Winter 2010 - The Alpine Club of Canada

Vol. 25, No. 3 Winter 2010 

Ontario’s Eagle’s 

Nest lures ice 

climbers, coffee 

addicts 

page 6 

What we did on our 

summer vacation 

page 8 

publication # 40009034

PEOPLE / PRODUCT / PLANET 

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skiing front, side or backcountry, we’ve got 

you covered with gear collections featuring 

technologies like exceptionally breathable 

and waterproof GORE-TEX ® Pro Shell 

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Athlete: Mike Leake 

Location: Jackson Hole, Wyoming 

Photographer: Gabe Rogel

The Alpine Club of Canada 

Publications Mail Agreement No. 40009034 

Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: 

The Alpine Club of Canada 

Box 8040, Canmore, AB 

Canada T1W 2T8 

Phone: (403) 678‐3200 

Fax: (403) 678‐3224 

info@alpineclubofcanada.ca 

www.alpineclubofcanada.ca 

Executive Committee 

Peter Muir President 

Gordon Currie Secretary 

Neil Bosch Treasurer 

David Foster VP Access & Environment 

Roger Laurilla VP Activities 

Carl Hannigan VP Facilities 

Isabelle Daigneault VP Mountain Culture 

Evan Loveless VP Services 

Marjory Hind Honorary President 

Lawrence White Executive Director 

Publication 

Lynn Martel Gazette Editor 

Suzan Chamney Layout & Production 

Meghan J. Ward Editorial Assistant 

Submissions 

Submissions to the Gazette are welcome! 

For submission guidelines, please e-mail 

the Gazette Editor with your ideas at 

gazette@alpineclubofcanada.ca. 

Advertising 

Advertising rate sheet available on the website or 

by request. Please direct all advertising inquiries 

to Suzan Chamney, National Office by e‐mail to: 

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SW-COC-001271 

What’s Inside... 

Members 

8 What we did on our summer 

vacation 

9 Farewell, we’ll miss you, Louise! 

22 Members climb Cassin Ridge, earn 

2010 Denali Pro Award 

21 Heritage Club 

26 Peter Fuhrmann awarded Summit 

of Excellence 

30 Nominate a volunteer 

Mountaineering / Climbing 

6 Ontario’s Eagle’s Nest lures ice 

climbers, coffee addicts 

13 Under 25 camp delights, inspires 

20 Canada’s Youth Team competes at 

World Championship 

22 Climbing coaching conference 

focussed on youth development 

23 Army Cadets partner with ACC for 

mutual benefit 

24 And Carstensz Pyramid makes six... 

Safety 

19 On belay: Ice is not rock solid 

What’s Outside... 

Cover photo: 

Inset photo: 

Facilities 

12 There’s shi* in them thar hills 

18 Alpine Club huts receive summer 

renovations 

Mountain Culture 

10 Wheeler House becomes artist 

group’s inspiration 

14 Mountaineers and Banff National 

Park 

26 Summit cairn contains rare treasure 

at GMC 

28 Trailbreakers: Horace “Rusty” 

Westmorland 

Editorial / National News / Awards 

4 Short rope 

7 Route finding 

15 Permit system returns to Glacier 

National Park 

15 Karl Nagy Memorial Award 

28 ACC Funds and Grants Program 

29 Executive Committee slate 

30 National Office news 

Rob LeBlanc climbs Dirty Harry at Eagle’s Nest. Photo by Colin 

Huggard. Story on page 6. 

David Foster (left) and Ryszard Tokarczyk descend Opabin Glacier, Yoho 

National Park. Photo by Ivan Petrov. Story on page 8. 

Corporate Supporters 

The Alpine Club of Canada thanks the following for their support, and encourages you to consider them and the 

advertisers in this newsletter the next time you purchase goods or services of the type they offer. 

Corporate Sponsors 

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Ortovox Canada 

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Outdoor Research 

Patagonia 

Rocky Mountain Books 

Yamnuska Mountain School 

Zaui Software 

Alpine Club of Canada Gazette Winter 2010 3

Lynn enjoys a sunny fall day on an unnamed 

ridgetop in upper Fryatt Valley, Jasper National 

Park. 

Photo by Max Schoffel. 

Short rope 

by Lynn Martel 

It never ceases to amaze me, as I 

assemble each issue of the Gazette, 

how a theme develops, nearly always 

organically, tying together the issue’s 

various articles. 

This issue features an interesting 

variety of stories highlighting how different 

Alpine Club of Canada members and 

projects are demonstrating leadership in 

the mountain community. 

At the young end of the learning 

continuum, in September members of 

Canada’s national youth climbing team 

proudly competed at the Youth World 

Championship in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

And recently, the ACC teamed up with 

the Army Cadet League of Canada to 

help nurture leadership skills in teenage 

members of the cadet program. 

Last summer, a trio of ACC members 

who showed exemplary judgement, 

generosity and respect in the mountains 

were recognized with the very special 

Denali Pro Award. In western Canada’s 

mountains, an ACC-supported project 

is helping a motivated PhD candidate 

develop better ways to manage human 

waste in the backcountry. At the mature 

end of the spectrum, long-time ACC 

member Peter Fuhrmann, who served as 

Club President and contributed to the 

growth and sustainability of our club in a 

myriad of immeasurable ways, including 

developing the much appreciated Wapta 

Visit the ACC’s online store for: 

✦ Select climbing, hiking and ski touring 

guidebooks 

✦ Large selection of topographic maps 

✦ ACC labelled apparel and accessories 

✦ “Mapitfirst” software 

ACC members receive a 

15% discount off our retail prices! 

www.alpineclubofcanada.ca/store/ or phone 403 678-3200 ext. 1 

Icefield huts, was selected as recipient 

of the prestigious Summit of Excellence 

award for 2010. 

And on the occasion of the 125th 

anniversary of Banff National Park and 

Canada’s national park system, the ACC’s 

history guru, Zac Robinson, relates how 

some of the Club’s founding members 

helped influence the creation of that 

intrinsically valuable system of protected 

lands, even forming Canada’s first nongovernmental 

watchdog for those parks. 

Continuing on the leadership theme, 

Club President Peter Muir describes 

how the ACC is working with affiliated 

groups to establish a standardized training 

program for section trip leaders. 

Clearly, the ACC is continuing its 

exemplary century-old tradition of 

providing inspiring leadership, not just as 

mountaineers and climbers tying into the 

sharp end of a rope, but also in the realms 

of mountain culture, youth development, 

preservation of wild places and 

backcountry huts providing comfort and 

shelter for people visiting that wilderness. 

How fitting. 

As we all plan our winter adventures, 

we should all keep in mind the various 

ways we might contribute to our club. 

We don’t all have the skills or natural 

talents to be rope leaders, but we can, all 

of us, find ways to contribute and provide 

leadership through our unique strengths 

and expertise. We all have moments of 

strength, doubt, frustration, impatience 

and brilliance, and they don’t all happen 

in the mountains. 

After all, our club’s co-founder, 

Elizabeth Parker, did not climb mountains. 

She never sought attention, or 

congratulations, for bagging any summits 

or achieving proficiency at any technical 

climbing grade. 

But, without her foresight, courage 

and determination—not to mention 

fierce patriotism—we would likely not 

have a club at all. 

The true value of climbing can only be 

measured in combination with our value 

as members of our entire community—as 

children, as siblings and partners, as 

parents, as volunteers, as professionals and 

neighbours. 

And in that vein, please take a minute 

to recognize the contributions of your 

fellow ACCers, on and off the mountain 

tops, by nominating one of them for a 

very appropriate—and very special—volunteer 

award. 

4 Alpine Club of Canada Gazette Winter 2010

STONES INTO SCHOOLS 

and 

THREE CUPS OF TEA 

Two bestselling books that are changing the way 

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photo © Greg Mortenson, south face of K2 (8,611 meters)

Ontario’s Eagle’s Nest lures ice climbers, coffee addicts 

by Margaret Imai-Compton 

If you aren’t a Bancroft, Ontario local, 

and you pull into Tim Horton’s on 

Highway 62 any winter weekend, 

you’ll see a most curious sight: people 

lined up outside with their backs to the 

window, coffees in one hand and pointing 

across the highway with the other. 

Following their gaze less than 200 metres 

across the highway, you see the reason for 

the crowd; a dozen ice climbers spread 

out across ice curtains and rolling formations 

on the huge rock face called Eagle’s 

Nest. 

“If God had wanted us to climb ice, 

he would have given us picks instead of 

toes,” comments a grizzled man in the 

crowd. 

Until recently, ice climbing in southern 

Ontario was a limited activity, due 

mostly to the limited topography and lack 

of route information. But within the past 

10 to 15 years, Eagle’s Nest in Bancroft 

has come into its own as a favourite ice 

destination for enthusiasts from around 

Ontario, and even adjoining US states 

including Michigan and New York, 

thanks to the publication of the guidebook, 

Southern Ontario Ice, by Kartner 

and Bracken, (Borealis Press, 1995). An 

entire chapter is devoted to Bancroft and 

the surrounding Madawaska Highlands, 

which are described as having Southern 

Ontario’s best and most scenic routes. 

A climber works his way up Blue Angel at Eagle’s Nest. 

Climbers hang out between routes at Diamond Lake. 

Not only is Bancroft an accessible 

three- to five-hour drive from Toronto, 

Ottawa and Rochester, NY, Eagle’s Nest 

has the shortest approach of any ice route 

I’ve ever done. It is, max, 100 metres 

from the parking lot and maybe another 

75 metres in the other direction to Tim 

Horton’s across the road. The great majority 

of routes may only be one pitch and 

you may have to share a top rope with 

five or six climbers, but the trade-off is 

Photo by Colin Huggard. 

Photo by Colin Huggard. 

the comfort of a warm washroom and 

Timmy’s coffee when it’s -20 C outside. 

For the past five years, the Alpine 

Club of Canada’s Toronto Section has 

hosted a weekend event at Eagle’s Nest. 

The announcement is eagerly anticipated 

at the start of the season. 

“Join us for our annual Eagle’s Nest 

Ice Climb with a sleepover option. Stay at 

the luxurious Imai-Compton cottage (aka 

unofficial ACC “hut” for the weekend), 

10 minutes from Eagle’s Nest. $40 gets 

you dinner, breakfast and a warm place 

to sleep. Bring a sleeping bag, towel and 

your libation of choice.” 

At its inception, between eight and 

ten climbers participated in the weekend, 

but in the last two years the numbers 

have been capped at 25, as the “hut” 

quickly overflows with a mix of seasoned 

and novice climbers. 

As the evening unfolds, the climbing 

stories grow increasingly outrageous and, 

as scotch and wine bottles form a mini 

pyramid in the snow outside the door, 

negotiations begin for the prime sleeping 

spots in the loft and before the fireplace. 

With so many bodies squeezed onto 

every available surface, it is inevitable 

that sleeping positions require a kind 

of syncopated choreography, a situation 

which inspired trip leader Rob LeBlanc 

to rename the event: the Annual Eagle’s 

Nest Spoonfest! 


Mount Burkett ∙ Coastal Range ∙ Alaska ∙ ©2009 Anthony Neilson ∙ www.mountainphoto.com 

Route finding 

by Peter Muir 

At any Alpine Club of Canada 

Board of Directors meeting, 

a common theme discussed 

among sections is recruiting, training and 

retaining good trip leaders. Many of you 

already give generously of your time and 

expertise to lead section trips, and spend 

time learning and relearning the latest 

safety and efficiency practises. 

A coordinated and well-planned leader 

training system has been on the national 

agenda “to do” list for some time, as there 

is a wide variance of section initiatives 

and an accepted view that training should 

be consistent and readily available so 

that valuable volunteer time is not spent 

reinventing the wheel. Since the development 

of a single training standard for 

its members is a current priority of the 

Union Internationale des Associations 

D’Alpinisme (UIAA), of which the ACC 

is a member, our timing is good. 

Leadership development was recently 

reinvigorated at the Board level. Brad 

Harrison, familiar to many through the 

General Mountaineering Camp and The 

North Face/ACC leadership courses, 

really got the ball rolling as specially 

appointed Director of Leadership. Brad 

spent a lot of time searching and contributing 

his own expertise into sourcing 

valuable existing programs. Sadly, Brad 

had to leave the position due to an 

intense schedule that did not permit him 

the time he felt necessary to do a good 

job. Thanks to his hard work, however, we 

have entered promising discussions with 

partners at L’Ecole Nationale d’Escalade 

du Québec (ENEQ), who have been 

developing UIAA approved courses for 

REVISED_TNF_ACC_1/3_PAGE.indd 1 

his lockoff Jacket excels in variaBle 

conditions so he can concentrate 

on the ice, not the weather 

several years. Like the ACC, ENEQ 

shares a vision of training the trainers 

to enable each section to instruct and 

prepare its own leaders according to local 

needs. In this way, we hope to provide 

direct benefit to our members throughout 

the country. 

Past President Cam Roe, VP 

Activities Roger Laurilla and Access 

and Environment VP David Foster have 

taken up the reins and are collaborating 

with ENEQ President Ron Whitehead 

and other ENEQ members to prepare a 

thenorthface.com 

herve Barmasse, italy 

photo: damiano levati 

the north face ® trailhead app 

10/8/10 2:54:02 PM 

program. There is much work yet to do 

and many questions to answer, but before 

long we will have resources to provide a 

new training program for our sections 

and our many volunteers with additional 

opportunities to improve their skills. And, 

of course, the program will complement 

the vision of our primary leadership 

sponsor, The North Face, through its 

generous support of the summer and 

winter leadership courses. 

Mind yourself out there and have fun. 

—Peter Muir, ACC President 

Alaska 

Anthony Neilson 

Mountain Landscapes 


ACC Ottawa Section members gather at Elizabeth 

Parker Hut. (from left front row sitting) Ivan Petrov, 

Murray Wagner, Ivan Wood, Susan Kasprzak, Theresa 

Calow (chef), Debbie Clouthier; (from left middle row) 

Wendy Swerdfager, Liesha Bruinsma, Mike Cockburn, 

Elfrieda Bock, Ryszard Tokarczyk, Cecile Schlesiger, 

Margaret Dixon, JoAnne Janigan, Leona Wall, David 

Foster; (from left back row) Patrick McCabe, Janet 

Campbell, Louise Proulx, Richard Hofer, Elizabeth 

Taite. photo by Ivan Petrov. 

What we did on our summer vacation 

by David Foster, Elfrieda Bock and George Bailey 

With a total of four camps running over three weeks from August 1 thru 28, the 

2010 summer set a new benchmark for the Alpine Club of Canada Ottawa 

Section’s Western Summer Camps. While the Section has been organizing 

camps in western Canada’s mountains for many years—with great success—this year’s 

plan was the most ambitious to date. In total, 36 members participated and, by all 

accounts, had a terrific time. 

Rogers Pass Mountaineering Camp 

Twelve people were based out of the 

A.O. Wheeler Hut for 12 days. Extra days 

were added in anticipation of the unreliable 

weather for which Glacier National 

Park is well-known. The weather gods 

were obviously amused, blessing us with 

eight wet days. 

In spite of the meteorological challenges, 

the group managed to achieve 

many of its objectives, including ascents 

of Avalanche, Eagle, Uto, Abbott, Afton, 

Tupper and Cheops mountains. One 

group was turned back from an ascent of 

Youngs Peak when the skies opened up, 

and a second group attempting Uto also 

scratched their climb after waking to rain. 

Given the lengthy approaches in the 

area, high camps at the Uto/Sir Donald 

Col and Hermit Meadows allowed for 

proper alpine starts. The company was 

great and the evening regime of single 

malt and sing-alongs was sublime. 

Dave Foster and Bill Scott organized 

things, opting for a self-catered format, 

and rain days provided plenty of opportunity 

to re-provision in Revelstoke so 

there was no shortage of beer. 

—DF 

8 Alpine Club of Canada Gazette Winter 2010 

Lake O’Hara Section Camp 

This camp involved 21 participants 

plus everyone’s favourite camp cook plus 

perfect weather—all of which added up 

to an amazing week. The camp involved 

a large group of avid hikers and a smaller 

number of members with their eyes 

on the peaks. To kick things off, seven 

participants hiked to the Elizabeth 

Parker Hut from Moraine Lake, via 

Wenkchemna and Opabin passes—a 

truly awesome route. 

Long an “essential 

ingredient” at large ACC 

Ottawa Section camps, 

über-chef Theresa Calow 

delivered once again, making 

the camp an alpine culinary 

experience. As a bonus, 

“Tree’s” partner, ACMG 

mountain guide Andrew 

Langsford, stopped in for 

a few days and was quickly 

engaged to expand the 

climbing portion of the 

camp. 

Over the course of the 

week, which saw no rain 

until the last evening during 

dinner, virtually all of O’Hara’s fabulous 

trails were hiked and re-hiked. And with 

Langsford’s assistance, David Foster and 

Louise Proulx pulled-off a memorable 

12-hour trip to Mount Victoria’s south 

summit, starting from Elizabeth Parker 

Hut and returning via Mount Huber 

and the Huber Ledges route. Ryszard 

Tokarczyk and Langsford then spent a day 

climbing Wiwaxy Peak and followed up 

with another during which they bagged 

Mounts Victoria and Huber in a day. 

A varied selection, and significant 

quantity, of wine, beer and fine scotch 

added to the ambiance of the evenings, as 

did many stories, songs and some vicious 

cribbage games. Everyone enjoyed an 

incredible week, and kudos to Elfrieda 

Bock for her excellent organization of 

everything. 

—DF 

Canmore Hiking and Scrambling Camp 

Nine participants plus more perfect 

weather equalled a second amazing week. 

Eight intrepid souls decided that one 

week in the mountains was not enough, 

and Helena Song joined them to explore 

hiking in the Rockies. The group set 

up camp in the Boswell Cabin next to 

the ACC Clubhouse—with amenities 

including two well-equipped kitchens, 

Louise Proulx and Dave Foster celebrate on the south summit of 

Mount Victoria. photo by Andrew Langsford.

a barbeque, showers and the beautiful 

ever-changing view of the Three Sisters 

from the large deck. 

The weather gods were cooperative 

for the most part. It rained Sunday 

afternoon as we hiked the Cougar Creek 

trail and Friday afternoon’s weather was 

unsettled. The rest of week was sunny 

and we chose hikes and scrambles around 

Canmore, in Kananaskis Country and in 

Banff National Park—Heart Mountain, 

Mount Lady MacDonald, Moraine 

Lake, Stoney Squaw, Ha Ling Peak, 

Galatea Lake, Middle Sister and Mount 

Lawrence Grassi. Pat McCabe joined 

Andrew Langsford and was introduced to 

a new addiction, mountaineering, when 

they summitted Mount Temple. Cecile 

Schlesiger teamed up with Richard 

Tokarczyk and was introduced to scrambling. 

Margaret Dixon and Helena Song 

wanted to try something different, so 

they decided to explore a hiking trail on 

horseback. 

The group opted for a self-catered 

format, which was very ably managed by 

Margaret Dixon, assisted by Elfrieda Bock. 

Our proximity to Canmore gave us lots 

of options to re-provision with food and 

beer and wine, so our evenings were spent 

enjoying great meals and great company. 

—EF 

Waterton-Glacier Intl Peace Park Camp 

A colourful article in a popular 

backpacking magazine and a potential 

participant’s enthusiastic response with 

details about past Waterton experiences 

helped to shape the objectives for this 

trip. With a mix of scrambling, hiking 

and backpacking opportunities, this camp 

sought to provide a balanced exposure 

to everything this “peace park” has to 

offer. Five participants (group size had 

to be limited in order to secure certain 

backcountry sites only available via lottery) 

enjoyed hikes to Crypt Lake and 

It is with great sadness that the Alpine 

Club of Canada marked the passing 

of one of its most cheerful, generous 

and delightful members this fall. 

(Nancy) Louise Guy died on 

September 30 at the age of 92, the day of 

her husband, Richard’s, 94th birthday. She 

was a mother, grandmother and a great 

grandmother, but for her fellow ACC 

members she was an energetic mountain 

companion who, although she did not 

take up climbing until her 50s, made up 

for it by continuing to climb into her 

ninth decade. Thanks to Louise’s efforts, 

the annual General Mountaineering 

Camp was rescued from a very near 

demise in the mid-1980s. Her presence 

there, with Richard, was a high point 

for many attendees, as was the inspiring 

sight of them dancing so gracefully at the 

annual Mountain Guides Ball. 

Farewell, we’ll miss you, Louise! 

In memory of Louise, the ACC has established the Louise Guy Memorial Fund. To 

learn more, or to make a tax-deductible donation, please contact Sheila Churchill in the 

National Office at 403.678.3200 ext. 108 or officemanager@alpineclubofcanada.ca 

the Rowe Lakes, as well as Hawkins 

Horseshoe (a scrambling and ridge 

route that takes in Mounts Blakiston, 

Hawkins and Lineham) and a two-day 

backpacking trip on the Boulder Pass trail 

in Glacier National Park to Hole in the 

Wall campground. 

The Crypt Lake trail lived up to 

everything posted on the web—a water 

taxi to the trailhead, switchbacks through 

alpine forest, waterfalls, a tunnel and a 

ledge all provided features to keep one 

amused on the way up and back. Our 

lunch at Crypt Lake, complete with its 

setting in an alpine cirque, was capped 

with a quick swim in its frigid waters. 

Bear scat on the Hell Roaring Falls loop 

provided a hint of things to come—two 

bears up in a tree on the opposite (thankfully) 

side of the creek. 

Completing the Hawkins Horseshoe 

was clearly a highlight of our trip. The 

ascent to the summit of Mount Blakiston 

took us over scree slopes and up a couloir 

to reach our goal. A faint path linked 

all of the peaks via ridges, save for a 

tricky bit past Mount Hawkins. It was a 

long day, taking us 13 hours to cover 23 

kilometres. 

Waterton Lakes is definitely an 

area worth visiting again for its beautiful 

vistas, and with more than 1,100 

kilometres of trails in the US’s Glacier 

National Park, we only scratched the 

surface in terms of the opportunities to 

be found there. 

—GB 

Summary 

Our four summer camps introduced 

many of the participants to the Canadian 

Rockies—the ruggedness and beauty of 

the vast and ever-changing mountain 

range; the feeling of insignificance amid 

the peaks; the challenge and urge to 

conquer; the sense of accomplishment on 

reaching one’s destination; the wonder, 

fascination and awe of a sea of summits 

as you sit atop a mountain. 

In short—what the ACC is all about. 


Wheeler House becomes artist group’s inspiration 

by Rob Alexander 

A 

group of artists gathered at the 

Wheeler House in Banff in July 

to draw inspiration from the 

aging home and its history. 

The intent, according to Canmore 

painter Donna Jo Massie, was to create 

a tribute to the house and its first owner, 

Arthur Oliver Wheeler, with a body of 

artwork that was displayed at the Banff 

Park Museum National Historic Site. 

Massie received permission from 

Banff National Park superintendent 

Kevin Van Tighem to take 10 artists to 

the house for a three-hour period to 

paint, sketch and draw inspiration from 

the house and its sublime setting. 

Wheeler, a surveyor who, along with 

Elizabeth Parker and Stanley Mitchell, 

founded the Alpine Club of Canada 

(ACC), built the house as a summer 

residence in 1920. 

Wheeler called the Craftsman-style 

bungalow Claremount House for his 

wife, Clara. 

The bright red house sits in the 

Middle Springs Wildlife Corridor not far 

from Mountain Avenue. 

The wildlife corridor, which runs 

along the base of Sulphur Mountain, is 

closed to the public to give wildlife an 

unimpeded route past Banff and to protect 

critical Banff Springs snail habitat. 

The Wheeler family owned the house 

until 1953. The lease for the land reverted 

to Parks Canada in 1991 and in 1993 

the house received status as a Federal 

Heritage Building. 

The Historic Sites and Monuments 

Board of Canada, meanwhile, commemorated 

Wheeler with a plaque at 

the Columbia Icefield in Jasper in 1998. 

An ACC hut in Rogers Pass National 

Historic Site in Glacier National Park 

also bears Wheeler’s name. 

Parks Canada plans to demolish the 

Wheeler House given its poor state—it is 

now deemed a public safety hazard—and 

because of its location in the wildlife 

corridor. 

Massie, who is well aware of the history 

of the house and its founder, organized 

the afternoon trip to say “thank you”. 

“Because it is going to disappear, it 

shouldn’t disappear without someone 

saying thanks for the memories and 

recognize what part it played in the 

history not only in Banff, but the ACC, 

Parks and the geological society,” Massie 

said. “It’s nice to remember and reflect on 

this particular place, because places are 

really important.” 

Upon arrival at the crumbling, barnred 

house, the group spread out in the 

meadow surrounding the back of the 

house and encircled the pond where 

goldfish continue to thrive. 

The group of artists—painters, a 

ceramicist, an illustrator, a glass blower, a 

photojournalist and a singer-songwriter— 

included Alex Emond, Jenny Crompton 

(Wheeler’s great-granddaughter), Lucie 

Bause, Susan Gottselig, Joe Martin, Jocey 

Asnong, Rob Harding, Cori Brewster and 

Massie. 

“I tried to think of people who had 

been in the area or knew about the area 

or people who had shown an inclination; 

who had tried to give back to the place in 

some shape or form,” Massie said. 

Cori Brewster, who has a longstanding 

connection with the history 

of the Bow Valley, and who dipped into 

Banff ’s history for her most recent album, 

Buffalo Street, said she is thinking of writing 

a song about the Wheeler House in a 

similar vein as the songs on Buffalo Street. 

Standing in the sun, looking at the 

back wall of the house covered in graffiti, 

Brewster—whose family started Brewster 

Transport—said the ideal situation would 

be to find a way to preserve the building, 

an initiative Crompton has been working 

on with Parks Canada. 

“When we get rid of the structures, 

we get rid of the stories. Then the interest 

becomes that of the academics who study 

them in the archives and I don’t think 

that is enough,” Brewster said. 

“People want to see it, feel it, get a 

sense of it, whether it is through music 

or stories. I was thinking of the A.O. 

Wheeler house, with actors acting out 

the story of this home and people going 

home with this real sense of early exploration 

in this area as being really important. 

We need to continually challenge 

Parks’ wisdom on some of the things and 

I think that is a healthy dialogue,” she 

said, adding that perhaps the house has 

survived so long for a reason. 

Gottselig, a glass artist, moved around 

the house examining broken pieces of 

glass and investigating the configuration 

of windows. 

“This house obviously had different 

stages of glass in it and different 

types of glass,” she said. “The glass tells 

me that light was important to them 

and the views were important to them. 

Sometimes we have this funny idea about 

Lucie Bause, Cori Brewster and Rob Harding study 

Claremount, A.O. Wheeler's Banff home. 

photo by Rob Alexander.

pioneers and early people; that they were 

so busy eking out a living they had no 

time for anything else. It is good to know 

the number of windows and that they 

were very interested in the views.” 

Even though the broken glass, from 

old and new windows, and beer and 

liquor bottles, and the configuration of 

the windows fascinated her, the bluegreen 

pond, fed by Sulphur Mountain’s 

famed hot springs, drew her artistic 

vision. 

“For me, the pond is really important 

to where I’ll go with a piece,” Gottselig 

said. 

For Massie, who has a degree in history, 

being able to immerse herself in the 

details—the plants, the pond, the angles 

of the house and the texture—reminded 

her that many people had enjoyed this 

spot for many years including Elizabeth 

Parker, the Marquis of Lorne, Canada’s 

fourth governor general, and painter 

Walter Phillips, namesake of the Banff 

Centre’s Walter Phillips Gallery. 

“I feel the people who were here. I 

feel the memories of all those people who 

came here because they were all collectively 

here. There are memories of people 

who walked through that day,” Massie 

said. “They came to this spot. It is like a 

gathering place and I think that is really 

special.” 

Reprinted with permission from the 

Rocky Mountain Outlook. 

Through Dettling’s 

stunning photography 

and passionate narrative, 

The Will of the Land serves 

as an incredible artistic 

testament to the beauty 

of the natural world 

and the painful truth of 

hyperdevelopment in 

majestic landscapes. 

Explore your world. 

Bow Lake has inspired artists for almost a 

century. This volume includes an introduction 

describing the history of exploration and 

early artistic activity, followed by brief 

biographies of 20 artists whose works are 

included in 48 colour plates. 

Infused with the author’s own reflections, and 

complete with colour photos, Gaiety of Spirit 

will take the reader on a magnificent journey 

toward a richer level of understanding of 

Sherpa culture, traditions, symbols, belief 

and history. 

Recycle this Gazette 

Pass it onto a friend 

THINK OUTSIDE 


There’s shi* in them thar hills 


A 

life goal of his, says University 

of British Columbia PhD 

candidate Geoff Hill, is turning 

waste streams into valuable commodities. 

Toward that end, Hill’s PhD project 

focuses on designing improved systems 

for managing human waste in alpine and 

arctic regions. 

“It’s my life’s work to try to integrate 

humans into the ecosystems that support 

us,” Hill stated. “If you look at any 

ecosystem, its health and richness can 

be characterized by its degree of waste 

integration.” 

Currently, flying 200-litre drums filled 

with human waste, 80 or 90 per cent of 

which is urine, by helicopter long-line 

is the most common method of waste 

removal from backcountry sites throughout 

Alberta and BC’s mountains. 

But, Hill points out, unsustainable 

methods are not restricted to backcountry 

cabins. 

“We’re very accustomed to flushing 

a .2-kilogram poop or a .3-litre piss with 

20 litres of potable water,” Hill explained. 

“Somehow we’ve tricked ourselves into 

thinking this isn’t crazy. But it’s clearly 

outrageous to long-line drums of excrement 

by helicopter from provincial and 

national parks all across North America. 

The helicopter is one of the most inefficient 

vehicles ever made, and one of the 

most dangerous and most expensive 

vehicles to operate.” 

So, Hill is studying the benefits, costs 

and performance capabilities of potential 

alternate methods. An avid climber, last 

summer Hill conducted research in BC’s 

Bugaboo Provincial Park. 

“With the line of work I’m in, the 

least I can do for myself is choose a 

beautiful place,” Hill said. “Bugaboo 

Park is very popular and it has numerous 

backcountry toilets, including forest-level 

pit toilets, Kain Hut barrels, Applebee 

Camp barrels and high alpine thrones at 

the Bugaboo Snowpatch Col and Pigeon 

Howser Col.” 

At this point in his research, the most 

promising alternatives are urine diversion—preventing 

urine, which is sterile, 

from coming into contact with feces, 

which are pathogen rich—combined with 

dehydration. He is also collecting data on 

composting toilets in Kananaskis Country, 

Little Yoho Campground 

and in the US. 

In the Bugaboos, a 

urine diversion seat, combined 

with dehydration, 

has yielded an 84 to 95 per 

cent mass reduction of the 

total waste. Hill is also 

testing a hydro-powered 

ash incinerator, using the 

mini-hydro system which 

provides clean electricity 

to the Alpine Club of 

Canada’s (ACC) Conrad 

Kain Hut. 

One key element of 

his research is to develop 

a system that can be retrofit into existing 

toilets, keeping costs low. Fortunately, 

urine diversion seats and urinals retrofit 

easily into most backcountry toilets. Once 

his data is complete, it will be available to 

park operators and policy makers. 

Hill’s research is of particular value to 

the ACC, which operates 27 backcountry 

huts, ranging from 30-person log cabins 

in sub-alpine locations to four-person 

shelters perched high in the alpine. 

Most of these huts rely on fly-out barrel 

systems, piggy-backing helicopter flights 

to deliver empty barrels and propane pigs 

for lights and cooking while removing 

full barrels. 

In July, Karen Rollins, project director 

for BEES, the ACC’s Backcountry 

Energy and Environmental Solutions 

committee, and three other ACC representatives 

attended the Exit Strategies— 

Managing Human Waste in the Wild 

conference in Golden, Colorado. 

Attendees included land managers, scientists, 

entrepreneurs and wilderness operators 

from as far as Alaska, New Zealand, 

Japan, Nepal and Argentina. 

“One of the main points that came 

out of the conference was that for every 

region, although we all experience difficulties 

in waste management, the solution 

is always going to be a bit different,” 

Rollins said. “BEES is trying to get away 

from fossil fuels. For the ACC, there’s 

still room for research, and that’s why 

BEES exists.” 

In western Canada, where temperatures 

regularly dip below freezing in 

the alpine nine or 10 months of the year, 

This "green throne", perched at the frequently visited Pigeon/Howser 

Col, is one of several backcountry toilets in BC's Bugaboo Provincial Park. 

photo by Lynn Martel. 

a barrel of waste created in January or 

February will still have a chunk of ice in 

it in July. While some southern US parks 

are successfully employing composting 

toilets, they rely on warmth to work 

properly. 

“In the alpine, it’s very—extremely— 

challenging, because of the temperature 

requirements,” Rollins said. Pit toilets, 

she added, require soil and bedrock for 

micro-organisms to break down the 

waste—elements not readily available, or 

penetrable, in the alpine. 

“The key for all off-grid waste management 

solutions is urine separation,” 

Rollins said. 

In northern Europe, she added, urine 

separation is already being carried out, 

with the urine being used as fertilizer. 

“Urine diversion is cheap, easy and 

reliable,” Hill said. “But the impacts 

of urine diversion on alpine and arctic 

soils and plant communities are little 

known. If diverted correctly, my hypothesis 

is that local plant communities will 

thrive. There is clear evidence showing 

that urine can be used as fertilizer on a 

wide range of crops with high productivity, 

including tomatoes, cucumbers and 

bananas.” 

Employing expertise gained from his 

Masters thesis that examined climate 

change impacts on arctic sedge meadow 

communities, Hill has initiated a project 

that utilizes urine from a remote arctic 

field camp in the production of leafy 

greens in a semi-permanent greenhouse. 

He also hopes to use waste cooking oil as 

fuel for the camp’s diesel power generator. 


Under 25 camp delights, inspires 

by Christine Hill 

I 

am an 18-year-old climber who lives 

in Lethbridge, Alberta. I have been 

climbing on and off for close to 

four years, mostly bouldering indoors at 

the local gym. I had also been climbing 

outside in the Crowsnest Pass a few 

times. The Alpine Club of Canada MEC 

Under 25 Climbing Camp poster caught 

my attention at the university and I felt a 

strong desire to sign up. The ACC was an 

organization I had always known about 

but had never been directly involved with. 

The reason I signed up for this course 

was because I wanted to improve my 

climbing skill, learn A LOT more about 

climbing outdoors, and meet some really 

amazing people. Now, after taking the 

course, I feel a lot more confident climbing 

outdoors, and climbing in general. 

The two amazing guides/teachers, 

ACMG mountain guide Jen Olson and 

ACMG assistant rock guide Sonnie 

Trotter, made this course an incredible 

experience. Their patience, skill and desire 

to help really inspired me. 

Thank-you! 

And, he’s testing whether toilet composting 

is safe to dispose of on-site. 

“Composting toilets don’t make much 

sense if you can’t spread the compost on 

soil locally,” he explained. “Most operators 

think that temperature is the only key 

variable to manipulate and measure, but 

stability and maturity are what determine 

the completeness of the compost end 

product.” 

With financial assistance from BEES, 

which is managed by Parks Canada, BC 

Parks and the ACC, and also from MEC 

and several Backcountry Lodges of BC 

Association members, Hill’s research is 

ongoing, and the world—and Canada’s 

alpine and arctic environments—should 

be the better for it. 

“Ecological sanitation is not just for 

the Third World,” Rollins said. “There 

may come a day that the flush toilet is 

outlawed, and we’ll put fertilizer on the 

ground where it should be.” 

“This is a huge opportunity to dig in 

and do research that hasn’t been done 

before,” Hill said. “We work and climb in 

the mountains and we take good experiences 

away. I want to contribute, not just 

leave problems behind for other people to 

deal with.” 

This article was previously published 

in the Rocky Mountain Outlook (Bow 

Valley), the Fitzhugh ( Jasper) and Pique 

newsmagazine (Whistler). 

Sonnie Trotter, Logical Progression (V 5.13a), El Gigante, Mexico. andrEw burr 

Scan the Qr code to read the full story: 

PSST! 

Do you wanna be a famous writer 

Ok, how about just a writer 

Contact the Gazette editor at 

gazette@alpineclubofcanada.ca to 

have your article, story or event 

published in the Gazette. 

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Mountaineers and Banff National Park 

by Zac Robinson 

It should be hardly surprising that 

James Bernard Harkin (1875-1955), the 

first commissioner of the Dominion 

Parks Branch and celebrated “father” of 

national parks in Canada, generously 

cited the writings of mountain climbers 

in promoting the first Dominion parks 

established in the Rocky Mountains. The 

charm and attractiveness of the range, 

which justified and compelled pride of 

country, were best related, according to 

Harkin, “by those whom the world recognizes 

as having the right to speak with 

authority upon the subject of mountains 

and scenic attractions”. Privileged players 

in the realm of aesthetics, mountaineers 

were widely regarded as arbiters of taste 

and thus picturesque scenery in the 

Rockies. 

But Banff National Park, celebrating 

its 125th anniversary in 2010, has always 

had a special relationship with mountain 

climbers. Its earliest boundaries—the 

first, in 1885, enclosed a reserve of 26 

square kilometres surrounding hot springs 

near Sulphur Mountain; expansion in 

1887 brought 673 square kilometres, 

named Rocky Mountains Park, under 

Dominion control—were drafted by some 

of Canada’s earliest climbers: surveyors. 

The mountains provided new challenges 

and pleasures for the profession. And 

the demands of mapping in the Rockies 

meant surveyors also played a major role 

in the evolution of mountaineering pursuits 

in the range. 

Surveyors had company in the 

Members gather in front of the Banff Club House. 

country’s western mountains: Swiss 

guides and a whole cohort of experienced 

international climbers. Their activities, 

of course, along with a hefty dose of 

homegrown nationalism, sparked the 

genesis of the Alpine Club of Canada 

(ACC), whose Banff Clubhouse—built 

halfway between the town and the Upper 

Hot Springs—opened in July, 1909. Its 

headquarters gave permanent visibility 

to the Club and to mountaineering in 

Canada. Indeed, much of early development 

of mountaineering in the Rockies 

was planned there, and its distinctive red 

roof quickly became a recognizable feature 

from town, a speck of colour against 

the green, pine-clad slopes of Sulphur 

Mountain. Long-time Banff resident 

Eleanor Luxton (1908-1995) remembered 

the Clubhouse as “a delightful place, and 

much used by all climbers”. 

The Club became the park’s strongest 

advocate by the 1920s. Decades of 

“parkmaking”—the building of roads and 

bridges, the establishment of a townsite, 

and the provision of tourist facilities— 

had all contributed to make Banff a premier 

destination. But tourism, then, was 

seen as neither a detriment to the park 

nor its priority; for years, it was merely 

the financial icing on the cake. Instead, 

the park needed saving from resource 

extraction. Coal mining and lumbering, 

which were accepted practices under 

early parks policy, had grown increasingly 

divergent from the conservationist sentiment 

sweeping the country. For Harkin 

photo from the ACC collection. 

and his fledgling Parks Branch, formed in 

1911, the future of parks was in the “business 

of selling scenery”. For the ACC, the 

threat was hydroelectric development. 

It was a fight that determined the 

future of Canada’s national parks. Calgary 

Power Company (later TransAlta), 

which already had power dams on the 

Bow River’s Horseshoe Falls, at Lake 

Minnewanka and at Kananaskis Falls, 

needed more power in 1923. Pressure 

mounted for further operations within 

the park. A proposal to dam the Spray 

River, just east of the town of Banff, 

gained momentum. Its proponents rallied. 

If Harkin needed an ally, he found it in 

Arthur Oliver Wheeler (1860-1945), a 

surveyor by profession and the fiery director 

of the ACC. 

At its Annual Meeting in 1923, held 

at the Larch Valley Camp, near Lake 

Louise, Wheeler and the ACC formed a 

second organization, the National Parks 

Association. It was the country’s first 

non-government watchdog for parks, and 

the group quickly made its resolve known 

to the Minister of the Interior: “That a 

National Parks Association for Canada 

be formed with objects consisting of the 

conservation of the Canadian National 

Parks for scientific, recreational and 

scenic purposes, and their protection from 

exploitation for commercial purposes”. 

A letter campaign followed and over 

the next seven years the Spray Lakes 

controversy—likened by historians to the 

famous Hetch Hetchy dam debates in 

Yosemite National Park—attracted attention 

from all levels of government. 

Resolution was bittersweet. In 

negotiation with the Prairie provinces, 

the Canadian government enacted 

new legislation in 1930—the National 

Parks Act—to ensure parks remained 

“unimpaired for the enjoyment of 

future generations”. It was a landmark 

achievement. Mining was no longer 

permitted, nor were commercial forestry 

or hydroelectric schemes. For Harkin and 

Wheeler, however, the legislation came at 

a cost. Lands of “substantial commercial 

value”—Canmore and its coal mines, 

Exshaw with its cement plant, and the 

Spray Valley with its hydro potential, for 

example—were taken out of the newly 

named Banff National Park. Boundaries

Kode 30 1_3SQ EN ACC Gazette.pdf 1 9/27/10 2:23 PM 

were redrawn to exclude them all. 

The idea of parks as pleasure grounds, 

of course, later had its own consequences 

and critics. The pendulum between the 

dual (and often conflicting) mandate 

of preservation and use enshrined in 

C 

the 1930 Act swung as the principal of 

ecological integrity gained currency in M 

the wake of the boom decades following 

the Second World War. The Banff 

Y 

CM 

Clubhouse was even demolished by Parks 

MY 

Canada in 1974 in an effort to eliminate 

private leaseholds outside the townsite CY 

boundaries. But as we pause to look back 

CMY 

and celebrate the creation of Canada’s 

K 

first national park, we should be justifiably 

proud of the great strides the ACC 

has taken in the care and interest of 

what Club co-founder Elizabeth Parker 

(1856-1944) imagined as a “national playground”. 

It was a wonderful idea in 1906. 

And it still is. 

Club member Zac Robinson is a 

Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of 

History and Classics at the University of 

Alberta. 

Permit system returns to Glacier National Park 


Backcountry skiers intent on 

lapping up the deep powder of 

Rogers Pass in BC’s Glacier 

National Park will be required to comply 

with a Winter Permit system for the 

2010/11 season. 

After being significantly expanded 

last winter, the system has seen a few 

modifications for the upcoming season. 

Changes for 2010/11 include: 

●● 

●● 

Smart Winter Restricted Area and 

Fortitude Winter Restricted Area 

have been made accessible through 

the creation of a designated access 

route in cooperation with Canadian 

Pacific with designated parking 

in the Bostock Parking Winter 

Restricted Area only when it is 

posted as Open. 

Bostock Parking will also be used 

for skiers accessing adjacent Winter 

Unrestricted Areas such as Flat Creek 

and Farm Pass. There will not be any 

designated parking at Rockgarden this 

winter. 

●● 

Skiers travelling alongside the highway 

are asked to travel on the inside 

of the snowbank, rather than on the 

highway shoulder, for safety reasons. 

Anyone wishing to obtain an Annual 

Winter Permit, valid for the 2010/11 

winter season, including those who 

obtained an Annual Winter Permit last 

winter season, must attend an orientation 

session. 

Daily Winter Permits are still available 

for those who anticipate only a few 

ski days in Rogers Pass this winter, and 

are available only to individuals rather 

than groups. 

Skiers are asked to learn about 

the 2010/11 permit rules and changes 

by calling 250-837-7500 or by visiting 

www.parkscanada.gc.ca/glacier 

The Karl Nagy Memorial Award was established in 2001 to assist amateur leaders 

and guides in the development of their leadership skills. Until his death in 2000, 

Karl set an outstanding example as a mentor in the mountains and was well known 

for his leadership, safety and success. 

This award provides an opportunity for Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) aspiring 

amateur leaders and Association of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG) candidates 

to participate at the ACC General Mountaineering Camp. 

Alpine Club amateur leaders and ACMG candidates are given priority in alternating 

years; 2010 is set for an ACC amateur leader. All applicants must be current 

ACC members. Deadline for applications is January 31, 2011. For more information, 

visit www.alpineclubofcanada.ca/tnf/ 


CAUTION 

these images may ma 

The Alpine Club of Canada can 

Dear 

Photo: Murray Helmer 

Photo: Cheryl Goodwin 

Photo: Russ Lybarger 

BACKCOU 

The Largest Network of 

www.alpineclubofcanada.ca | 403.678.

ke you want to leave your job and go skiing with us. 

not be held responsible for your actions. Viewer discretion is advised. 

Photo: Charles Lummer 

Photo: Jason Hummel 

NTRY HUTS in North America 

3200 x 1 | info@alpineclubofcanada.ca

Alpine Club huts receive summer renovations 


Visitors staying at the Alpine Club 

of Canada’s Stanley Mitchell and 

Elizabeth Parker Huts will be 

happy to know they’ve got a new roof and 

some new logs and chinking in the hut 

walls keeping them warm and dry this 

winter. 

A new snap lock metal roof, which 

was installed at Stanley Mitchell Hut in 

Little Yoho Valley, and eight new base 

logs, which were installed to replace older 

degraded logs at Elizabeth Parker Hut 

at Lake O’Hara, were two major projects 

along with several smaller maintenance 

jobs undertaken at more than half a 

dozen of the ACC’s backcountry huts 

over the summer season. 

With 25 huts located in the Canadian 

Rockies and in the mountains of BC, 

regular maintenance is an ongoing concern, 

said Rick Gardiner, facilities director 

for the ACC. 

But having two major projects, each 

costing approximately $20,000 carried out 

during a single summer season made this 

year an especially busy one, he said. 

“The last couple of years, we’ve had 

a major project per year. Last summer 

Stanley Mitchell Hut got some new 

logs, and Wheeler Hut got a new roof,” 

Gardiner said. “But this was a big one.” 

The extensive program included 

a fresh coat of oil on the exterior of 

Elizabeth Parker Hut, replacement of 

25 glass window panes, installing a new 

kitchen complete with a new stove and 

oven, and chimney re-pointing to replace 

sections of mortar that had dried out and 

fallen off. Adjacent to the main cabin, 

the smaller Wiwaxy Cabin had its logs 

re-chinked, its interior and exterior oiled 

and stone work done on its foundation. 

To carry out the technically exacting 

log work, the ACC hired Edmonton 

area log-builder Dan Strand. The entire 

cabin had to be jacked up to facilitate the 

removal of old logs and installation of the 

new ones. 

“That’s a major undertaking,” 

Gardiner said. 

The 10-day project also included the 

placement of new stones to improve the 

pathways in the immediate vicinity of the 

hut. 

In addition to the new roof, which 

was installed in June over a two-week 

period during which the hut was closed 

to guests, SM Hut also had new oil 

applied to its exterior and a “very large 

looming tree” was removed. 

As national class II heritage sites, 

Stanley Mitchell, which was built in 1939, 

and Elizabeth Parker, constructed in 1919 

by the CPR, require adherence to stringent 

guidelines when any structural work 

is carried out. 

Another substantial project this 

summer was the replacement of the floor 

at Bow Hut with a durable recycled 

rubber-tiled floor. 

“It just keeps getting busier and 

busier up there every year,” Gardiner said. 

Currently, Bow Hut sees 3,200 visitor 

nights per year, while Stanley Mitchell 

hosts 2,500 overnight stays per year, the 

majority during the summer when the 

hut is easier to access. Elizabeth Parker, 

among the ACC’s most accessible huts 

year-round, welcomes 4,400 overnight 

stays annually. 

Maintenance work is carried out by 

a full-time staff of three people with the 

help of a dedicated and skilled roster of 

volunteers. 

“We do have a core of about a dozen 

Stanley Mitchell Hut. 

photo by Darren Rudy. 

volunteers who come up for just about 

every work party,” Gardiner said. “We 

couldn’t do it without them.” 

Other work projects completed 

over the summer include a new metal 

roof installed on the basic four-person 

Castle Mountain climbers’ shelter, and 

a new coat of paint applied to the walls 

and floor of the Peter and Catharine 

Whyte (Peyto) Hut at the north end of 

the Wapta Icefield. In September the 

Bill Putnam (Fairy Meadow) Hut was 

outfitted with a new recycled rubber-tiled 

floor, and the 12-person Asulkan Hut in 

BC’s Glacier National Park is scheduled 

to receive a new outhouse barrel deck, a 

new furnace and new sleeping pads. In 

Canmore, the ACC Clubhouse’s kitchen 

was renovated, new energy efficient 

windows installed and solar panels added 

to heat water. 

With hut visitors increasing every 

year, including many who are new to 

backcountry huts or unaware of the 

ACC’s role as Canada’s climbing club, the 

ACC is planning to hire roving custodians 

to help welcome visitors and provide 

guidance on proper hut etiquette. 

“We’re seeing more and more people 

not used to hut life like our members are,” 

Gardiner said. “We want to help point 

out many things they might not know if 

it’s their first visit, and show people how 

significant these huts are.” 



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mechanic’s washroom 


On belay: Ice is not rock solid 

by Robert Chisnall 

As a climbing medium, ice can be less reliable than rock, and it changes according 

to season, weather and time of day. Also, the work of many ice axes can compromise 

a climb’s structural integrity. Climbers need to observe the prevailing 

conditions, learn to read the ice and follow the safest line possible according to their 

abilities. 

Here are some key factors to consider: 

1) Location and terrain 

How steep are the underlying features How high is the climb What is the sun 

aspect The answers should give you an overall indication of ice stability and how serious 

the climbing will be. Lower-angled ice will be more stable. Steep and overhanging ice 

will be less stable, especially when the weather is warm. Be cautious of chandeliers and 

large icicles hanging above you. A stray back swing may knock them loose. The convex 

horizontal curvature of a vertical pillar will be more prone to shattering, especially under 

colder conditions. Similarly, the top edges of bulges, mushrooms and cauliflowers will 

likely be susceptible to dinner-plating. 

2) Weather history and prevailing conditions 

Ideal conditions for ice formation involve a constant source of water feeding the 

icefall—either through precipitation, melt runoff or natural streams and seeps. Cold 

night temperatures with warmer day temperatures are encouraging. If there has been 

rain or an extended thaw—even followed by a freeze—the ice may be ablated and 

dangerously detached from the underlying substrate. Snow buildup followed by freezing 

rain or further ice accumulation can conceal hollow pockets under a thin ice crust. Axe 

and screw placements will be unreliable unless you dig down below the overlying debris. 

Frigid temperatures will make ice more prone to dinner-plating, pillar head fractures 

and radiating or horizontal fractures. 

3) Quality and quantity of ice 

Generally, the greater the volume of ice and the more firmly it is attached to the 

underlying rock, the more reliable it will be. Thin, detached pillars and ablated ice are 

hollow and prone to vibration and shattering. Clear, dark blue ice contains very little 

air and can be unrelentingly adamantine in nature. White, opaque ice contains a lot of 

air. If it is sugary, there may be underlying snow layers or hidden pockets that make axe 

and screw placements unreliable. Pale blue ice, with regular accumulation, is ideal. It is 

thick, new and homogeneous enough to be solid, containing enough air to provide ideal 

plasticity. Listen for trickling water underneath. That water may be under pressure. 

Yellow indicates the ice is probably suffused with organic matter and may contain 

dirt pockets. A grey hue suggests there may be dissolved compounds, which make it 

brittle. Large chunks of black rock and organic matter may pepper exit gullies. Under 

regular sunlight, these contaminants will melt out hollow spots, making the ice less 

sound. Preexisting axe holes also decrease the structural integrity of the climb. 

4) Axe and ice screw placements 

Ice screws can fail under a wide load range. Place screws of appropriate length in 

good ice at a slight downward angle so the threads resist the load and the tube body will 

not collapse. The screw must freeze in place to be optimal. Regarding slushy, aerated ice, 

place the screw at an angle to the anticipated line of pull. Seek detailed advice. 

Make sure your tools are sharp. Aim for indentations, which centralize vibration and 

reduce shattering. Avoid the top edge of bulges. Use precise, well-aimed swings. Do not 

place a second tool any closer than about 30 centimetres to another, or both could blow. 

Employ candle-ice hooks to avoid unnecessary damage. Be precise with your crampons 

to avoid unstable placements. 

Use your head when climbing; ice climbing is primarily a mental game. Plan your 

route ahead of committing and reevaluate constantly. Think about each placement until 

it becomes second nature. Experiment and play with conditions and placements when 

on top rope in a safe place. 

Above all have fun and climb lots; after all, practice makes perfect. 

de Saint-Boniface 

February 

11, 12 & 13 

février 

d’escalade 

sur glace 

| Ice climbing 

festival 

and competition 

www.cesb.net 

Partenaires / Partners 

Festival et compétition 

Section Saint-Boniface du 

Club Alpin du Canada 


Canada’s Youth Team competes at World Championship 

by Iain Stewart-Patterson 

In September, Canada sent a team 

of 24 athletes aged 13 to 19 to the 

18th annual Youth World Climbing 

Championships in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

The climbers competed in two events, 

Speed and Lead (difficulty) climbing. 

The competition drew 430 athletes 

from 39 countries, making it the largest 

climbing competition in the world. The 

Canadian athletes came from Toronto, 

Calgary, Edmonton, Canmore, Banff, 

Kamloops, Maple Ridge, Vancouver, 

Nanaimo and Victoria. In previous years, 

the athletes were from the three Western 

provinces, but this year two from Ontario 

joined the team. 

Team members were selected based 

on their cumulative performances at local 

and regional competitions, and at the 

2010 Canadian Championship, which 

took place in Quebec City in June. The 

top four male and female athletes in three 

age categories (Youth B, 14-15; Youth A, 

16-17; and Junior, 18-19) were selected to 

represent Canada at the Youth World 

Championship. 

The Edinburgh International 

Climbing Arena, which hosted the event, 

is the world’s largest climbing gym. It 

is a roofed-over quarry, built at a cost of 

more than $50 million and now owned 

and operated by the City of Edinburgh 

as a public recreation facility. The highest 

of its five climbing walls is 28 metres. 

The competition took place on three of 

the walls: the 15-metre high international 

standard homologated speed wall, the 

18-metre Northwest wall, which is 

the original competition wall, and the 

Hanger, a new, articulated, 15-metre 

competition wall. 

This year, in an effort to create a 

stronger team bonding process and help 

the athletes generate an increased level 

of individual focus, team members stayed 

at a hotel chaperoned by four coaches, 

Chris Neve, Dung Nguyen, Jamie Chong 

and Sean McColl, and two managers, 

Kimanda Jarzebiak and Iain Stewart- 

Patterson. In previous years, the athletes 

had travelled and stayed with their parents 

at a group hotel. 

It can be a daunting experience for athletes 

to compete at this level with upwards 

of 70 competitors in each category. Eleven 

of the athletes were competing at the 

World Championship for the first time. 

The Canadian team faced stiff competition 

as most, if not all, the top European 

climbers attended the event. Europe 

has the highest concentration of youth 

competition climbers in the world. The 

top climbers from Japan, Australia, New 

Zealand, Korea, Kazakhstan, China, Brazil, 

Ecuador, Israel, Mexico and the United 

States also participated. 

The difficulty or Lead climbing 

competition is based on two qualifying 

climbs, with the top 26 climbers advancing 

to a semi-final round. Of those 26, 

the top eight proceed to a final round. 

Two Canadian climbers made it into the 

semi-final—Elan Jonas-McRae, 15, from 

Nanaimo, and Elise Sethna, 16, from 

Banff. Robert Stewart-Patterson, 14, from 

Kamloops, and Alannah Yip, 16, from 

Vancouver, almost made the cut, placing 

27th and 28th respectively. Elan Jonas- 

McRae, competing for the first time at 

the World Championship, tied for seventh 

place with five other climbers on the 

semi-final route. As only the top eight are 

taken into the final round, a count-back 

to the qualifying round was needed to 

separate the climbers. This put Elan into 

11th place. Elise Sethna also climbed well 

in the semi-final, placing 24th. 

Although countries are allowed 

to send 24 athletes in each of the two 

disciplines, Lead (difficulty) and Speed, 

Team Canada. 

photo by Iain Stewart-Patterson. 

Robert Stewart-Patterson climbs his first 

qualifying route. photo by Iain Stewart-Patterson. 

Canada sends its team based on Lead 

performances. The Canadian athletes 

however, all compete in the Speed event 

too. In the qualifying round of the Speed 

event, athletes raced the clock on the 

15-metre, 5.11b wall. The top16 climbers 

progressed to the 1/8 final round. In this 

round, climbers raced against each other 


in a head-to-head elimination format. 

The fastest Canadian, Robert Stewart- 

Patterson, raced up the wall in 14.94 

seconds, good enough for 18th place, only 

.74 seconds out of 16th place. As the Speed 

event has recently moved to a standardized 

format, countries have had to adapt 

their training. Canada does not yet have a 

standardized, homologated speed wall, so 

Canadian athletes are at a disadvantage. 

Fortunately, a speed wall is currently 

under construction at The Boulders 

Climbing Gym in Victoria, BC. 

In the final team standings, the 

Canadian team placed 20th in Lead and 

13th in Speed. Canadian athletes are 

now looking forward to the Youth Pan- 

American Championship, taking place in 

Ibarra, Ecuador in November, and next 

year’s World Championship on a massive 

25-metre wall in Imst, Austria. 

Iain Stewart-Patterson is Canadian 

Youth Team assistant manager. 

HERITAGE CLUB HERITAGE CLUB 

HERITAGE CLUB HERITAGE CLUB 

Heritage Club 

The Summer 2010 issue 

of the Gazette featured 

a list of Alpine Club 

of Canada members who had 

achieved their 50-year milestone. 

Rose Anderson of Trail, BC 

joined the Club in 1959, and as 

such her name should have been 

included. The Gazette sincerely 

regrets the oversight. 

Congratulations Rose! 

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Supporting the Bow Valley Since 1906 


Members climb Cassin Ridge, earn 2010 Denali Pro Award 


In June, long-time Alpine Club of 

Canada members Nancy Hansen, 

Doug Fulford and Felix Camire 

travelled to the Alaska Range to climb 

Denali, North America’s highest peak. 

After all three acclimatized by climbing 

to the mountain’s 6194-metre summit via 

a combination of easy, frequently travelled 

routes, Hansen and Camire summitted 

again via the much more committing and 

difficult Cassin Ridge. Unfortunately, the 

severe altitude left Fulford not healthy 

enough to join them on their four-day 

ascent of the fabled route, which involves 

Mount Denali (6,194 metres), with the upper section of the Cassin Ridge rising in the centre. 

75-degree ice climbing, a 305-metre 

knife-edged ice traverse, 5.8 rock climbing 

moves and a 610-metre traverse along a 

steep, exposed ridge. 

During the month the trio spent on 

the mountain their climbing skills and 

leadership experience was appreciated, 

as all three were presented the 2010 

Denali Pro Award for helping rescue 

a stricken climber from 5,200 metres 

while they were at the 4,330-metre West 

Buttress camp, and also for Hansen and 

Camire’s efforts in assisting an exhausted 

Romanian solo climber who was “in 

Climbing coaching conference focussed on youth development 

photo by Nancy Hansen. 

trouble sometimes” on the Cassin. 

Awarded annually by the National 

Park Service and Pigeon Mountain 

Industries, the Denali Pro Award honours 

members of the climbing community for 

exhibiting high standards for safety, selfsufficiency, 

Leave No Trace ethics, and 

for assisting fellow mountaineers. Nancy, 

Doug and Felix each received a Denali 

Pro lapel pin (the design changes every 

year) and their names have been added to 

the Denali Pro Award plaque on display 

at the Talkeetna Ranger Station. 

Congratulations Nancy, Doug and Felix! 


Competitive climbing coaches 

from across the country and the 

US gathered in Banff from Oct. 

8 thru 11 to discuss the topic of long-term 

athletic development for young climbers. 

The only conference of its kind in 

North America, and the first anywhere 

to focus on long-term athletic development 

for climbers, the conference hosted 

30 participants from Quebec, Ontario, 

Saskatchewan, British Columbia and 

Bozeman, Montana. 

The third Coaching Climbing 

Conference to be hosted by the Banff 

Centre’s Sally Borden Climbing Gym, it 

examined the concept of altering training 

principles depending on the developmental 

stage of the athlete and not their 

chronological age. 

“With the prevalence of young 

children getting more involved in this 

sport, long gone are the days where we 

administer adult training programs to 

our smallest climbers,” said Chris Neve, 

climbing gym coordinator for the Sally 

Borden Gym. 

To help facilitate the discussion, 

conference leaders included Sean McColl, 

past top Canadian competitive boulderer 

and Canadian Youth Team Coach, and 

Katie Brown, professional US climber and 

author—both of whom reached the pinnacle 

of the sport while still in their teens. 

“Climbing is considered an early 

specialization sport,” Neve said. “The ages 

the kids are successful at is quite young. 

Sixteen- and 17-year-olds are winning the 

World Cup. But what we wanted to ask, 

and discuss, is what is great for them in 

the long run” 

In order to reach that level of athleticism, 

young climbers who train hard risk 

repetitive stress injuries such as elbow 

tendonitis and shoulder strain. Young 

climbers also often compete against other 

youths whose physical or psychological 

development levels are often quite different 

from their own. 

Conference attendees focussed on 

how best to nurture well-rounded athletes 

who will hopefully grow to be healthy 

active adults whether they embrace any 

sport at a serious, competitive level or not. 

Presentations included topics in the fields 

of exercise physiology, nutrition, injury 

prevention, female athletics, youth programming, 

grants and fund finding, goal 

setting, route setting for competitions, 

season-long training plans and sport 

psychology. 

Participants included sport psychologists, 

yoga instructors, dieticians, phys ed 

professionals, physiotherapists and climbing 

team coaches, including Canmore’s 

Vsion Gym owner and national Youth 

Team Coach Dung Nguyen. 


Army Cadets partner with ACC for mutual benefit 

by Maxine Corneau 

The Army Cadet League of 

Canada (ACLC) is proud to 

partner with the Alpine Club of 

Canada in support of the Royal Canadian 

Army Cadets (RCAC) expedition program. 

This year the ACC has agreed to 

support the cadets’ ultimate challenge, the 

Army Cadet Expedition. 

This partnership is a perfect fit, as 

both organizations benefit from mutual 

visibility and support. The ACLC publishes 

a magazine, On Target, two to four 

times a year. It will now regularly feature 

articles and announcements about the 

ACC. Army Cadet members and website 

visitors will also find a link to the ACC 

website. The ACLC looks forward to 

sharing ACC stories with its members, 

and is ecstatic that ACC members will 

be reading about the 18,000 fascinating 

young teenagers in the Army Cadet 

program. 

In October, 2010, the ACLC’s 

international expedition destination was 

Mount Everest Base Camp. Sixteen 

remarkable young men and women 

worked extremely hard for the past four 

to six years to participate in this trek. 

They were chosen after having demonstrated 

strong leadership skills, athleticism 

and many more personal qualities 

essential to undertake such a challenge. 

This Army Cadet program has instilled 

in them a passion for outdoor adventure 

which ACC members share and understand. 

Every year, 32 teenage cadets are 

chosen to participate in expeditions. 

Expedition training is the application 

of learned skills and leadership roles in 

a demanding environment. Outdoor 

challenge teaches and encourages safety, 

a healthy lifestyle and environmental 

stewardship—the basic themes of Army 

Cadet training. 

The expedition challenge allows 

cadets, individually and as a group, to 

improve decision making and problem 

solving skills, to build teamwork, cooperation 

and communication skills, 

tolerance, resourcefulness and learn time 

management. Since 2000, Army Cadets 

have travelled to Morocco, Australia 

(twice), Iceland, Korea, the US, Costa 

Rica, France, Switzerland, the Italian 

Alps, Spain (Pyrenees) and New Zealand. 

The program has also included exploration 

of Canadian terrain from coast to 

coast to coast, including a unique urban 

expedition from Toronto to Ottawa using 

historic water and land routes. The cadets 

travelled by foot, canoe and kayak, and 

when they are successful businesspeople 

travelling Highway 401 at 140 kilometres 

per hour in a BMW, they will recall a 

slower and more fulfilling trip. 

The RCAC is a federally-sponsored 

program for young Canadians aged 12 to 

18 that develops attributes of leadership, 

good citizenship and physical fitness in 

youth, while stimulating interest in the 

history and activities of the Canadian 

Army. There are currently more than 

18,000 Army Cadets in 443 Cadet Corps 

across Canada. 

As a civilian not-for-profit corporation, 

the ACLC is committed to support 

the RCAC in a strong partnership with 

the Department of National Defence 

and communities across Canada by 

developing policies and procedures 

Cadets display the RCAC flag on Dragonfly Peak. 

submitted photo. 

to achieve the aims and objectives 

of the Canadian Cadet movement 

in general, and the Army Cadets in 

particular. For more information, visit 

www.armycadetleague.ca 

To follow the Army Cadets in 

Nepal, visit the expedition website 

at www.cadets.ca or join the RCAC 

Expedition Facebook page to share your 

comments in support of our young cadets 

as they climb to the base camp of the 

world’s tallest mountain. The Army Cadet 

program is confident that an enduring 

association with the ACC will result in 

greater individual expeditions for the 

adult Army Cadet graduates. 

Maxine Corneau is ACLC 

Communications Officer. 


And Carstensz Pyramid makes six... 

by Gordon Hopper 

After Elizabeth Tertil and my 

thwarted attempt at 8,400 metres 

on Everest in 2009 because of a 

rescue we had to instigate and organize, 

and also due to the early arrival of the 

Monsoon within hours of the rescue, we 

decided to tackle the only other summit 

left on our quest for the Seven Summits, 

namely Carstensz Pyramid in West 

Papua or Irian Jaya, Indonesia. 

There is controversy as to which 

mountain is the seventh summit. Some 

say that the Australian continent is all 

that should be considered, while others 

believe the Island of Papua is on the 

same continental shelf as Australia. 

Mount Koscuiszko, at 2,228 metres and 

apparently accessible to the summit 

by Landrover before it became a park, 

is hardly worthy of the status. I think 

the majority of climbers would agree on 

Carstensz being the true seventh summit, 

as well as the most technically demanding 

of all the Seven Summits. 

From Calgary it took eight flights to 

reach base camp on this remote, most 

southerly island of Indonesia. You must 

have the necessary government permits 

before even seeing the mountain otherwise 

you will be turned away. Therefore, 

it is essential to go with a reputable 

outfit. After waiting a few days in the 

town of Nabire for suitable weather, we 

took the 75-minute flight by helicopter 

Base camp. 

photo by Gordon Hopper. 

from sea level to the base camp at 4,200 

metres. You can also walk through the 

jungle for six days but this is fraught with 

major problems with the local tribespeople 

demanding extortionate increases 

in payments for portering and crossing of 

their areas of jungle halfway through the 

trip. One must remember that they were 

cannibals in the not too distant past and 

they insist on portering your kit across 

their lands. Other problems include drug 

resistant malaria as well as the gambit of 

other nasty tropical diseases, plus daily 

temperatures of 30 to 40 degrees C with 

100 per cent humidity. 

After a thrilling helicopter flight that 

took us over the jungle and a giant open 

pit copper and gold mine— flown by the 

only helicopter pilot willing to fly the 

route—we set up our camp, ate and rested 

to prepare for our 3 a.m. wakeup call, as 

an early start is best to avoid the usual 

daily afternoon tropical deluge. 

After breakfast, our group of six and 

local guide left in the dark for the base 

of the 600-metre rock wall of up to 80 

degrees which led on to the summit ridge 

of the mountain. The ascent entailed rock 

climbing with the assistance of an 

ascender on fixed ropes. Soon after 

attaining the ridge, we came upon our 

first major obstacle, a 30-metre Tyrolean 

traverse on ropes over a very deep gash on 

the ridge with a 600-metre drop off on 

Climbers gear up on Carstensz. 

Hopper. 

photo by Gordon 

each side. This caused lots of entertainment 

as well as major adrenalin release. 

It was rather strenuous on the forearms 

pulling uphill against the friction of a 

loaded carabiner, and I have to admit 

to having my eyes closed for half of the 

traverse. We then proceeded along the 

ridge and came upon two unanticipated 

surprises, which consisted of two very 

exposed gaps. However, after reassurance 

from our guide we, one by one, took 

the plunge and crossed these obstacles. 

Fortunately the rock had a very rough 

surface and provided excellent grip. It 

was then an uneventful final 50 metres to 

the summit. 

We had lots to celebrate, as for one of 

our members it was the final of the Seven 

Summits, for four it was number six and 

for one it was the fifth. There was lots of 

sun and thin cloud around the summit 

with almost no wind, which is most 

unusual for this mountain. 

After about an hour of celebration and 

picture taking, we started our descent. 

We again negotiated the three adrenalin 

releasing crossings and reached the 

60-metre, 80 degree rappel down the first 

rock wall. Soon after commencing our 

descent on this wall, the afternoon rains 

started, along with thunder. Fortunately, 

the thunder did not come too close as we 

had lots of metal hardware attached to 

our harnesses. Following an uneventful 

but rain drenching descent, we reached 

base camp where we changed into dry 

clothes and disappeared into our sleeping 

bags for the evening and night, 


dehydrated but no longer suffering altitude 

related headaches. 

Due to cloudy weather, we were not 

able to fly out of base camp until two 

days later. This gave us extra time to 

explore the interesting surroundings. 

After a safe return to civilization, we 

spent a few days with our guide in his 

home town of Manado in Northern 

Sulawesi, where we whitewater rafted, 

climbed a smoking volcano with a bubbling 

lake in its crater and visited a local 

market, which, amongst other things, was 

selling dead rats, bats, snakes and dogs for 

meat. 

This expedition left us with only one 

summit to conquer. 

Last spring, Gordon Hopper, who 

has climbed all 283 Munroes (Scottish 

Mountains over 3,000 feet/914 metres), 

and Elizabeth Tertil returned to Everest. 

On May 25, Elizabeth reached the world’s 

highest summit via the North Col route, 

completing her Seven Summits project. 

Unfortunately, Gordon Hopper was not well 

enough to reach the summit and had to turn 

around at the First Step at 8,500 metres, 

but most importantly, both returned home to 

Calgary safely. 

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February 2009 

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Mountain Skills & Outdoor Leadership 

Yamnuska Mountain Adventures 

Gordon Hopper and Elizabeth Tertil hold a 

Canadian flag with the ACC logo above the maple 

leaf, Scottish lion rampant, St. Andrews Cross and 

Polish flag. photo by Gordon Hopper. 

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ACC NewsNet 

Stay up-to-date on the latest 

climbing, access and environment 

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Subscribe to the ACC NewsNet by 

sending an e-mail to: 

NewsNet@alpineclubofcanada.ca 

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1.866.678.4164 


Peter Fuhrmann awarded Summit of Excellence 


At the height of the summer 

climbing season in August 1971, 

the Banff Park warden service 

received a call that an army cadet had 

been struck by falling rock while climbing 

on Mount Edith. By good fortune, 

the public safety team, led by Peter 

Fuhrmann, Parks’ alpine specialist for 

western Canada, was practicing rescue 

techniques with the aid of a helicopter, 

a system Fuhrmann had recently been 

introduced to while visiting a friend in 

Munich during a family vacation. With 

a helicopter, a sling and a stretcher, the 

injured cadet was flown to nearby Banff 

Mineral Springs Hospital in less than 

an hour. With a traditional land rescue 

taking hours to carry out, no doubt 

the cadet, suffering from serious head 

trauma, was saved from succumbing from 

his injuries. The modern technology of 

helicopter-assisted mountain rescue had 

arrived in Canada. 

Now, four decades later, techniques 

and systems developed by Fuhrmann and 

his colleagues—including Willi Pfisterer, 

who served as Parks Canada’s alpine specialist 

for Jasper, Waterton, Revelstoke/ 

Glacier and Kluane parks—have since 

helped save hundreds of lives in Canadian 

national parks and wilderness areas. 

Fuhrmann is recognized for modernizing 

rescue training techniques within the 

mountain parks, introducing the helicopter 

sling and for taking generations 

of young wardens on gruelling training 

missions dubbed “Fuhrmann Sanctions”. 

He also introduced the idea of helicopter 

Participants on Week 5 of the 2010 

General Mountaineering Camp 

(GMC), which took place in the 

Battle Brook Range of BC’s Columbia 

Mountains, were thrilled to find treasure 

in the summit cairn on Grand Mountain. 

Inside the cairn was tucked a small, rusty 

tin which appeared to contain the summit 

registry. 

Upon opening the tin, they discovered 

only three entries inside—one from 1976, 

one from 1955 and, most remarkably, 

a business card belonging to Howard 

Palmer. On it he and E. Holway recorded 

the first ascent of the peak in August, 1910. 


bombing for avalanche control, and 

many of his rescue techniques have been 

adopted by rescue teams throughout 

North America. 

In recognition of his numerous contributions, 

Fuhrmann, a dedicated member 

of the Canadian mountain community 

for six decades, was named recipient 

of the 2010 Summit of Excellence 

(SOE) Award. Sponsored by Canadian 

Mountain Holidays, the SOE is presented 

annually on closing night of the 

Banff Mountain Film Festival to a person 

who has made a significant contribution 

to mountain life in the Canadian Rockies. 

Disillusioned with post WWII 

corporate politics after being recruited 

for a management position by Shell Oil, 

Fuhrmann arrived in Banff from his native 

Germany in 1955. He worked on a survey 

crew and as a regional draughtsman for 

the department of public works before 

earning his Parks mountain guide license 

in 1961, the same year he joined the Alpine 

Club of Canada (ACC). He guided on the 

ACC’s Yukon Centennial Camp in 1967, 

led climbs in Peru and the Himalaya and 

was a founding member of the Association 

of Canadian Mountain Guides (ACMG), 

which was formed in 1963. 

He worked with Parks’ first alpine 

specialist Walter Perren, helping to train 

horseback-riding wardens in climbing 

rescue techniques. After Perren died of 

illness, in 1968 Fuhrmann became Parks’ 

alpine specialist for western Canada—a 

position which eventually included 

Cape Breton Highlands, Gros Morne, 

Auyuittuq-Baffin Island, Ellesmere 

Island, Pacific Rim and South Moresby 

parks. 

A tireless advocate for high alpine 

recreation and safe guiding practices in 

the parks, Fuhrmann served as president, 

secretary treasurer and examiner for the 

ACMG. Starting with Balfour in 1965, 

he was instrumental in the conception, 

planning and construction of high alpine 

shelters on the Wapta Icefield. Believing 

the Canadian Rockies had everything 

to offer that Europe’s Alps did for the 

development of multi-day glacier ski 

traverses, Fuhrmann played a major role 

in developing the ACC’s backcountry hut 

system. 

Serving as ACC president from 1984 

thru 1988, Fuhrmann’s efforts and expertise 

helped revitalize the then struggling 

national climbing club, strengthening 

management and modernizing its 

activities to attract new members. He 

also nurtured the ACC/Hostelling 

International partnership that led to 

the creation of the popular Lake Louise 

Alpine Centre. His involvement with the 

Town of Banff ’s hospital board led to the 

relocation and expansion of the Mineral 

Springs Hospital. 

“Peter is incredibly deserving of this 

honour,” said SOE committee member 

Nancy Hansen. “He has contributed to 

our mountain community in a variety of 

invaluable ways throughout his entire 

life.” 



Summit cairn contains rare treasure at GMC 

“It was a pretty special moment to 

realize that we had arrived on top within 

a couple of weeks of the 100th anniversary 

of the first ascent of this peak!” said 

ACMG guide Jeremy Mackenzie. “Those 

guys were tough! We recorded our names 

in the registry (and those of the other 

successful GMCers from earlier in the 

week), and then returned the tin and its 

contents to the cairn.”

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Trailbreakers: Horace “Rusty” Westmorland 

by Lindsay Elms 

Horace “Rusty” Westmorland was 

born in Penrith, England in 

1886, and educated in Blackburn, 

Lancashire. He worked in the family’s 

tannery and leather business until his 

father died in 1909, and the estate was 

divided between him, his mother and his 

sister. With no professional training he 

was advised by the brother of the British 

Ambassador to Washington to enter the 

Forestry Service in Canada. 

In 1911 Westmorland travelled to 

Saskatchewan but, as prospects were 

poor there, he moved on to Vancouver. 

There, with a letter of introduction 

from Scottish Mountaineering Club 

member, G.A. Solly, he met Arthur 

Oliver Wheeler. A rock climber with 

some alpine experience in the Engadine 

and Dolomites, Westmorland asked to 

spend the summer working on one of the 

mountain survey parties. He spent the 

next six months working with the surveyors 

around Tetachuck Lake as part of the 

Alberta/British Columbia Interprovincial 

Boundary Commission and continued 

working seasonally for the surveyors until 

1914. 

In 1912 Westmorland accepted a 

commission in the Canadian Territorial 

Highland Regiment. He qualified at 

military school and was transferred to the 

Canadian Army, with whom he served in 

Belgium and France from 1915 to 1919. In 

1943 Lieutenant-Colonel Westmorland 

used his indomitable personality and connections 

in Ottawa to found the Number 

One Pack Horse Troop, in effort to revive 

Canada’s cavalry heritage. The Troop was 

called to help in several exercises, but 

didn’t survive because of changing technology. 

In October 1944, Westmorland 

was invalided out, and returned to his 

family roots at Threlkeld in the Lakes 

District for his remaining years. 

Westmorland’s love of the outdoors 

began at an early age when his father, Tom, 

introduced his family to Ullswater and 

the surrounding fells. Westmorland’s real 

climbing career began in 1901 at the age 

of 15 when he climbed Pillar Rock in the 

Wasdale region of the Lakes District with 

his father and his sister. Tom Westmorland 

was a keen and competent scrambler, but 

he never adopted the use of a rope. 

In his late teens, Rusty Westmorland 

and his two cousins, Arthur North and 

John Mounsey, began climbing with a 

rope. They climbed some of the classics at 

the time: the North Climb on The Pillar, 

Scafell Pinnacle by Slingsby’s Chimney, 

Moss Ghyll, Central Gully, Oblique and 

Doctor’s Chimney, Kern’s Knotts, Tarn 

Crag, and Needle and Napes Ridges. 

One notable ascent with them was on 

Dove Crag. Initially they thought they 

would climb either side of the Y Gully, 

but failing, they attempted and succeeded 

on a buttress which is now called the 

Westmorland Route. 

ACC Funds and Grants Program 

Through the generosity of many donors, the Alpine Club of Canada has 

established funds to support mountaineering related projects and initiatives. 

The deadline for submission of grant applications is January 31, 2011. Grant 

recipients will be announced March 15, 2011. 

The Environment Fund – provides support that contributes to the protection 

and preservation of alpine flora and fauna in their natural habitat. The focus of the 

Fund is wilderness conservation. 

The Jen Higgins Fund – promotes creative and energetic alpine related outdoor 

pursuits by young women. These projects should demonstrate initiative, creativity, 

energy and resourcefulness with an emphasis on self-propelled wilderness travel, 

and should provide value and interest to the community. 

Jim Colpitts Fund – encourages young climbers between the ages of 17 and 24 to 

participate in mountain related courses and programs such as wilderness first aid, 

avalanche training, rock/crevasse rescue and mountain leadership training. 

For complete info and application forms visit: www.alpineclubofcanada.ca/grants 

or call the ACC National Office at 403-678-3200 ext. 108. 

In the same year he first climbed 

The Pillar with his father, Rusty 

Westmorland met George Abraham. In 

1910 he joined George and his brother 

Ashley on a climbing/photographic trip 

to the Bernina Alps and the Dolomites. 

Ultimately, it was the Pillar Rock which 

held a particular fascination for Rusty, 

and he celebrated by repeating the climb 

on his 65th, 75th and lastly his 85th birthdays. 

Westmorland was elected into the 

Fell and Rock Climbing Club in 1909, 

served as president in the early 1950s and 

remained a life-long member. 

In Canada, Westmorland was a 

member of the Alpine Club of Canada 

and attended camps in 1912, 1913, 1919 and 

1944. While working for the surveyors he 

made the first ascent of Mount Tyrwhitt 

with Conrad Kain and surveyor Alan 

Campbell. In 1943 he climbed Mount 

Balfour on the Waputik Icefield with Ivor 

Richards and his wife Dorothy Pilley. 

He visited Vancouver Island in 1922 with 

the ACC Victoria Section and climbed 

Mount Arrowsmith and Mount Maxwell 

(Baynes Peak) on Salt Spring Island. He 

served as Section chair for one year in 

1923. In 1932 he made the first ski exploration 

of the Yoho Valley with Alexander 

McCoubrey and Roger Neave. He was 

awarded the ACC’s Silver Rope for 

Leadership in 1947. 

In Europe, Westmorland climbed and 

skied throughout the Bernese Oberland 

and the Dolomites, and with Edward 

Feuz Jr. climbed the Hornli Ridge on 

the Matterhorn. His one unfulfilled 

wish, however, was to climb Mount 

Assiniboine, the “Matterhorn of the 

Canadian Rockies”. 

Westmorland was elected to the Lake 

District Ski Club in 1938, and became 

Club president in 1946. He organized 

the first slalom race in 1947 and was the 

first skier down. Westmorland remained 

president until 1951, but continued to ski 

into his 80s on the local slopes. 

In 1946 Westmorland founded the 

Borrowdale Mountain Rescue Team, 

which was renamed Keswick Mountain 

Rescue in 1951. This rescue team came 

about when Wilfred Noyce, who later 

became a key member of John Hunt’s 

successful 1953 Everest team, fell while 

climbing Shark’s Fin on Tophet Bastion, 


Executive Committee slate 

In accordance with Alpine Club of Canada bylaws, a committee nominates a 

slate of Executive Committee members for a two-year term. The nominating 

committee proposes the following slate for the May 2011 to May 2013 term: 

President: Peter Muir 

Secretary: Gordon Currie 

Treasurer: Neil Bosch 

VP Access and Environment: Selena Swets 

VP Activities: Zac Robinson 

VP Facilities: Carl Hannigan 

VP Mountain Culture: Isabelle Daigneault 

VP Services: David Foster 

According to the Club’s bylaws, additional nominations may be submitted by a 

member provided the nominations: 

●● 

are accompanied by the names and signatures of at least 50 supporting members 

in good standing, and 

●● 

reach the Club’s National Office no later than December 1, 2010. 

If one or more such nominations are received, election ballots for the position(s) 

involved will be mailed to members in March. If not, the above slate will be 

declared elected and will assume office at the Club’s Annual General Meeting on 

May 14, 2011. 

Great Gable. A gust of wind blew Noyce 

off his holds and he fell onto a ledge, 

breaking his leg. Noyce’s climbing partner 

went for help and a scratch group of six 

was collected. After a complicated and 

gruelling all-night rescue, Noyce was 

delivered to Wasdale Head. As one of the 

rescuers, Westmorland was disturbed by 

the lack of any properly trained rescue 

organization. Legally, the responsibility 

lay with the police, as it still does, but 

at that time they were neither trained 

nor equipped for mountain rescues. 

Westmorland’s appeal for volunteers in 

the Keswick Reminder produced 30 men 

who formed the initial team. While there 

was initial scepticism about the motives 

and effectiveness of the group, this was 

dispelled when it became obvious they 

were prepared to go out at any time in all 

kinds of weather. Westmorland received 

a Testimony of Appreciation by the 

British Mountain Rescue Committee, 

and in 1965, was awarded the Order of 

the British Empire by the Queen for his 

services to mountain rescue. 

In 1964, Westmorland wrote a book 

titled Adventures In Climbing, dispensing 

information and advice on climbing 

techniques, and illustrated by incidents 

from his own life. The last chapter relates 

some of his Canadian Rockies adventures. 

Rusty Westmorland passed away at 

the age of 98 on Nov. 24, 1984. He will be 

remembered for turning up immaculate 

on the crags and for his concern with 

upholding the highest traditions of the 

mountaineering sport. 

Beyond Nootka: 

by Lindsay Elms 

A Historical Perspective of Vancouver Island Mountains 

“Beyond Nootka guides us through the history of the early 

explorers on Vancouver Island to the recent climbing history of 

the six most significant island mountains. The tales capture the 

essence of the pleasures and hardships of both the historical and 

modern island mountain explorers and reveals several surprises 

from interviews with mountain pioneers.” 

– Sandy Briggs 

To order your copy, visit: http://members.shaw.ca/beyondnootka 


National Office news 

by Toby Harper 

As I write this in early October, the 

National Office in Canmore is 

wrapping up the Alpine Club of 

Canada’s fiscal year, moving the majority 

of our Library from the Whyte Museum 

into temporary storage, preparing for the 

fall Board of Directors meeting and the 

Mountain Guides Ball, and welcoming 

two new staff members. 

We’re very pleased Sylvain Vanier has 

joined our Facilities Maintenance team. 

He is a journeyman carpenter, an active 

outdoor enthusiast and strong ACC 

supporter. Sylvain has good knowledge of 

our hut system and has lived in Canmore 

for 18 years, now with his wife, Ann, and 

their two young daughters. 

Nominate a volunteer 

Every year, the members of 

the Alpine Club of Canada’s 

Awards Committee volunteer 

their time to sift through numerous 

nominations to determine the recipients 

of the Club’s Volunteer Awards. 

Earlier this year, dedicated and prolific 

volunteer Paul Geddes stepped down 

as Chair of the Awards Committee, 

and handed the reins to St. Boniface 

Section Representative André Mahé. 

On behalf of all ACC members, a big 

thank you to Paul for his service, and to 

André for taking on the important role 

of Awards Committee Chair! 

Nominations are now open for 

outstanding Alpine Club of Canada 

volunteers of 2010. The following 

awards recognize and celebrate ACC 

volunteers for their contributions to the 

Club and its members: 

l A.O. Wheeler Legacy Award 

l Honorary Membership 

l President’s Award 

l Silver Rope for Leadership Award 

l Distinguished Service Award 

l Don Forest Service Award 

l Eric Brooks Leader Award 

For details on how to nominate a 

volunteer and nomination forms, visit 

www.alpineclubofcanada.ca/awards 

or call the ACC National Office at 

(403) 678-3200 ext. 108 to receive the 

information by mail. 

Deadline for nominations is 

December 31, 2010. 


As the ACC’s new Programs Director, 

I recently moved to Canmore with my 

wife, Ciara, and our eight-month-old 

daughter Ida. I’m a bilingual Montrealer 

(aux francophones, je fera de mon 

mieux pour que le club soit de plus en 

plus “national”), and have worked in 

the mountains of western and northern 

North America and as a program 

manager for non-profit organizations 

internationally. I was a participant on 

the ACC’s The North Face Summer 

Leadership Training Course in 1999, 

served as Thunder Bay Section Chair, 

worked at the National Office front desk 

and have volunteered as hut custodian. 

I believe the ACC should be true to 

its name—our national organization for 

all things mountain-related. It should 

really reach the three shining seas, should 

be member-focused, and “alpine” in the 

sense of being a leader in a broad range 

of mountain pursuits and environments 

(bouldering as well as reading about 

bouldering; the House of Commons as 

well as glaciers). 

The Programs Director’s fundamental 

role is to provide leadership for the 

distinct and common needs of our 20 

regional sections and their members, 

plus supervising the ACC’s Mountain 

Adventures, Publications and Marketing, 

and Access and Environment programs. 

Expanding our membership by 50 per 

cent, in keeping with our mission and 

the objectives identified by our current 

Strategic Action Plan, means focusing 

on Canada’s major urban centres, and the 

east and north. 

I’m most invested in supporting the 

sections, recognizing that our members’ 

direct Club experience is often through 

local activities. We also recognize that 

to grow the Club’s membership we must 

address the diversity of Canadians who 

could be served by the ACC, whether 

young urban gym climbers, families 

looking to access local wild spaces, or 

people interested in national scale Club 

opportunities and resources. 

I am interested in your feedback, 

so please contact me directly at 

tharper@alpineclubofcanada.ca I also 

encourage you to join the ACC Facebook 

group, and follow @alpineclubcan on 

Twitter. 

Toby Harper explores the Matanuska Glacier in 

the Chugach, Alaska. Submitted photo. 

CLASSIFIEDS 

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Climbing and walking trips for men 

and women, with Dan Mazur. 

All ages and abilities, expert to 

novice. Everest climbs and treks, Ama 

Dablam, Cho Oyu, Baruntse, North 

Col, Lhotse, Everest Glacier School, 

Island Peak, Muztagh Ata, Mera Peak. 

www.SummitClimb.com 

info@SummitClimb.com 

360-570-0715 

NOTICES 

Upcoming Meetings 

Executive Committee meeting: 

●● 

April 16 & 17, 2011 in Canmore 

Board of Directors meeting: 

●● 

May 14 & 15, 2011 in Canmore 

Annual General Meeting: 

●● 

May 14, 2011 in Canmore 

CAJ Article Submissions 

Deadline for submitting articles for 

the upcoming CAJ is February 1, 2011. 

For more information, visit: 

www.alpineclubofcanada.ca/caj/ 

guidelines.html 

Classified Ad Rates: 

$20 plus $1 per word + GST 

E-mail your ad to: 

ads@alpineclubofcanada.ca 

or mail to the address on page 3.

“I’M NOT ESCAPING FROM REALITY, 

I’M ESCAPING TO REALITY.” 

GETTING OUT. 

You have your reasons. We have your gear.

Winter 2010 - The Alpine Club of Canada

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