North America, Canada, Interior Ranges, Mount Cooper, Selkirks

Publication Year: 1963.

Mount Cooper, Selkirks. Mount Cooper (10,135 feet), the highest peak of the Southern Lakes Group of the Selkirks, lies 10 miles due west of the north end of Kootenay Lake. The Spokane Mountaineers made two exploratory trips in 1961. The chief problem seemed to be that of access, the obvious approaches via the main drainage streams being made difficult by brush as dense as that in the Cascades, and no trails. In 1961 Bill Fix and Terry Bech scouted Meadow Mountain (8362 feet), northeast of Cooper, which had a fire trail leading to extensive meadows above timber- line. It seemed feasible to cross Meadow Mountain at 7500 feet, then to descend to McKian Creek (3500 feet) and to follow the unnamed stream which drains Cooper’s largest glacier on its northeast side. In June, 1962 two parties failed to reach the peak, but the route was proven and almost 1½ miles of trail cut through the worst of the 15-foot-high vine alder. We reached an elevation of 6500 feet near the foot of the northeast glacier. On August 8 Lorna Ream, Terry Bech, Dick Hahn, Jack Steele, Ed Boulton, Gary Johnson and I drove to the end of the Meadow Mountain logging road. The next day we packed in 12 miles almost to timber- line below the glacier, traveling until 9:30 p.m. The one-day trip to the base of the mountain had been made possible only by the previous trail cutting and route finding. The climb from camp at 4200 feet to the foot of the glacier at 6700 feet was made on August 10 through brush and over glacier-scoured rock. We avoided then the main stream of ice by climbing to its right just below the rocks to 9000 feet, where the main problem of the climb, the icefall, awaited us. We started up it at noon and found the way slow and tedious. The tenuous condition of the snow-bridges made us feel that the icefall would have been impassable in two weeks. At 4:30 we crossed the last crevasse and stood at the foot of the smooth snowfield northeast of the summit block, which led to the summit without further difficulty. At 5:30 we stood in the fog on the top of Mount Cooper. A cairn was quickly erected and a rapid retreat made in the hope of passing the icefall before dark. This was done at 8 P.M. and we reached the foot of the snowfields an hour later. We now descended a lateral moraine until eleven o’clock when the first wood was found for a fire. The following morning we arrived at Base Camp and spent that day and the next returning to the cars.

William S. Boulton, Spokane Mountaineers