The weather was cold, but the cabin had a chimney, and soon a big fire kept the chill out. While Vancouver experienced a week of thick fog and drizzle, above the clouds the Mundays enjoyed clear, bright, glorious February weather. From the cabin they climbed somewhere different every day.
Building the cabin had been Don’s own special therapy, but it made a romantic story at the time of his marriage and caught the imagination of the local press. Single-handedly he blazed a trail, then “every weekend and on holidays laboriously, and with the patience of an ant, stick by stick, stone by stone, piece of furniture by piece, he carried the makings and furnishings of a little hut up the steep mountainside to a cunningly concealed broad ledge with a wonderful outlook on the sea and land. Then he built a comfortable mountain retreat, thinking of the day when he would spend his honeymoon there.”
In February 1920, a few weeks after their wedding, Phyl and Don decided to go to the Rockies for a mountaineering challenge. They had heard so much about these mountains from friends in the BCMC and felt confident in their abilities to climb farther afield. They loaded their supplies on to the Canadian National Railway car and travelled across the province to Mount Robson Provincial Park. Arranging for pack horses proved impossible so they carried their thirty-kilogram packs from the train station by trail to Berg Lake, where they camped. One might have thought that entering a new territory such as this in mid-winter without guides and relying only upon maps and Don’s compass would be daunting. For the Mundays it was adventure. While ascending Lynx Mountain (elevation 3170 metres), they discovered that even the surefooted mountain goat could make a fatal misstep as they watched a young goat fall while climbing a cliff above them. Despite this sad event, the frequent glimpses of wildlife in this park made the biggest impact on their remembrances and were an important turning point in their views about game hunting. The camera would remain the Mundays’ only means of hunting game and their only trophies would be photographic ones.
Phyl and Don Munday also climbed Resplendent Mountain (elevation 3426 metres), and not merely via the route established by legendary guide Conrad Kain in 1911. They pioneered a new route. A sudden weather change forced them to race for their lives to a rock rib when snow on an ice slope began avalanching. Lynx and Resplendent exceeded the elevations of any of the coastal mountains they had yet encountered, and these ascents gave them a taste for something more than what they were used to. Because of their elevations, both mountains presented more ice climbing than rock. Phyl liked climbing on snow and ice, because, as she put it, they are always changing. Rocks were fixed things, so rock scaling did not interest her. But the ever-changing conditions of snow and ice on high mountains created an unstable, evolving landscape and presented a mental challenge to find the best route as well as a physical challenge to withstand the conditions of cold, wind, and the dangerous natural obstacles created by glaciers and avalanches.
Phyl learned a tremendous amount on this 1920 trip to the Rockies. She now had firsthand knowledge of a new mountain paradise and wanted to become involved with the people who climbed there. Applying for membership in the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) seemed the best way to do so, and together she and Don schemed to facilitate a trip to one of the fabled ACC summer camps in the Rockies.
She had also had the opportunity to see Don in action with his new boots. For years climbers wore leather boots with edge nails. Edge nails – a special type of steel nail with a long spike on it – were ordered in bulk, and then each climber applied them to the soles of the hiking boots by pushing them through the sole. The nails were then clipped over so that the two portions of the edge nail were just on the counter of the boot. Edge nails on the boot soles acted a bit like crampons, but unlike crampons, which were worn using bindings to fit them directly over the boots, these nails became part of the actual boot sole. Edge nails were particularly good on logs and slippery surfaces, but on the ice, they slipped.
Although Don had been wearing his new tricouni nails for a year, Phyl had remained unconvinced of their advantages. Tricounis were not easy to apply, and it was very important that they be pushed directly through the leather and not through pre-drilled holes. The prongs on the nails were so shaped that they spread when driven in and thus locked the nail securely. Only in the Rockies on the glaciers did tricounis really show an advantage. They did not slip on ice as did edge nails and could be worn equally well on rock. During this trip to Mount Robson Provincial Park Phyl came to believe that Don’s boots gave him a big advantage, and she was finally convinced of the merits of tricouni nails. She decided then that she should also switch over, a decision she never regretted.
When Phyl married Don, she did what women of her age and time did, ceased to work and became a housewife. To keep herself occupied she threw herself into Guiding. The Company was now so large and doing so well that Phyl thought she should organize a ladies’ committee to introduce other women, especially mothers of Guide-age girls, to the Guiding movement in a formal way by providing information and training as a means to encourage the creation of more companies. Dominion Headquarters appointed Mrs. TP. Lake to be the very first commissioner for the Vancouver District. Her presence gave structure to the committee, which later came to be called the officers’ council. Phyl was appointed Staff Captain for the district, and a secretary and treasurer were also named. The Guide Company split into two companies of reasonable size, each with its own leader. At the same time Phyl created the 1st Vancouver Brownie Pack, and she herself became their Brown Owl. Brownies, for girls aged seven td ten, was an offshoot of Girl Guides, introduced by Agnes Baden-Powell after much demand for a Guide-like organization suitable for younger girls. Brownies fed naturally into Guides, as did Guides into Rangers. Thus a girl could stay in the movement as she matured.
In the summer following her marriage, Phyl discovered that she would soon have her “own little Brownie.” She was pregnant. As an expectant mother she now had a new role for which social conventions of the times remained quite rigid. Physical activity was discouraged. The doctor prescribed moderate exercise such as gentle walking, but he certainly could not endorse either the vigorous “walking” associated with mountain climbing or the strain of backpacking, which he viewed as potentially harmful to the unborn child and the mother-to-be. I’m fine until the pregnancy shows, thought Phyl. Don and I will just continue as usual, perhaps with a little accommodation, we’ll stick a little closer to home, until I can’t hide my condition.
Phyl continued on with the Guides until just a short time before the birth of her child. She applied for and was granted a seven-week leave of absence from Guiding, and during this leave, gave birth to Edith on 26 March 1921. Within a very short time, Phyl was up and about, little affected physically by the nine months of pregnancy and the labour and delivery of her child. In typical Phyl fashion, she quickly incorporated Edith into her outdoors adventures. The new baby did not deter Phyl and Don from hiking and climbing for long. When she was eight weeks old they began taking Edith to the cabin on weekends, and at eleven weeks Edith travelled up Crown Mountain (elevation 1503 metres) in a cotton sling around her Daddy’s shoulder while Don steadied her head with his arm.
The Vancouver Province featured a large article complete with photos that showed the family on the summit of Crown Mountain. The Mundays and their new baby became celebrities. Vancouverites were captivated by the activities of this novel couple, who projected such a matter-of-fact outlook as they carried on as usual, seemingly little encumbered by the addition of an infant.
One day a few months after Edith’s birth and after their climb up Crown Mountain, Phyl visited her mother and explained Don’s