1971- Mt. Overlord, Canadian Border Peak

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Mt. Overlord - Whistler/Black Area - Coast Range

Location of Mt. Overlord

Himmelsbach Hut with Mt. Fissile above

Alan Lizee and I made our first trip up to Singing Pass and the Himmelsbach Hut and Russet Lake the weekend after Ken Willis went in.
The hut that had been put in was a welcome site. Hopefully people will appreciate it and look after it.

Fog filling the Fitzsimmons Valley

When we first woke up we were in fog at the hut, but we soon realized that it was a thin layer that had clear air above it. Soon we were off towards Overlord.

Mt. Wedge in left distance

In the picture you can see the Platform Glacier on either side of Alan. This glacier is part of the Spearhead traverse. On the horizon, just above the cairn, you can see Wedge Mt., the highest mountain in Garibaldi Park.

Mt. Fitzsimmons on left

This picture was taken from the summit of Overlord looking in an easterly direction. In the left foreground is Fitzsimmons Mountain with the northern part of Benvolio on the extreme right hand side.

Canadian Border Peak - Chilliwack River Area
Location of Canadian Border Peak

Canadian Border Peak from the NE

Alan Lizee, Ken Willis, and Keith Rajala hiked up the trail above Slesse Creek on to the N-E shoulder of the Canadian Border Peak to spend the night. The east face is terrifically steep and quite foreboding looking (at least to us at the time) and I'm sure we went to sleep with a little apprehension.

In the morning we went up the deeply runnelled snow slope and angled slightly to the right topping out just out of the picture to the right. From the ridge crest, we went around the west side for a short time, to gain the ridge again just before the summit.

Class 3 scrambling

The next morning was overcast but we headed up. We went around the north ridge and crossed easy ledges on the west side to work our way back up to the crest of the north ridge. (see picture) I remember looking down into the mist on the east face just below the summit and thinking that I'd better watch my step! It was a very long way down.

A lot of class 3 scrambling with lots of exposure.

Brittle rock near the summit.

Just below the summit we came down a slightly different, and probably the usual way, compared to the airy snowy traverse we made on the way up. As you can see it involved a short steep bit that had rather brittle rock. There were some rapell slings at the top, but it wasn't hard to climb down.

Lots of exposure down the west side.

The descent down the ramp on the west side involved some snow then some of the class three scrambling that was shown in the picture above. With the exposure down the west side, we wanted to be careful. Here Alan and Ken are making sure we do the snow traverse safely.