1981 - Mt. Sir Donald

Mount Sir Donald - Selkirk Range
Location of Mt. Sir Donald
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Our bivi below the Uto - Sir Donald col

Garvin Morris, Chris Cooper, Chuck McCafferty, and I set out from our car one afternoon and hiked up the trail to the base of Mt. Sir Donald. I had drooled over pictures of the spectacular peak for a long time and I was going to get a second try at it. Chuck and I had tried before, but poor weather had made us decide on the south-west corner of Uto.

Contemplating tomorrow's big day.
Route follows the edge of the left skyline.

It was impressive. We knew it wasn't that difficult as peaks went, but it was long and exposed. I slept with just a bit of apprehension.
The route is the left hand skyline, looking very fore shortened.

Chuck McCafferty

The morning dawned bright and we were at the col just after dawn. We put on our harnesses, but didn't rope up as we wanted to climb quickly. The quartzite rock provided good holds even when things were steep as it was cut horizontally in many places. The ridge line was the place to climb, and whenever you got off the ridge, things got more difficult as Chuck found out when he digressed to the north face and found wet slippery rock.

My big orange MSR helmet sure shows up!

Having done quite a bit of climbing that year, I felt confident the whole way. We didn't use a rope on the way up, but we sure kept it handy. The stories I had heard of the great exposure were true, but the holds always seemed to be there. A pair of climbers met up with us as we neared the top and they slowly motored on past.

Keith approaching the summit.

We followed the crest of the ridge right to the summit, rather than skirting off to the right a couple of hundred feet below the summit as described in the guide. As we neared the summit, we noticed there was a thin film of ice on the rocks.

The summit provided spectacular views. The trans Canada highway looked very tiny.

Chuck McCafferty, Keith Rajala, Chris Cooper

I wanted to eat, drink, and start down because I really felt that the real climbing was about to begin. I knew that climbing down was going to be the real challenge as we would be tired and it was a long, long, long, way down that ridge.
The ridge is either manly class 4, or very low 5th, and we down climbed most of it. Near the summit was a steep section so we rappelled on a double rope. When we tried to pull it down, it jammed! We heaved on it, and it came all right, but so did rock! We escaped any injury, but from then on, we did half rope rappels. We did about 13 half rope rappels, but the vast majority of the descent was down climbing without a rope. This demanded total concentration.

Chuck McCafferty, Chris Cooper, Keith Rajala, Garvin Morris
You can just make out a yellow helmet of a climber coming down the ridge just to the right of Garvin's shoulder.

By the time we got to the bottom, I felt a lot of mental relief and great deal of pride. We had done it, and had done it in good style. I had felt confident the whole way. The training had paid off!