North America, Canada, British Columbia, Northern Selkirks

Publication Year: 1958.

Northern Selkirks. The Harvard Mountaineering Club 1957 Camp was held during the first three weeks of August in the Edfalls, Adamant, and Sir Sandford groups in the northern Selkirks. Access was by way of Swan Creek. With the assistance of airdrops on Gothics Névé and Sir Sandford Glacier, we spent two weeks at the usual Fairy Meadow campsite and one week in the upper Palmer Creek valley within striking distance of Mount Sir Sandford (11,580 feet). Collectively the 19 members made 39 ascents of 25 different peaks in the area, despite generally unsettled weather which eliminated all climbs of technical rock work over 9500 feet. Included were the first ascent of an unnamed 10,250-foot snow peak between Sir Sandford and Palmer by John Noxon, Gordon Benner, and John Humphreys ; the ascent of Sir Sandford by the Michael route by 13 men ; and the first ascent of the north ridge of Mount Sentinel by Hugh Tanton and Marco Einaudi. The last, a long, pinnacled ridge cut by two large notches, which involved rappels and several pitches of class-5 rock climbing, took ten hours to complete from Fairy Meadow. (The easy route takes three). A strong attempt on the unclimbed east ridge of Sir Sandford was turned back by treacherous snow on crumbling rock at about 10,500 feet, exactly where another H.M.C. party had retreated four years previously.

John S. Humphreys