1 THE CARIBOO AND MONASHEE RANGES OF BRITISH COLUMBIA: AN ALPINIST’S GUIDE by EARLE R. WHIPPLE Even today, British Columbia is still a wilderness of mountains, valleys, glaciers, forest and plateau. The Columbia Mountains (Interior Ranges; which include the Cariboo and Monashee Ranges) lie within British Columbia, west of the Canadian Rockies and the southern Alberta-British Columbia border. This guide describes the access and mountaineering in these two ranges. Aside from parts of the Coast Range and the northern Rockies, the Cariboo and Monashee Ranges are the most isolated in B.C. However, if one listens to the helicopters from the lodges in these ranges, when camped there, one may question this. Large, active glaciers (now in retreat) with spectacular icefalls exist in the mountains of the western part of the Halvorson Group, the northern Wells Gray Group, the Premier Ranges, the Dominion Group and northern Scrip Range; there is climbing on rock, snow and ice, and routes for those climbers wishing easy, relaxing climbing in beautiful scenery. Good rock climbing on gneiss is in the southern Gold Range and Mt. Begbie in the north. There are also locales offering fine hiking on trails or alpine meadows (Halvorson Group, southern Wells Gray Group, southern Scrip Range, and the Shuswap Group), and backpacking traverses have been worked out through the Halvorson and Dominion Groups, the Scrip Range and the Gold Range. Beautiful lake districts exist in the northern Cariboos, and the Monashees. The area covered by this book starts northwest of the town of McBride, on Highway 16, southeast of Prince George, and extends south to near the border with the U.S.A., staying within the great bend of the Fraser River, and then west of Canoe Reach (lake; formerly Canoe River) and just west of the lower Columbia River south of its great bend. On the west, the Cariboo and Monashee Ranges fade out into hills. Aug. 31, 2020 2 Mt. Sir Wilfred Laurier, east face. The Tete Icefield is at its foot. Photo: Tom Swaddle. The features in this work can be found using the search engine in the computer. To find Group (or Range) titles and specific mountains (can use small letters), use two spaces between the words instead of one, e.g., Sir John Thompson. This avoids other mentions. 3 CONTENTS Acknowledgements Introduction Geology Listing, Sequence of Peaks Glacial Retreat, Global Warming, and Maps References, Books and Guidebooks; Documentation P.8 Classification and Ratings of Climbs Ratings, Snowfall, Glacial Retreat and Advance Glacier Travel and Its Dangers P.14 Maps (Ministry of Forests & Natural Resource); Access Professional Guides Helicopter and Fixed Wing Transport P.20 Helicopter Etiquette Weather Wet Rock Insect Pests Bears Damage by Porcupines Forest Road Safety Forest Fire Danger - Restriction of Access P.27 Trash and Garbage; Sanitation Water Quality Noise Campsite Selection and Etiquette Conclusion Mountaineering Camps of the ACC, BCMC, KMC and HMC P.30 Peaks of at Least Class 5.0 Difficulty Snow and Ice Climbs The Highest Named Peaks Altitude and Distance Units (Conversion) CARIBOO MOUNTAINS P. 34 Halvorson Group P.35 Wells Gray Group P.63 Premier Range P.101 Northern Premier Range P.101 Southern Premier Range P.132 4 MONASHEE MOUNTAINS P.149 Malton Range P.150 Dominion Group P.151 Hellroar Group P.169 Scrip Range P.175 Seymour Range P.207 Shuswap Group P.208 Isolated Peaks, Western Monashee P.221 Gold Range P.223 Whatshan Range, Pinnacle Group P.288 Appendix of Passes Index Regional (Backpacking) Traverses and Hiking Observations on the Use of the GPS (last page) Acknowledgements Earle R. Whipple first visited Canada in 1953 with the Harvard Mountaineers in the Northern Selkirks, and has gone to the mountains during most of the following years. He lived in Vancouver from 1965 to 1968, but was so busy that he didn’t climb as much as he should have. The author is grateful for the assistance of many people in the research leading to the data in this guidebook, including some who are not mountaineers. Leon Blumer, who introduced the author to the Gold Range, did much trail cutting there. Ken Baker, Robert Bauman, Ron Blaue, Cameron Cairns, Nick Dodge, David Kennedy, John Petroske, Dan Robertson, Jean Waterfield (Spicer) and Nels Wetterstrom gave much help in this region. Fred Beckey, Ross Cloutier, Thomas and Connie Crowley, Amund Groner, Jim Hylands, David P. Jones, James Petroske, and John O. Wheeler have been active and informative in several areas. Glen Stanley, in the Halvorson Group, was a one-man fount of knowledge. Vaclav Benes, Peter Brogden, Andrew Kauffman, Robert Kruszyna, Roger Laurilla, Orvel Miskiw, and Ferdl Taxbock provided details in the Premier Ranges. Other helpful climbers were Roland Amundson, Frank Baron, Asger Bentzen, Brian Berry, John Carter, Aaron Cooperman, Thomas Dabrowski, Richard Decker, David Dornian, Gary Edwards, Michael Feller, Peter Findlay, James T. Fyles, Jack Gregson, Klaus Haring, Greg Hill, Mark Hutson, Pamela Jenkins, David King, Barbara Lilley, Peter Mair, Art Maki, Wm. Mathews, Hugh and Roland Neave, George Ryan, David Smith, Steven Smith, Jeff Volp, George Wallerstein, Rob Whelan, Gordon White and Tom Wolfe. Roger Wallis provided many details in the Cariboos. 5 Special thanks go to the members of the Kootenay Mountaineering Club, especially Ken Holmes, Steven Horvath, Janice Isaac, Kim Kratky, Sandra McGuinness, Hamish Mutch, Bert and Sue Port, Howie Ridge, Peter Tchir, Fred Thiessen, and Peter Wood. The Vernon Outdoors Club was generous with hiking information. Roland Amundson, Vaclav Benes, Thomas and Connie Crowley, Amund Groner, Mark Hutson, Kim Kratky, Benoit Landry, Art Maki, Wm. McKenzie, Hamish Mutch, Gertrude Smith, Steven Smith, Glen Stanley, Tom Swaddle, David Swetland and Arnold Wexler made contributions to the photo selection, and Roger Wallis to the photo selection and diagrams. Hand-drawn maps are by the author. Trygve Hoy and John O. Wheeler have added geological details. The author wishes to thank all people who tried to assist him, whether or not they succeeded in giving pertinent information. INTRODUCTION The Columbia Mountains (Interior Ranges) of British Columbia are an extensive area in the southeastern corner of British Columbia, west of the Canadian Rocky Mountains. In these ranges is found a great variety of attractions for the mountaineer. The rock here is more solid on the average than on the slightly higher summits of the Rockies, and much snow is present because of the high precipitation in these more westerly ranges. Solid gneiss (pronounced ‘nice’) and good climbing is found in the relatively newly-climbed southern part of the Gold Range (southern Monashee Range). It is a rough and bushy country. The Premier Ranges have the highest summits of the Cariboos and Monashees. Much information about this area by the ‘Grizzly Group’ of climbers is in CAJ 77(1994):96-99. On the average, glaciers are more abundant in the mountains which are more northerly. Icefields, or large glaciers, are found in the Halvorson Group, Wells Gray Group and the Premier Ranges in the Cariboo Range and in the Dominion Group and the Scrip Range of the Monashee Range. Two technical rock climbs (Class 5.0 and 5.4) exist in the Southern Premier Range, and a few in the Halvorson Group. A long route of variable difficulty (Class 5.5) is in the Shuswap Group and there is a little rock climbing in the Dominion Group, but locales of good, steep rock are not yet known in these little explored ranges, except in the Gold Range. For the most part, the rock is not technical, and a Class 4 rating is sometimes used because of the presence of glaciers (rope needed). Geology 6 The geology of the Gold Range and that of the Valhallas are much the same, but the rocks of the Gold Range are much older. In modern parlance, both are termed “gneiss complexes”. The rock of both of these areas has been mistaken for granite and, although some granite is present, most of these mountains is composed of gneiss (pronounced “nice”). The origin of gneiss, a metamorphic rock, is usually from sedimentary rocks such as the rocks in the Canadian Rockies, which have been altered by high pressures and temperatures due to deep burial, and then by deformation in mountain-building movements which involve compression. In the core of this mass, there were high temperature and near-melting conditions. The result is a rock which is foliated (mineral crystals aligned or segregated in bands), but which often resembles granite to the untrained eye. Quartzite and marble, (metamorphic rocks), are present in the upper part of Mount Begbie. These two, respectively, are sandstone and limestone which have been subjected to metamorphism. They were originally sedimentary. The age of the rocks is 2.1 billion years, among the oldest in North America and four times the age of the rocks at Glacier, B. C. During the mountain-building compressions that formed the Selkirks and Canadian Rockies, the younger rocks of the latter were thrust up and over the gneisses of the Monashees. Erosion then exposed the older rocks. There is evidence that these gneisses extend east continuously under the Selkirks, Rockies and the plains to the Canadian Shield (a similar mass of gneisses and granites) in Ontario. (PC: Trygve Hoy) The Gold Range and the Shuswap Group are both composed of gneiss complexes; the Frenchman Cap Gneiss Complex in the Shuswap Group is of the same age as that of the Gold Range (2.1 billion years). The boundary between the two complexes is where the Trans-Canada Highway passes through the Monashees, west of Revelstoke. The gneisses continue north in the Monashee Range, through the Scrip Range, to the latitude of Mica Creek (which is in the Selkirks).