For the Mundays, 1924 was a notable year, not the least because of their abode high above the city. “We were now out on the very edge of the world, 3000 feet sheer above the floor of Capilano Valley, out where you felt you could look out and face the world.” Alpine Lodge served not just as their home, but as a business offering “Meals, Refreshments etc. at all hours. Special prices for members of the B.C. Mountaineering Club and the Alpine Club of Canada.” A sign outside the front door listed “hot drinks, coffee 15 cents, soup 20 cents, sandwiches 20 cents, meals 1 dollar.” Phyl worked hard at this venture, but during the winter months, with no source of water, she was kept constantly busy melting snow into water to cook the meals and for drinking and to clean dishes afterward. The cabin had no electricity. The wood stove kept it heated, and oil lamps provided light at night. Everything was done by hand, and Phyl and Don were the only hands available. With a young child underfoot, operating the Alpine Lodge was a challenge.
It was in 1924 that Phyl achieved what no woman had done before her: she ascended the summit of Mount Robson, highest point in the Rocky Mountains. Fifty years later Phyl would remember the beautiful windless day and the clear unending sea of mountain peaks beneath her feet. “Its something I shall never forget if I live to be a hundred.”
But it wasn’t just the view from the summit that Phyl remembered. Robson had a reputation for being unpredictable and dangerous. The Mundays’ climb was fraught with danger. Two harrowing incidents on their ascent caused them to fall behind schedule and put their lives at risk. In the first situation one of the guides, Joe Saladana, fell and dropped his ice axe down a crevasse. It was a costly error. To go onwards without his ice axe was too dangerous. Ice axes, as all the party knew, were essential on such a climb; they were used not just for cutting steps, but as support on slippery slopes and as an anchor for dangerous sections. It was risky to proceed without it and equally risky to rescue it.
The second incident occurred when Annette Buck, the other woman in the party, disregarded orders – with consequences that were almost fatal. She was on Phyl’s rope in the rear position. In front of Buck was another climber, then Phyl, with guide Conrad Kain in the lead. Kain instructed them to move only one at a time and to drag themselves prone across a fragile ice bridge. Ignoring these instructions, Buck moved carelessly and quickly. The bridge shattered and she dropped into the crevasse, jerking the unprepared man above her from his footholds. He too fell. Don and his companions on the second rope watched helplessly while Phyl braced herself to hold the double weight and Conrad Kain frantically snatched in the slack. Kain knew he could not possibly check the three if they fell together any distance. But Phyl held them until the climbers regained their footholds and Kain took in all the rope.
As a result of these incidents the climbers were in danger of running out of daylight. When they finally reached the summit, Phyl and her rope companions only had a few minutes in which to savour their accomplishment before Kain lead them down and off the cornice to allow the second rope party (which included Don) to have their own brief moments at the top.
Phyl descended the steep and brittle mountain face. The climbers were single-file, the rope joining them for safety. Every movement was like hugging the edge of a swords blade, and a single misjudged step could put a companion in jeopardy. They passed the slight widening where the next four in their party awaited their return.
Now Don and the others would ascend. Phyl beamed at Don, who grinned back at her, and then she carried on with the other three climbers on her rope. On they trekked, sliding across the big, broken glacier, then traversing the edges of the crevasses – those great gaping cracks in the glacier that were too wide to jump across and often as deep as the glacier itself. Reckoning that the path of their ascent could also guide their descent, the climbing party intended to trace their earlier tracks. But soon they found it impossible. While they were higher up on Mount Robson, a snow avalanche – a constant phenomenon at these altitudes – had rolled across the mountain face below and had obliterated any trace of their footprints. Forced now to make their own way, they knew the descent would take more time than they had anticipated.
Following as best they could the landmarks remembered from the afternoon, the four continued on. They arrived at the ice wall – the edge of the glacier. On the ascent, Kain had spent considerable time and energy cutting steps into the wall so the party could climb up onto the glacier and continue towards the summit. To do this he first made a handhold in the ice and then, while holding fast, he swung his ice axe with the other hand, slashed at the surface to make a step, then used that step to stand on. He then made another hand hold, pulled himself up, and slashed away at the ice to make the next step. It was backbreaking and painfully slow work, but there was no alternative. The steps he fashioned in a zigzag as this pattern was safer than a straight vertical climb. Ropes linking each climber to the other provided some measure of safety on the ascent. The same would be true as they used the steps for their descent.
But without the benefit of the tracks of their ascent, finding the steps would be a challenge. As she looked around, matching landmarks to memory, Phyl walked a little off in one direction. This feels like it. Only one way to find out, she thought. “Conrad, let me check this place. It fits with my remembrance.” The other two came closer and they prepared to take the weight of Phyl’s body with the rope. “All right,” said the Austrian, as he dug his ice axe into the glacier. If she was wrong, they would have a blind search along the ice wall until they found it, and that would take up more of the precious daylight.
“This is it, I’m sure, Conrad. If you can support me with the rope, I’ll see.” Phyl turned with a twist and lowered herself slowly over the edge to feel for the first foothold. Linked by rope to their guide – who was now firmly planted to anchor the rope and prepared to support her weight – she suspended her lower half over the glacier’s edge, tentatively at first, feeling a bit like a spider floating out on its silken thread, wavering on the edge of nothingness. Then she connected.
“There it is.” The first step found. It was not such an easy task, blindly groping for the footholds at the glacier-edge, but she recalled their pattern and regularity and was soon down. The others followed, including Don’s party, who had finally caught up to Phyl’s. They were now off the upper glacier and on the moraine alongside. Here it was steep going but the ropes were not necessary, so they unroped and started down the rocks, carefully springing from one to the other, in hope that they could make quicker time on solid land. As the dusk settled in, it became slow work and not easy to keep the group together. Smoke from a brush fire somewhere far below on the mountain slopes drifted up to them in the twilight. The acrid smoke stung their eyes and complicated the visibility. Smoke was not what they needed. It was hard enough to see in the twilight. Off to the west, a gathering thunderstorm further obscured their vision. Distant thunder rumbled. Darkness approached rapidly.
“It’s just too hard to see on the rocks in this light.” Conrad declared as he held up his hands to signal a halt. I agree, thought Phyl. If one person twists an ankle or even worse, breaks a leg, the group will be in jeopardy. “We will have to remount the ice and hope that once out of the glacier shadow, we will be able to take advantage of all the remaining light.”
While Phyl, Don, and the others reharnessed their ropes, Kain went on ahead. Once more he cut steps into the glacier edge. Soon he was back, and they all climbed up onto the lower glacier. Because the dwindling light reflected off the snow and ice, travelling on top of this glacier proved less difficult than fumbling around on the dark rocks. Here they could see the way forward. On they continued, walking as fast as they safely could.
The time was just after 10 p.m. Five hours since Phyl stood on the summit and over nineteen hours since they began the climb from high-camp, and they were still far up the mountain. It was now obvious there was no way they would make it back to high-camp this night.
Now, only part way in their descent, they must stop to rest, but they could only do so