BURSTIn British Columbia’s Purcell Mountains, the granite spires now known as the Bugaboos were originally called the Nunataks. Surveyors recorded the country in the late 19th century, and mining brought prospectors into the area during a small gold rush around Bugaboo Falls in the 1890s.
Claims were staked, but the deposits proved disappointing, consisting largely of pyrite and galena. The word “bugaboo” was reportedly used by prospectors for a dead-end or unproductive prospect, and the name became attached to the surrounding area. Exactly who first applied it, however, remains unclear: the surviving historical record does not identify a particular prospector or provide a definitive first written use.
What is clear is that the name was already associated with Bugaboo Creek and the surrounding area before Conrad Kain’s first climbs. Kain first entered the region in 1910 with surveyor A.O. Wheeler and mountaineer T.G. Longstaff. The great granite towers were still essentially unnamed from a climber’s perspective and were referred to as the Nunataks. Kain returned in 1916 as part of an expedition led by Albert MacCarthy with their objectives including the major peaks of the group. At that time, what became Bugaboo Spire, was simply “No. 3 Peak.”
On Aug. 29, 1916, Kain, MacCarthy and John Vincent reached the summit of No. 3 Peak. Near the top, they encountered a steep rock tower (a gendarme) blocking the ridge. It presented the hardest section of the climb, and Kain spent roughly two hours working out how to get past it. Kain was not the first climber to ever reach it, however, as Edward Feuz had once tried to climb past the gendarme, only to be turned around by bad weather.
MacCarthy recorded their expedition the following year in the 1917 Canadian Alpine Journal, giving us a close-to-the-climb account. Looking at the obstacle, the climbers described it as a “veritable bugaboo.” MacCarthy wrote that the encounter immediately suggested the appropriateness of calling the peak Bugaboo.
Kain was climbing with nailed boots and hemp rope, without the modern protection, harnesses and specialized equipment that make difficult granite climbing possible today. The gendarme offered little margin for error. Once Kain found his way across it, the party continued to the summit. About Kain’s lead past the gendarme, MacCarthy wrote in his story here:
“Half an hour we waited while Conrad’s body disappeared and reappeared at the edge; after each disappearance we expected to hear a shout that we could prepare to follow, but each time Conrad’s fingers would slowly creep into sight and then he would appear again to survey the situation and make a fresh start.
“The whole trouble, he explained, was due to the lack of any sort of hold or footing on the steep, smooth face for a distance of six feet to a crack beyond, and as it was impossible to throw the rope over anything to give him support and the ice axe had proven unavailing, he was forced to depend entirely upon himself with no certainty as to what position he might find himself in when once in the crack.
“It was evident from his persistent efforts that he was determined to make it, and all we could do was to tend the useless rope, giving him slack and pulling it in again when he came back into view. Just how he finally got into the crack is a mystery to us but, after a dozen reappearances, he smiled and said, ‘I’ll make it, and soon began to call for rope, until about sixty feet had run out and he called from the top of the ridge above the gendarme.”
Kain would later regard Bugaboo Spire as his hardest Canadian ascent, even though he had already made the first ascent of Mount Robson in 1913. He went on to make more than 60 first ascents and new routes in western Canada, becoming one of the most important figures in the early history of Canadian mountaineering. Learn more about Kain and other famed Canadian mountain guides in the film below.
The names of the Bugaboos continued to evolve after the 1916 expedition, as the peaks that had been numbered or described by position acquired names as later climbers mapped and documented the range. Many of the names now familiar to climbers were formalized later.
Canadian Mountain Guiding Film
The Guiding Spirit – 100 Years of Mountain Guiding in Canada (1997) was a finalist at the Banff Mountain Film Festival. It profiles Diny Harrison, Edmund Petrig, Chic Scott, Peter Sarbach, Christian Haessler, Rudolph Aemmer, Conrad Kain (7:33), Hans Gmoser, Leo Grillmair, Bruno Engler, Edward Fuez, Tim Auger, Mark Ledwidge, Walter Perrin.
The post How the Bugaboos Got Their Name and the Climb that Made History appeared first on Gripped Magazine.