Someday I am going to tally up all my climbs and see how many I have made the summit on and how many I did not make the summit on. There have been a lot that I did not summit on, but I don’t really view those as failures or as being unsuccessful in any way, just a climb with a different outcome. Sure, everyone wants to make the summit all of the time, but there are times that you just don’t for a variety of reasons. And every climb has its own story, and lessons taught. This one is no different.
This was another adventure that I partnered up with the ever prolific Desert Mountaineer on. I had been living away from the mountains for a few years, and the Old DM was living in…well…the desert. It was now in the early 1990’s and we were spending some time in the Canadian Rockies. One peak that caught our eye that we thought we could knock off in a day would be Mt. Victoria. We were certainly fit enough, and had the requisite skills. Our plan was to approach from the Lake Louise side, and that is what we did. We loaded up super light alpine day packs. Minimal everything. A rope, a few screws, a couple of axes and very minimal food. We were gonna blast up that thing in record time and our pal Harry was going to take a leisurely day off and possibly hike in later in the afternoon to meet us on our way out. Our plan B was that we could always probably bivi in the hut at Abbot Pass if required. This hut is at about 3,000 metres and was built under the auspices of the great Swiss-Canadian guide Edward Feuz in 1922. Interestingly, Feuz was actually employed as a mountain guide by the Canadian Pacific Railway as a part of their programme of promoting tourism in the region. Herr Feuz climbed Mt. Victoria many times, with the last being in 1970 when he was eighty-five years old. He lived another eleven years beyond this. He had guided for over fifty years and had over seventy eight virgin summits to his credit, and over one hundred new routes. You can hardly find a page in any Rockies guidebook that doesn’t have his name on it.
Mt Victoria
The weather wasn’t the best for our attempt but it wasn’t the worst either; typical Rockies fare. We made excellent time to the plain of six glaciers. We dropped down from the top of the moraine and onto the glacier where we roped up and motored on. Our plan was to go up through the ‘Death Trap’ yep that’s what it’s called alright! Something about nasty rock-fall and avalanche hazard, and the like… we were still firing on all cylinders even though visibility was starting to lessen considerably. Well up the glacier and into the ‘trap’ proper we got shutdown in a flash. We came across a proper bergschrund that extended all the way across our route; from the West face of Victoria over to the shoulder of Lefroy. It was something you could have jumped (maybe) going downhill; but no way going up. In fact there looked as if there was evidence of people having done just that. It was deep so you couldn’t get in it to get to the uphill wall of it. Dagnabit! We wracked our brains to think of a safe and sane solution but nothing was obvious. Maybe if we had been real bad-asses we could have climbed the west face of Victoria up and over the ‘schrund at its end. But alas we were not.
The bergschrund
So with some of the usual grousing we turned away and plodded back downhill. Before long we found ourselves again on the trail and shortly thereafter at the site of another interesting Canadian Rockies tradition… the ‘Teahouse’ This particular one is called very appropriately ‘The Plain of the Six Glaciers Teahouse’ and that is exactly where it is. It is a great structure that was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1924. Apparently as a rest stop for people on their way to the Abbot hut. The idea for the teahouse was suggested by none other than our old friend Edward Feuz. It was constructed for the princely sum of $2,500, and was actually run by the Feuz family at the time. The CPR kept the property until 1960 when it turned it over to private interests.
Anyway back to the 90’s… We get to the teahouse and go get a table on the lovely veranda. A young server comes to see if we would like to order anything from the menu. Well of course we would. The only catch being that we don’t have two coins to rub together. Even if we were foolish enough to pack the ‘ten essentials’ I don’t recall money being one of them. I offered to trade a wonderful story with the young lady for a cup of tea; but she politely declined (probably had heard about my story telling prowess). So there we were penniless so to speak, but with a real hankering for some tea and a bite to eat. The funny thing is, is if the establishment had not been there, we would have just carried on down the trail and back to the car like always.
Take you a glass of water, make it against the law. See how good the water taste when you can’t have it at all
– John Fogerty
But all was not lost you see, because the good old DM had a plan. Besides his many attributes as a great climber and backcountry man, DM had another superpower… he could sell iceboxes to Inuit’s. There was a trickle of tourist hikers that were making their way up to the area for a pleasant days outing. He said all we had to do was to wait a bit until the ‘right’ person showed up. I didn’t want to use the word ‘mark’ because that sounds too nefarious. So that’s exactly what we did… we waited. After a short time a couple showed up and sat down a few tables over and ordered some grub. After an appropriate time, DM saunters over and idly strikes up a conversation with them. He explains our situation of how the daring and dashing duo (us) started up this climb in the wee hours when this couple was still fast asleep dreaming of the Belgian waffles they would be breakfasting on. After many hours of toil, hardship, and danger in the notorious Death Trap, in inclement weather we had to abandon our attempt due to the deadly crevasse that was blocking our way. Dejected, haggard and beaten we staggered back to this very establishment to obtain some much needed sustenance. He also explained that when not actually climbing we were indeed well respected and contributing members of society and had jobs that paid real folding money, of which we had in abundance; just not on our person at this time, as we only had the barest essentials needed to climb. So, his ‘proposal’ to this couple was; that if they could see fit to lend us the money to buy a cup of tea we would at their convenience hike back to Lake Louise with them, retrieve funds from our car and pay them back in full for their kind generosity.
At the teahouse
Well as it turns out they did not want any part of that…
What they wanted, was to buy us our tea AND scones as their treat and didn’t want to hear any talk about us paying them back at all. So we proceeded to enjoy some pots of tea and a bite to eat while we looked out to Mt Victoria enshrouded in the clouds. Eventually the day wore on and we made our way back down the trail and met Harry.
Either they truly felt sorry for us and wanted to do the charitable thing; or they didn’t like the idea of two slightly unkempt and wild looking ruffians carrying ice axes following them back down the trail.
Good story, Brian. I really enjoyed reading about our little jaunt that day, I had forgotten many of the details. Loved the photos, especially the bergshrund. One detail I do remember was that on our return, it was pissing down rain, so that by the time we reached the Tea House, we were soaked to the arse. We proceeded to lay our sopping wet gear out on all the railings by the tables to dry, much to the annoyance of the staff.