“I’ve found a spot. It’s a bit tricky, but we don’t have any other options. We will have to cross a six-inch-wide ice bridge. A couple of steps farther and then we jump up – I know it is a blind jump, but trust me – onto an ice ledge where I have cut a foothold. From there, you will see the rock ledge below, and that is where we will spend the night.”
By 10:30 all eight of them were on the rock ledge. As she inched the thirty-five-kilogram pack off her shoulders and then sank to her knees on the stony ground, Phyl let out a sigh. “Oh,” she murmured and turned over so she sat leaning up against her pack. “Who would have thought that it would feel so wonderful just to stop moving forward!” Don joined her. “What we need now is some food. Do you realize that it is almost twenty-four hours since we ate breakfast?”
“Yes,” Phyl replied. “Eating was the last thing I thought of, although I did manage a small handful of iron rations just before that final push to the top. Those raisins and nuts gave me something to chew on, although I confess I don’t actually remember eating them, my mind was so intent on the climb. It’s amazing what the human body can do.” And then she added, “I carried a treat with me today for us to celebrate our climb.” She opened the canvas flap on one side of her pack and pulled out a bundle.
“Oh, I might have known it,” laughed Don, pointing and calling to Conrad and the others. “Look what Phyl smuggled up to the summit of Robson.” With a smile of glee, Phyl held up her treasure. It was a small can of pineapple. “There is enough for everyone to share,” she said. “It’s a special treat to go with the rest of our food.” Everyone cheered. Now that they had stopped, the climbers began to relax. Hands dug into packs to bring out small stashes of food, and they all shared.
They were at an elevation of 3200 metres above sea level. Clouds hung low all around them on the glacier and on the shoulders and cliffs of the mountain. The night grew bitter and the cool glacier breeze insured that no one could keep very warm at all, but they were thankful it neither rained nor snowed. They huddled together and tried to sleep. Sleep came only in snatches because the mountain noises and their precarious position ensured they could never fully relax. Rolling echoes reverberated as falling ice crashed down from the glacier walls and loose snowbanks shifted in the night winds.
At 3:30 a.m., Kain roused them all. It was still dark, but dawn was quickly approaching. The climbers groaned in agony and pulled their cold, stiffened limbs into action. They felt clumsy at first as they reacquainted their legs with movement, but soon they adjusted. As the light increased, climbing became easier. An hour and a half later the group approached high-camp at the timberline on the southwest face. The guide let out one of his famous greetings, a loud yodel, to announce their arrival.
Herbert Newcombe, who was the cook stationed at the high-camp, had soup, toast, and tea ready for them. High-camp was only a transition. Its provisions were slim and consisted of the basics – Herbert, three tents, and a stove, cooking utensils, and bedding. But this morning the camp was a busy place. The next group had arrived and were awaiting their turn to climb with Conrad Kain and to try for the summit of Mount Robson. The Mundays and their climbing partners could not rest here, so they said goodbye and thank you to Kain, who would remain at this camp to sleep before venturing up the mountain again tomorrow.
At 7 a.m. they continued their descent along the extremely steep route over bare rocks. In places, ropes had been permanently fixed into the rocks to assist climbers. Down they clambered and emerged at Lake Kinney Camp (elevation 2969 metres). Here they enjoyed a good, long second breakfast. But they could not rest yet. They were still on the mountain.
The Mundays tramped down the long and dusty trail to the Alpine Club of Canada’s main-camp in Robson Pass some twenty-five kilometres distant. The weather was dry and hot, and the trail seemed endless. Phyl encouraged herself to keep going. They had been through all the dangerous parts, had surmounted obstacles she had never encountered in previous mountain climbs, and had attained their goal – a successful ascent of the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains. This last bit, though, seemed to stretch on forever. The heat from the sun threatened to overpower their exhausted bodies, a tremendous change from the freezing temperatures higher up. On they trudged, and about 2 p.m. they arrived at the main-camp with its dozens of tents, the large cooking and mess tents and the community firepits nestled amid the trees. With the exception of the five hours of so-called “rest” on the rocks the night before, the party had been on the go for almost thirty-five hours, since 3:30 a.m. the previous day.
At last they could stop. Friends helped them take off packs. Word of their return spread quickly, and the campers gathered to congratulate and pepper them with questions. The climbers’ throats were parched and swollen. Rest was what they required, and then, slowly, tea and soup would work wonders. As they eased their tired bodies into their canvas tent and onto their eiderdown sleeping bags, Phyl whispered to Don. “Can you think of a better life? This is the best!”
Climbing Robson was the first time Phyl or Don had climbed with professional mountain guides, and it was also the first time they had been on different rope parties. The difficulties they had encountered on the climb had resulted from others’ errors in judgment. Phyl and Don were convinced that these situations would not have occurred if they had been climbing together on the same rope and with hand-picked companions they could trust. They decided that they would never again be separated. The more they climbed, the more they melded completely as a team, each so aware of the other’s position and intuitive to every move. It was a combination that couldn’t be beaten.
For some time after moving into the Alpine Lodge, Phyl persevered as a Guide Captain although she had to travel for two hours down Grouse Mountain (and then back up again) to attend the Company meetings. She stopped each way at the Kings Road house to change her clothes. It was a long trip and a big commitment. She travelled down at dusk and returned in the dark, following the trail through the forest with just the light of her “bug,” a candle pushed up a hole in the side of a jam tin. This was her only trail light. An owl talked to her each time she passed a particular spot on the trail. Every time he called, Phyl would answer, he would reply, and she would answer again. Each trip this went on until she was safely out of the woods and on to the plateau. Don always had a lamp lit in the cabin window to guide her for the last part of the trip.
Was it lonely? Was she frightened? Perhaps, but she managed for as long as she was able. Finally, though, it was just too much, and Phyl requested a leave of absence from her position as Captain. With the exception of seven weeks in the spring of 1921 after the birth of Edith, this was her first absence since starting the Company in 1910.
It hurt Phyl to leave the girls and to lose the comradeship. Up on Grouse Mountain, the isolation of her situation struck her in a way she had not considered before. “There must be girls out there spread out on the coast in isolated spots who are also unable to travel and join up with other girls. Yes, think of it, all the small logging camps, the fishing communities, and the mining towns. Surely Guides can come to them, and like them I can be linked also!”
Within months of her request for a leave of absence, Phyl became convinced that she could continue Guiding while on Grouse Mountain. But to do so she must form a new and completely separate Company of girls, not in Vancouver but in isolated circumstances, girls who would otherwise have to give up Guiding, or never know Guiding. In March 1924 Phyl organized and registered the 1st Company of Lone Guides. She registered it initially as part of North Vancouver and then, as it began to serve a much wider base, as a provincial Company.
The cabin on Grouse Mountain became, at 1270 metres elevation, the highest