The Cariboo and Monashee Ranges of British Columbia: an Alpinist’S Guide
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.
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