North America, Canada, British Columbia, Purcell Range

Publication Year: 1960.

Purcell Range. The Harvard Mountaineering Club held its summer climbing camp from August 8 to 28 in the Purcell Range of British Columbia. Ten climbers traversed from the Vermont Group to the Bugaboos, following with the exceptions outlined below the route of Robinson’s party (A.A.J., 1954, 9:1, pp. 49-65). The new fire trail leads from Summit Lake to the junction of Vowell and Vermont Creeks. From the higher of the two lakes in the "Valley of the Lakes" we crossed directly to the Duncan watershed and side-hilled several miles to the Hatteras cirque. We left the cirque between Mounts Hatteras and Krinkletop, dropped to the valley floor and followed the south fork of Hume Creek through the lushly varicolored meadows southwest of the Crystallines. Ascending the glacier to the east, we crossed a high, rotten pass south of the moraine-filled basin which drains the southwest side of Tetragon Peak and descended to the headwaters of Giegerich Creek slightly below the divide which separates the Crystallines from the Conrad Icefield. Bypassing on the south the glacial snout flowing west from the icefield, we rejoined Robinson’s route under Mount Thorington. A few of the more important ascents made on the traverse are listed below. (The names are from J. M. Thorington, A Climber’s Guide to the Interior Ranges of British Columbia.)