third ascent of same and led the route back home.

Back in camp early, we decided to erect the kitchen shelter, a four person floorless pyramid tent. After we moved the two burner propane stove into this shelter, it became our preferred meeting and eating area for the rest of the trip. Bill used his stone mason skills to build stone wind-blocking walls. For the remainder of the trip, when we lit up the propane lamp in the dark of our alpine starts, it was a cozy shelter that helped to cheer us up and get us psyched for the day's climbing.

Late in the day, we made the decision to attempt Mt. Sir John Abbott (Kiwa) the next morning. Roger spent an hour drawing a detailed sketch of our best option for a route through the complex glacier that flows down from the summit. Roger and I discussed where we would traverse the crevasses that lay just beyond our camp. My plan required that I landmark a distant peak and pass just left of a large crevasse on a fifteen foot wide path of dry ice that led safely through the crevasse field. This would be simple in daylight but our early morning start would be in the dark and would require headlamps.

It required gangbuster preparations to get everything ready in time and we didn't get to bed much before 10:00pm. Wired, I couldn't easily fall asleep. At 1:45am I got up to check the weather. It was +8 degrees Celsius. I woke up Roger to discuss our options. We marveled at the shimmering night sky, broken by the occasional falling star. After a half hour of bantering we decided it was just too warm to attempt Kiwa and that a rest day was our best option.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

At 7:45am the sun finally shone on our tent doors. There was a strong wind coming down the glacier and it whipped up the dry glacier silt and blew it through our camp. All of our clothes and gear had a sparkle to them from the mica in the dust. We cooked up omelets for breakfast. At 9:30am Willa fired up the Globalstar satellite phone we had rented and called Ralph at the Yellowhead Motel in Valemount for a weather update. The forecast was positive, with clear weather for a least a few more days. We had hoped for cooler temperatures but they were not in the forecast.

A morning in camp gave us a welcomed break and a chance to do some washing up. There were two options for personal washing: a glacial stream or a pot of hot water behind a sheltering rock. I shaved and washed my hair, which felt refreshing. We continued to discuss the route up Mt. Sir John Abbott and, as well, Mt. Richard Bennett another 10,000+ foot peak. Roger made a variation to his Abbott sketch and noted on it by number, all the obstacles that we faced.

After a lunch of grilled cheese sandwiches, all four of us were anxious to explore some new terrain. We headed north, descending the rock buttress we were on, to explore below our camp. Roger and Bill wandered off towards the edge of the buttress for views over the drop-off to the glacier below. Willa and I followed an old moraine until we saw a stream and meadow. As we wandered through the meadow we soon realized that this was an old camp site. Excited, we called out to Bill and Roger to join us.

Within a few minutes we had discovered some stashed equipment. First, a rolled up tarp behind a rock. Then some old tins and plates protected under an overhanging rock. And in another cache, a small stove. Then we discovered a bag of rusty pitons, ice snargs and a piton hammer all clipped together with a carabiner. This was so interesting. We tried to imagine to whom it had all belonged, and why and when it had been left behind. I decided to bring the stove and climbing gear home. Perhaps I could locate the owners and/or donate the items to a climbing museum.(Postscript 1965)

We continued our walk along the rock spur overlooking the Kiwa Glacier icefall. The seracs were incredibly tall and congested. Far below in the distance was a long green lake with some icebergs in it. We had heard reports that snowmobiles can access the lake in the late winter.

As we dropped down a hundred feet in elevation, there was life on the west facing hillsides. Grasses, lichens, small flowers and even some pikas and birds appeared. Roger and Bill continued further down, far enough to get another vantage point to look up at the northwest face on the unnamed peak we planned to climb.

Allen Carpé and Rollin Chamberlin bivouaced near here at an elevation of 8,500 feet on their return trip to the area in 1927. The written records indicate that they had built a cairn and left a record of their ascents at their bivouac. Unfortunately we did not find their cairn.

Willa and I wandered slowly back up in the direction of our camp. We noticed some interesting rock formations. One particularly huge white quartz outcropping stood out. We picked up some interesting garnet studded rocks that we decided to bring home. My pack had gotten quite heavy.

Back in camp we continued the day's feasting with a steak dinner. It was a challenge keeping our cooler of frozen meat buried in the small snow patch beside camp, as each day we experienced a tremendous amount of snow melt.

In the evening we started to notice forest fire smoke filling the valleys below. We later learned that a large 2900 hectare prescribed burn had been set, east of Mt. Robson in Mt. Robson Provincial Park. The strategy for igniting this controlled burn was to put a fire break into the center of a continuous forest that runs through Mt. Robson Provincial Park towards the Jasper town site. We had smoke-filled skies for the rest of the trip.

Friday, August 13, 2004

We made the decision to let the snowfields on Sir John Abbott settle for another day. Our destination for Friday, August 13 became the unnamed peak that we saw on our first climbing day. We were up at 4:30am in the pre-dawn light. The sky was clear and the temperatures overnight had again been warm.

Bill and Roger left camp first at 6:00am and Willa and I followed shortly after. We all met at the edge of the glacier to rope up. Then the group of us retraced familiar terrain to the Goodell/Bowell col without incident. Our old tracks were mostly melted out except for a few holes we had made at the edges of some crevasses.

The route of ascent was apparent from our previous scouting trip. I pushed on over the col into the unfamiliar terrain. Several very large crevasses blocked our path and required some route finding through them. The snow surface was firm and we quickly lost elevation as we left the col.

We decided to bypass the south ridge to save the time that would have been required to get the party safely on to it. I continued across the sloping snow field toward the black ice on the edge of the glacier. There were still a few small crevasses to pass before we reached the rock. Roger saw a better route above so we switched leads on the move. We all struggled across the ice in our boots, not wanting to take the time to put on our crampons.

Once we reached rock, Roger found a suitable landmark to leave our unneeded gear, rope, crampons, etc. We built and flagged a large cairn so that there would be no difficulty in locating this spot from above on our way down.

As we were now climbing scree, we each continued on at our own pace. Periodically, we flagged a cairn that we built to mark our route. We could see Mt. Robson again in the distance, through a haze of forest fire smoke.

As we predicted, it was an easy climb with patches of unbroken rock on the southwest ridge. We approached the summit by late morning. Would there be a summit cairn or was this peak still unclimbed? We would soon be able to answer this question.

The views from the top of the unnamed peak allowed us to look straight down thousands of feet onto the Tête Glacier. The loss of glacial ice in the past eighty years was apparent by the scarring and the defined tree line made by the moving glacier. To the east, in an area that had been explored by an Alpine Club of Canada climbing camp decades before, were more peaks of the Premier Range. Roger sat for a long time with his map out, enthusiastically pointing out these other distant peaks.

There was a summit cairn. And tucked amongst the rocks was a metal adhesive tape dispenser with a small note inside. It read: Aug. 8, 1965, Clive Lister, Bill Crompton, Chris Faulhaber, from lower slide area, no cairn found. Thirty-nine years had passed since anyone had stood on this high point.(Postscript 1965)

Willa took a GPS reading which recorded the summit at 10,390 feet. We left a new summit canister with the original note and our record of the second ascent. We named this mountain, "Mt. Burns" after Carpé and Chamberlin's outfitter in 1924. Mt. Goodell had already been named after their other outfitter on that first trip.

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Mt. Sir John Abbott had originally been called Kiwa after the glacier it rises above. This mountain dominated our view from camp all week. Its base sat directly west across the Kiwa Glacier. In 1927 Carpé and Chamberlin had bivouaced near our base camp before their first ascent of this peak.

An imposing glaciated snow and ice face separated us from the sharp final summit pyramid. We had spent a significant amount of time studying the three or four options for weaving a route through its many hazards. We had changed our minds as many times. Finally, we decided on a route that would start in the center of the face and follow a devious line ascending right and then back left.

I memorized the route. Once I was on the face it would be difficult to remember the big picture, while trying to find a way through the next obstacle directly in front of us.

At 3:45am we carried our small propane kitchen lantern to the edge of the glacier. We strapped on our crampons, divided the fifty-five metre rope into quarters and tied in.

At 4:00am we headed out into the darkness on a line I had picked out three days before. I could just make out the features on the horizon that would keep me on track. Soon we reached the first maze of crevasses. I stopped to use an ice screw to drill a hole to place our first wand.

It took an hour to get across the Kiwa Glacier to the base of the mountain. It was eerie in the darkness. We felt more confident as the dawn light began to creep into the sky. At 5:00am it was light enough to put our headlamps away and we took a short food break. For a change, there were clouds. It looked quite threatening with the added smoke from the forest fires darkening the skies.

We had changed our tie-in order because of the exposure anticipated on this climb. I led being the lightest and the most experienced at locating crevasses. Bill, being the heaviest and strongest in the party, was next on the rope to be my anchorman if I unexpectedly fell through a snow bridge. Willa was next, to keep a tight rope on Bill. Roger took up the rear, where he could keep a perspective on the whole route, attempt to interpret his mountain sketch and keep us on course.

Bill and I each carried a large bundle of wands (bamboo garden stakes, with a flag of fluorescent marker tape tied to the top). As leader, I had to wand our route of ascent so that each change in course and every major crevasse could be identified from above on our descent, when we would be tired and would want just to get off the mountain safely. We shouldered our packs and I headed off in the direction of the next feature, a crescent shaped snow patch followed by a section of dry ice. Then a long sloping snow ramp perched above the base of the mountain bergshrund led us directly to an ice step.

Ice axe in, crampon points in, I moved up. The ice was perfect, the angle well suited for our mountaineering axes. I decided that we did not need a running ice screw anchor as the slope leveled out in about half a rope length. Down below when Roger started front pointing one of his crampons popped off. Willa tightened up the rope between them and gave Roger a chance to get re-organized.

Meanwhile, I studied the features ahead. I knew that the first third of the route would be the most complex. Hugh crevasses not only crossed our path but, more dangerously, led off in the direction that we needed to travel. Slowly we made progress, but I was moving too far to the left. Interpreting his sketch map, Roger was able to re-direct me to another long, right leaning traverse below an open crevasse field. I wanded the changes in direction.

I soon came to a dead end. Open crevasses lay before us in every forward direction. An undulating, one metre wide snow bridge formed the only passage to the other side. I slowly crossed this ten metre long bridge one gentle step at a time. Across, I kept a tight rope on Bill and moved forward as he progressed. The others safely followed.

The second third of the climb started off in a slightly more straightforward manner. The main concern was a number of large crevasses buried under a blanket of snow traveling parallel to our intended direction of travel. I headed towards the rock buttress on the far right side of the face. We took a five-minute food and drink break before tackling another short steep snow face. Above was another labyrinth of open crevasses. Back and forth we snaked to get through this barrier.

Ahead lay more open snow slopes. I pushed on looking for a suitable rest stop where I could switch the lead with Bill. Near the buttress wall some large ice blocks lay beside our path forming a perfect pit stop.

Bill took over the lead. We could see the sharp rock and ice face of the summit ahead. As we approached the face, our concern became getting over the steep bergshrund that broke away below the summit. We had anticipated difficulty here as we had observed the 'shrund from our camp. It was big and crossed the entire face of the mountain.

We had trouble finding a suitable snow bridge across the 'shrund and Bill had to traverse the entire face until a reasonable crossing was found just below the SSE ridge. With a tight belay Bill was able to cross a snow bridge and kick a few steps up the steep wall of the bergshrund. We belayed each other across and continued up along the ridge.

We studied the SSE ridge leading to the summit of Abbott. This late in the year most of the snow had melted off of it. We picked out a potential route but it was not straightforward. It started up steep snow to broken rock, then a traverse around a rock tower on a 50º snow/ice slope to a gully. We could not see past the gully leading behind the next rock tower. We discussed the best option for getting to the summit. The problem with this route was it would take a couple of hours of belayed climbing just to get to the last gully we could see. If we were stopped there, we could be forced to retreat, missing the summit.

We decided on another option, which was to traverse back across the face below the bergshrund to the NNE ridge. For the half hour it took, we were exposed to anything sliding down the northeast face. The ridge was a go. Bill led up on a 45º ice slope, using the rock ridge for setting up quick belay stations. Two rope lengths brought us onto a large step just below the summit. Happy with our success we continued up the ridge through crumbly broken mica schist to the summit.

The summit consisted of broken dusty rock and any cairn that might have been built would have disintegrated into the rubble. The last party to climb this mountain (1993) climbed onto a totally snow covered summit. We built a sizeable cairn and Roger wrote up the details of our climb for our summit canister. The GPS gave us a summit elevation of 11,192 feet, the second highest peak in the range.

At 12:30pm we headed down, retracing our ascent route. Bill lowered us each quickly down the ice face in a series of quarter rope length lowers. An ice screw on the steepest pitch gave Bill a running belay as he down climbed. Below at the col, Roger had to bandage his finger, badly hit earlier while tossing a loose rock out of our path.

We crossed the summit bergshrund and dropped down a steep snow slope. Soon we picked up our track of foot steps put in on the way up. We had fun as we worked our way down. Everyone could move faster on descent; the track was in and the next wand always visible.

When Roger came to a difficult spot, Willa gave him a belay; even a few ice screw belays were set up. Bill and I felt more comfortable with the climbing rope taut between us and just kept following Roger and Willa down. We retrieved our wands to use on our next climb. We all got down with nothing more serious then a few legs poked through into crevasses.

Roger set a new course across the glacier and we staggered into camp just before 6:00pm. We had been out for fourteen hours.

Sunday, August 15

The next day dawned as clear as all the others. The barometer had not moved more than a hundred feet since we arrived in camp. This day was our only total rest day of the camp. For the most part we did absolutely nothing, interrupted only by periods of reading, writing, washing, drying gear and other mundane, but none the less, enjoyable activities. The most energetic tasks involved collecting water and preparing meals. It felt good.

Over dinner that evening we discussed what we expected to climb next. I wanted to spend a day exploring the upper Kiwa Basin. As well, the only other mountain left that we all wanted to climb was Mt. Richard Bennett.

Monday, August 16

Bill decided to stay behind, enjoy our campsite and wander down the moraine along side the Kiwa Icefall. Roger, Willa and I headed out of camp at 6:40am. Our destination was to see how far we could get by heading up to the col between Bowell and Bivouac Peak.

During the week that we had spent at our camp, the glacial slopes immediately beyond our tents had turned from snow covered glacier to bare ice. The crampons that Willa had been wearing all week suddenly started acting up and they simply fell off of her boots several times. We tightened them up to the point of being difficult to put on and take off.

We traversed slopes that appeared to lead off in the direction we wanted to go. Roger, in the lead, was soon route finding through a maze of crevasses.

I was third person on the rope. It is always easier to second guess the route from the back and I questioned Roger as to why he was heading over to the edge of the glacier below the rock wall of Bowell. Roger, however, has a lifetime of mountaineering experience, and as a geologist the ability to interpret the rock formations under a glacier and accurately predict where crevasses have formed. He was satisfied with his route and we carried on. The west facing rock walls of Bowell had transferred so much heat back into the glacier to have melted it into a steep scooped drop off. Roger altered his route to accommodate this new data. We carefully descended the undulating topography of the glacier.

We switched leads and I was back in front, my preferred position on the rope! More crevasse hopping on route, but easy going. Directly ahead of us was the wide col. I looked for a safe way to get off the glacier and onto rock.

As we stepped off the ice the garnet studded rocks caught our attention. Willa found a beautiful specimen to bring home. What did Carpé and Chamberlin do in 1924 while passing the afternoon on Bivouac Peak? We had read Chamberlin's account, "Carpé and I basked in the sun picking tiny garnets, of which there were an extraordinary number out of the metamorphic debris".

We peered back at the thick ice of the col, hanging over a vertical drop of many hundreds of feet to the Tête Glacier below. Ahead was beautiful untrodden terrain. We stopped where the relatively flat terrain of the col started to form the ridge leading up to Bivouac Peak. We decided to leave this challenging ascent for someone else. It was already lunch time and we didn't want to expend the time and energy that it would have taken to get up and down the ridge.

Though somewhat disappointed at not going on, an enjoyable hour was spent at two picturesque rock towers, taking pictures and building a cairn. These twin towers were at an elevation of 9,710 feet and overhung the rock wall that they hovered on. We stood on the summits of both of them knowing that no one had been there before us. Contented with the day's accomplishments, we headed back following our established route. Even on a moderate day out, the tension of glacier travel builds in the early afternoon with the warming of the snow surfaces. I picked out a variation to our ascent route that took us safely to the dry ice of the glacier, which lead us back to camp. The melted water run off at 2:00pm was intense. At least we didn't lack for drinking water. We arrived back in camp shortly after 2:30pm.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

This was our last climbing day of the trip. If we managed to get up Mt. Richard Bennett we would try to fly out the following day.

Our plan was to start across the Kiwa Glacier at first light. We followed the same traversing line as our day on Abbott. Soon we were losing elevation down the glacier. At the base of the snow covered glacier leading up between Abbott and Bennett we stopped for a rest.

South and north summits of Mt. Richard Bennett 10,482 ft. (3195m)

Days earlier Roger had drawn a sketch of the major features of this glacier. We had studied the route from many angles on a daily basis. The team was progressing well. Then Roger's legs fell through into a crevasse that the rest of us had safely crossed. In doing, so he twisted his knee. Fortunately, the injury was not serious enough to require us to quit the climb.

The final section to the bergschrund below the col kept our attention. I walked up to the edge of a sixty foot wide crevasse that dropped off into a dark cavern a hundred or more feet deep. I skirted around this obstacle on a snow bridge to the left. There was no clear way over the bergschrund, except immediately beside a raging torrent of water. Flowing down the face the water disappeared down a long tunnel beneath the glacier. A slip into this would have been nasty, indeed.

Being reluctant, as usual, to put on crampons, I gingerly climbed the soft bridge over the bergschrund before stopping to put in an ice screw and kick out a platform to stand on while strapping on my crampons.

The ice pitch above proved entertaining for everyone. Roger was favouring his strained knee and Willa gave him a belay off of my ice screws.

We unroped at the col and worked our way over to the base of the ridge leading to the south summit. All of us except Bill had thoroughly trashed our bodies over the past week of climbing. Finally unencumbered by the rope, Bill made a quick ascent to the south summit and waited patiently for everyone to catch up. Willa took a GPS reading that recorded an elevation of 10,448 feet.

A simple ridge walk separated the south and north summits. We arrived at the north summit at 12:15pm and the GPS recorded an elevation of 10,482 feet.

Buried deep within the north summit cairn was a sardine can wrapped inside a plastic bag. The note it contained read: "Art Maki, Hamish Mutch, Bob Kruszyna, F.A. on traverse from Mt. Sir John Abbott. Camp on Kiwa Glacier after traverse of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. Now must repeat to return to ACC camp above Canoe River. Aug. 7, 1976."

Our ascent of this mountain was the second. It was twenty-seven years after Kruszyna's party had ventured very far from their ACC base camp to make the first ascent.

An alternative descent plan had started to form in our minds as we sat on the north summit. Could we descend straight down the east ridge for 2,500 vertical feet to the Kiwa Glacier? If so, this would be the first traverse of Mt. Richard Bennett. It had looked doable as we passed by it in the early morning. Why not give it a try?

Before heading down, Willa used the advanced technology of the satellite phone to call her parents in Ottawa. It was Vi and Bill's fifty-eighth wedding anniversary. Willa then called Yellowhead Helicopters to arrange a 9:00am helicopter pick up at our base camp the following morning.

The descent consisted of unroped down climbing. As we got to the lower slopes we startled the resident family of ptarmigan. Bill scouted the route ahead and located a ramp leading down to the edge of the glacier.

A short traverse brought us around the base of the mountain to where we picked up our track from our morning approach.

A few kilometres was all that lay between us and the comforts of our base camp. The gauntlet of crevasses caught up both Roger and Willa. When Willa's leg went in, she required assistance to free her boot, jammed into the narrowing ice walls of a small crevasse.

Back in camp we could only afford to chill out for a short time. There was a lot of work to get done in order to be ready for a 9:00am pick up. I wrote up a record of our climbs and put it in the Grizzly Group's canister in the cairn above our camp.

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Cool, clear skies greeted us again that last morning. At 6:00am a breakfast of omelets used up the last of our fresh eggs. Then it was back to the bedlam of throwing everything into packs and stacking the gear.

Bill and I cleared a heli pad out of the boulder field and marked it with flagging tape. By 9:00am there was nothing left to do but wait.

Finally, I heard the faint drone of an approaching Jet Ranger helicopter. The helicopter should be here in a matter of minutes. However it started circling high above the east side of the Kiwa Glacier. Was this a sight-seeing tour? Then the pilot moved over to the west side of the Kiwa. We finally realized that the pilot was actually looking for us. We were four dots and a pile of gear in an immense terrain of rock and snow, with a blinding sun still low in the sky. We were not easy to locate.

Roger made a polite satellite phone call to enquire about this problem. When this didn't get the desired result, I used the sat phone to call out again to the heli pad. With me on the phone with the office and the office on the radio to the pilot, the pilot was able to pinpoint our location. Soon the helicopter was dropping down and approaching our landing site from the north following the edge of the Kiwa Glacier. We soon learned that this wasn't the pilot who had flown us in and that he was looking for us at an elevation a thousand feet higher than our base camp.

We quickly loaded the helicopter with approximately half of the gear and Willa and I took the first flight out. Enroute to the Tête Creek we flew right over the Twin Towers that we had played on a couple of days earlier. At the Valemount heli base Willa and I unloaded the aircraft while the pilot refueled for the second flight.

It wasn't long before Roger and Bill were flown out as well. We all headed into Valemount to sort gear and clean up. The sharp rocks and silt of our camp site had taken their toll on our gear. Tarps and tents were cut up. The mica in the silt that impregnated our clothes wouldn't wash out!

Another successful mountain climbing trip had come to a close. I had captured much of the trip on video with a plan to edit it down to a twenty minute presentation. We had accomplished a lot.

• 3rd ascent of original route on Mt. Sir Wilfrid Laurier (Titan) - 11,550 ft. (3520m)
• located the cairn register on Laurier from 1st/2nd ascents in 1924 and 1925
• 5th recorded ascent of Mt. Sir John Abbott (Kiwa) - 11,192 ft. (3411m)
• 5th recorded ascent of Mt. Sir Mackenzie Bowell (Welcome) - 10,760 ft. (3280m)
• 4th recorded ascent of Mt. Goodell -10,260 ft. (3135m)
• 2nd recorded ascent (and 1st traverse) of Mt. Richard Bennett - 10,482 ft. (3195m) (Postscript 1976))
• 2nd ascent of Unnamed ("Mt. Burns") - 10,390 ft. (3165m)(Postscript 1965)
• 1st ascent of the Twin Towers - 9,710 ft. (2960m)

(On all of the above, except Mt. Sir Wilfred Laurier, Willa has noted that she claims 1st female ascents.)

Reference: A Climbers Guide to the Interior Ranges of British Columbia

Thorington

• 1st Edition 1937
• 2nd Edition 1947
• 3rd Edition 1955

• 4th Edition 1963
• 5th Edition 1971
• 6th Edition 1975 North (unchanged from 1971)
• " 1977 (reprinted)

The Columbia Mountains of Canada, West & South - renamed Whipple et al 7th Edition 1992

Postscript: Once back home, over a period spanning several months we were able to thoroughly research the area. Roger traced the complete recorded history of the climbing done in the Premier Range. We were able to locate and contact several climbers who recounted their Kiwa experiences. As well, Frances (Freddie) Chamberlin Carter, daughter of Rollin Chamberlin, replied to a letter from Roger and provided some interesting details on the Premier Range. It was fascinating to uncover these tales.

KNOWN MOUNTAINEERING VISITS TO THE KIWA BASIN SINCE 1927 CAMP

1965 - Richard Crompton, Virginia, USA. Dick is still a member of the ACC. This expedition in 1965 climbed only one peak, the 10,390 ft. unnamed peak NW of Bowell. This was the first recorded ascent of the mountain. They arrived via helicopter with 30 days of supplies. Unfortunately Chris Faulhaber badly twisted his ankle on their second outing. Dick and Clive Lister spent the rest of the trip looking after Chris. They had an epic journey down the Kiwa Creek to a prearranged boat pick-up on the Fraser River. Hence the reason for leaving some of their heavy supplies at their base camp.

1973 - Gary Bruce and John Ellwood via the Tête valley, Bivouac Peak camp to Sir John Abbott in a 14 hour return trip.

1976 - Art Maki, Bob Kruszyna and Hamish Mutch provided details of their expedition from an ACC camp in the central Premiers. Getting into the Kiwa basin required that they ascend Sir Wilfred Laurier from the south to the summit and descend the NW ridge. Their primary goal being ascents of Sir John Abbott and the unclimbed Mt. Richard Bennett, which they completed. After two uncomfortable bivouacs they returned to their base camp by ascending the N. ridge of Sir Wilfred Laurier.

1984 - Steve Laing and Bill Prytula via Kiwa Glacier, 2nd ascent of Bowell.

1986 - Bob/Doug Knight and Siegfried Phlug via Kiwa Glacier, west ridge of Laurier.

1988 - Alan Huggett and Steve Laing of the ACC Prince George Section provided an account of their expedition. They drove up logging roads following the Kiwa Creek valley (bridge now washed out) and hiked to the toe of the Kiwa Glacier the first night camped at 4,800 ft. The next day they were able to ascend the Kiwa Icefall and set up a base camp on the glacier below Mt. Richard Bennett at 8,100 ft.. The next day visibility was poor, but they pushed on to climb the 9,750 ft. summit SE of Abbott. The next day was clear and warm, they were successful in ascending the N. ridge of Sir Wilfred Laurier. They retraced their ascent route back to their base camp. The following day they hiked out.

1993 - Glen Boles and Leon Kubbernus provided details of their trip which saw Don Forrest become the first person to climb all of the peaks over 11,000 ft. in both the Rockies and Interior Ranges of Canada. Don had climbed Sir Wilfred Laurier in 1981 from a camp on the north side of the North Canoe Glacier. From the 1993 camp Don was able to summit Sir John Abbott.

2004 - ACC Toronto Section camp as detailed above.

For more information contact Paul Geddes Atttachments: Photos, maps and 1924/25 register.