Phyl and Don began branching out. They were now members of the Alpine Club of Canada (ACC) and through this organization broadened their web of social contacts with other climbers. Unlike the locally based BCMC, the ACC membership reflected a geographically disparate group whose common interest in mountain climbing brought them physically together each year at club camps held in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Before long the Mundays were not only attending the annual camps but had attained their Climbing Badges for special types of climbs. Phyl later went on to earn the Silver Rope Award, signifying her as a qualified leader on climbs chiefly in snow and ice. Later, with Don, she also edited the Alpine Journal for several years and acted on the executive.
Somehow she and Don managed to balance activities with both organizations until 1930 when they broke with the BCMC, because they found it impossible to contribute fairly in two clubs at once. They were never just joiners, but busy and active club participants. For the Mundays, the ACC held the most promise for serious and committed climbers who wished to explore beyond the immediate vicinity of the Lower Mainland and Vancouver area.
Phyl was always conscious of pulling her own weight. As she was often the only woman on the more daring climbs or the more isolated ones, it was important to her that she not be a burden to anyone. She knew that for many men, the mention of a woman climbing with them would be met with grumbling and resentment. Just before the famous Mount Robson climb in 1924, Phyl saw, to her horror, one of the male climbers open the pack of a female companion and take some of the supplies out and place them in his own pack. This deliberate and surreptitious act conveyed to Phyl so clearly the attitude of many male climbers who had little confidence in the ability of their female companions to carry a fair load. Perhaps the man thought he was being kind by lightening the load of another and thus assuming a greater load for himself, but to Phyl this was unacceptable. She carefully guarded her own pack and continued her resolve to prove her abilities. Consequently she outdid herself over and over, and much to the amazement of the men, often carried (without grumbling) a pack much heavier than their own. Phyl was “a strong woman, as strong as any man,” asserted renowned Rocky Mountain guide Edward Feuz Junior.
At Alpine Lodge – home to the Mundays for three years – Phyl served lunches and drinks to weary hikers,
and in the winter, Don rented toboggans. Don and Edith pose with Phyl’s sister Betty,
her mother Beatrice; and (possibly) her brother Richard, ca 1925.
8
Living in the Mountains
Weekends were for hiking and climbing. Don’s cabin on Dam Mountain served as a weekend retreat, but it wasn’t long until they contrived to live in the mountains. In the summer of 1923 local promoters who had purchased much of Grouse Mountain convinced Don and Phyl to partner in a venture to develop and open up Grouse for recreational use. In July, Don reported in the BCMC newsletter that beginning in August, a new trail up Grouse would be completed by “the interests who intend to place a hotel on the plateau.” This new route, which Don cut himself, began at the Lonsdale streetcar terminus, headed east to St. George Avenue, past a sawdust pile left over from an abandoned mill, along an old skid road up the open west slopes of Dome Mountain, to the trees at the edge of Mosquito Creek at 935 metres elevation. From here the new trail angled westward toward the end of the existing trail on the bare rocks overlooking the city and continued up above the east bank to the creek. It then zigzagged up the side of Grouse to the plateau. The trail boasted an easy gradient suitable for all foot traffic and for pack or saddle horses, the latter available for rent at trail-head from Don Munday. Don was also in charge of building a cabin, the first phase of the development before a chalet-style hotel was to be constructed. For this work, Don was to be paid five dollars a day.
To be more accessible to the mountain, Don and Phyl moved from South Vancouver to North Vancouver, at 162 King’s Road West. It wasn’t long until they realized the days could be more productive if they just stayed up on the mountain during the heavy, tiring days of building the log cabin on the edge of the bluff of Grouse Plateau. They lived beside Grouse Lake in a large canvas tent complete with cook stove. The stovepipe angled up through a hole in the canvas roof. The tent bore a wooden sign that read Alpine Lodge, the name of the as yet unfinished cabin. From this tent Phyl ran a refreshment stand and served sandwiches and cool drinks to hikers.
Many weeks went by as Don toiled. When the snow came, complications arose, not the least of which was living in a tent with baby Edith. The heavy snowfalls in the night meant that the Mundays had to set their alarm clock to wake them every hour, so they could get up and scrape the snow off the tent roof to prevent the whole thing from collapsing in. One night, Phyl woke with a start and put her hand up. The tent was practically right down on top of them! Hurriedly they put a wooden apple box over the sleeping Edith, in hope that it would give her air if the tent came down. With great care they squeezed out of the door and gently took the snow off in such a fashion that they did not leave the tent roof unevenly weighted.
Phyl wrote an account of their experience for the Vancouver Province newspaper. “Don spent every daylight hour working on a substantial log cabin, while I sawed and chopped firewood, cooked the meals, took care of my baby, scraped snow off the tent (every hour) and helped Don between whiles. The middle of December came with the weather getting worse and the snow deeper, so we knew we must soon move under a solid roof, or be buried under the wreckage of our tent. Even with two friends to help us, the situation was fast becoming desperate unless the weather relented. Part of the cabin was roofed but lacked floor and windows, and the walls were still unchinked. We watched the sky anxiously… by night the mountaintop was enveloped in a raging blizzard. The heavily iced edges of the fly whipped and crashed against the roof of the tent till it seemed the canvas could stand the strain no longer… We worked all that night. The usual five minutes walk to the cabin now took half an hour or more with fifty-pound bundles of floor boards on our backs… The only light was a feeble electric torch… One man laid flooring and one packed it from the tent, while I alternatively helped with both jobs. The other man worked without rest shovelling snow from the tent where my baby was peacefully sleeping through it all.” By dawn enough flooring had been laid to bring in their supplies and furniture. They nailed the frozen canvas fly from their tent over the unwalled section of the cabin and then used the cabin door as a sled for the first load.
“Edith thought that the wonderful world of snow must have been made purely for her own pleasure. She thoroughly enjoyed trip after trip from tent to cabin. Her joy relieved the strain on us, for we were all decidedly tired and the trips had to be made. By ten o’clock that night all the important things such as the stove, winter food supply, bedding, clothes and household equipment were safe under a solid roof.”
That night, ten days before Christmas 1923, the family moved in to the unfinished three-bedroom cabin. Phyl and Don were thankful to be under a safe and strong roof. But it was cold. The ceiling and inside of the logs were completely white with driven snow and frost, and the spaces between the logs had become chinked with snow. Phyl draped large canvas tarps over all their possessions, and then they lit fires in the big stone fireplace in the main room and the cast-iron stove in the kitchen. As the warmth of the fires circulated, everything dripped. The dripping lasted a long time, and as the spaces between the logs thawed, Phyl chinked them with sacking. They did not lack for water inside for many days until all the snow was thawed and had evaporated.
During the few remaining days before Christmas, Phyl managed to steal some time away from her family. She went down the mountain to the house on Kings Road, changed from her mountain gear, and travelled into Vancouver to shop for Christmas. Laden with parcels, she climbed back up to the cabin. Don cut down a balsam fir for their very first mountain Christmas tree, and they decorated