Chapter 3

The 1909 climb of Kinney and Phillips

"I left the mountain that fall [1908], believing that I had had my last try at it. But by the time the Spring of 1909 had come Mt. Robson had such a hold on me that I could not rest satisfied till I had had another try at it. I then made arrangements with John Yates our packer of the year before, for another trip to Mt. Robson. In May I received word that foreign parties were about to attempt Mt. Robson. Telegraphing Yates that I was starting at once and expected to meet him on the trail, I hurriedly borrowed some money, and the second of June l909, left Victoria for Edmonton to outfit an expedition of my own." [Kinney 1909]

"On Friday, June 11th," Kinney wrote in the report of his climb published in the Canadian Alpine Journal [Kinney and Phillips 1910], "with only two dollars and eighty-five cents in my pocket, but with three good horses packed with three months' provisions, I started off alone (from Edmonton) for Mt. Robson, hoping to pick up someone on the trail to share fortune with me." Even the few dollars in his pocket were not his own: "I must say," Kinney wrote Club president Arthur Wheeler, "that the little trouble I had at Calgary on going in was a little embarrassing. I had counted however on being able at least to borrow that $100 grant. It turned out that another $100 that I had counted on arriving at the Merchants Bank, Edmonton, did not get there. Fortunately I was able to get a friend to endorse my note for 3 months so I was able to get a third horse I needed. I borrowed over $400 for this trip," Kinney concluded, "but since it was successful I should be able to meet all obligations." [Alpine Club of Canada 1906-1924]

The British mountaineers who worried Kinney were Arnold L. Mumm, Geoffrey Hastings, Leopold S. Amery, and Moritz Inderbinen, Mumm's personal Swiss guide. So prestigious a group this was that the executive committee of the ACC set about raising funds "so as to have a club house in which to properly entertain the British climbing party coming out to visit us next summer" (the Banff club house was completed in time). [Alpine Club of Canada 1906-1914]. "Mumm and I knew," wrote Amery, "that that magnificent peak, Mt. Robson, the highest summit in the main chain of the Rockies, had never been climbed, though once or twice attempted, and we were anxious to have a try at it before the building of the Grand Trunk Pacific made it generally accessible. A rumour that an American party had designs on it made us all the more anxious to pull it off that year if we could." [Alpine Club of Canada 1913] (The American party was a group of prospectors whose plans did not include an ascent of Mount Robson [Washburn 1912].)

Kinney was delayed near Jasper by high water in the Athabasca River. "Never in the memory of the Indians along the Athabaska was there such a flood. Forests were swept away, and new river channels were made while scores of new mountain torrents swept great rocks thousands of feet out on the grassy meadows of the valleys." [Kinney 1909] Nevertheless, Kinney forged on, swimming and rafting the rivers while the prospectors "and even a couple of small parties of Indians" waited for the waters to subside. Twice he picked up companions who could not keep his pace, and on July 11 he reached John Moberley's, near Jasper, alone.

"The next day Donald Phillips rode into camp. On the side of his Stetson hat was the silver badge that bore the legend of The Guide Association of Ontario. At twenty-five years of age, that blue-eyed, curly headed clean-lived Canadian entered that little frontier scene, perfectly fit for the undertaking I had in hand. We were soon exchanging confidences." [Kinney 1909] Phillips had come to Jasper from Ontario earlier that year to start an outfitting and guiding business. [Taylor 1984] "The next day we swam our horses across the Athabaska, and hit the trail for Mt. Robson."

Following the Moose River, they arrived at the foot of Mount Robson 14 days later. Twenty days of bad weather confined the climbers below 11,000 feet, although they made three grueling attempts, spending the night at "Camp Higher Up" at 10,000 feet on the west shoulder of Mount Robson. Their provisions were nearly depleted (Kinney had bent the barrel of his rifle fording a river) when a clear day dawned. That evening they bivouaced at 10,500 feet. At sunrise the next morning, August 13, "we faced the cold wind and stormed the cliffs. From the eleven thousand foot line, snow covered everything, but on that early frosty morning it was in the finest of climbing condition. We could stick our toes into it and walk right up."

The dense clouds of mist soon covered our hair and clothes with a frozen mass of ice. As we saw that the clouds did not bring the dreaded snow we angled off toward the South and headed for the highest point of the peak, of which we caught glimpses now and then.

The last few hundred feet of the peak were the hardest of all. The snow was too dry and frosty to hold well. Cliffs of rock, with great over-hanging bunches of snow cornice, were numerous and most difficult to scale,

All the time we spent at Mt. Robson, the winds were west or southerly, and near the peak we found that those prevailing winds had driven the snow against the rocks, and that great over-hanging masses of most fantastic crystalline formation had built right out against the wind. These were so dry and powdery that it was very hard to get along. Twice we had to climb almost vertical couloirs.

At the very peak we found its razor edge ridge and needle point fringed with a battlement of these snow masses that were almost impossible to climb.

Finally, floundering through those treacherous masses, we stood at last on the very summit of Mt. Robson. I was astonished to find myself looking into a gulf right before me. Telling Phillips to anchor himself well, for he was still below me, I struck the edge of the snow with the staff of my ice axe, and it cut through to my very feet. Through that little gap that I made in the cornice, I was looking down a sheer wall of precipice that reached to the glacier at the foot of Berg Lake, thousands of feet below.

We were nearly frozen, and had to get down out of the wind. The return trip was far more difficult and dangerous than the climbing up. We worked our way over the snow-corniced ledges, and through the snows of the upper peak. Then a few hundred feet below we made a cache of our records, and the Canadian flag, kindly donated by Mrs. Dr. Anderson, of Calgary, in a natural cairn.

The ascent had taken five hours; the descent to 10,500 feet another seven. They hit the trail the next day. "Our trip to Mt. Robson had been a strenuous one, for there was something doing all the time. I visited old discoveries and made new ones. Of the twenty-three big climbs, four of them were two-day climbs, during which we spent over ninety hours above snow-line, and slept for four nights on the cold bleak cliffs of his upper slopes. And we captured five virgin peaks. "

The British party ran into Kinney and Phillips at Moberley's. "We heartily congratulated Mr. Kinney on a triumph won by such stubborn determination and such remarkable pluck. After all, the American peril had been averted." [Amery 1910] Amery later wrote, "The fact that they apparently did not quite reach the actual summit should not detract from the credit due to one of the most gallant performances in modern mountaineering history." [Amery 1940] Before leaving England, Amery had cabled his brother Harold at Khartum to join their expedition. Harold caught up with the main party as it neared Mount Robson, with "with three packers, a dozen ponies and substantial reinforcements of supplies. He had found my cable at Khartum on returning from a 1200 mile camel ride in Darfur and had made a bee line for Robson via Alexandria, Marseilles, London, Quebec, and Edmonton, taking that way round the world in preference to the alternative of Port Sudan-Yokohama-Vancouver, as his climbing boots and axe were in my chambers in the Temple. After so spirited a performance he naturally longed to have a go at Robson at once. But we were already four on the rope, one too many for rapid movement."[Amery 1910] Amery, Mumm and Hastings made several attempts on Mount Robson but were thwarted by bad weather and barely missed being caught in an avalanche.

"Some of the members of the British Alpine party that I met on my way out after climbing the peak August 13, l909, claim they could see Mt. Robson from near the Yellowhead pass. But I have passed along the trail on six different trips (going and coming), and though I anxiously searched for a view of Mt. Robson in the finest of weather I always failed to see it till I swung up the Grand Forks within ten or twelve miles of it; or up the Smokey within the same distance on the East." [Kinney 1909]

On September 6, "With clothes artistically patched, and my feet all blistered," Kinney arrived in Edmonton "to find the city gay with bunting, and a banner that bore the legend Welcome to our town,' but I found that I was only an ordinary chap, back again to the every day world, and that the city was giving honor to Lord Strathcona, and that Peary and Cook were monopolizing the public interests in the world of discovery."

Kinney's achievement did make the front page of the 11 September issue of The Banff Crag and Canyon : "Mount Robson, the highest peak in the Rockies, has been conquered by Dr George Kinney, a retired clergyman from Keremos, B.C. Dr Kinney reported his success in Edmonton on Tuesday, and left at once for Winnipeg".[Crag and Canyon 1909]

Kinney was approached by Wheeler for conclusive evidence of his climb. "It was impossible to build a cairn on the peak of the mountain. Deep snow effectually buried what little rock is there I carried with great difficulty and risk my camera all the way to the peak but I was utterly unable to use it for a storm was on and so dense that I couldn't get results. I have three or four cairns on the mountain, one I built on a ridge at right angles to the main peak and about 100 ft below. It was positively the first place below the peak or the nearest to the peak where I could build one, and that was a natural cairn. A chunk of cliff 3 or 4 ft high by 2 ft so wind-swept that I could get no loose rock excepting two or three as big as my fist in cracks. But a split in its side offered a splendid place to make my cache containing flag and card, which I wedged in with the loose rocks." Kinney offered to furnish certificates "signed by a number of witnesses including the names of Amery and Hastings of the British party that met near the Yellowhead Pass on my return, as they were going in to the mountain. These state that they met Mr. Phillips & I on our way out and that we claimed to be just returning from a successful climb to the very top of Mt. Robson. I do not know what better evidences I could have provided and I feel satisfied that they should be conclusive." Kinney added that "I must say that the little trouble I had at Calgary on going in was a little embarrassing and nearly proved ruinous to me as far as the trip was concerned though certainly no one could be blamed but myself. I had counted however on being able at least to borrow that $100 grant. It turned out that another $100 that I had counted on arriving at the Merchants Bank, Edmonton, did not get there. Fortunately I was able to get a friend to endorse my note for 3 months so I was able to get a third horse I needed. I borrowed over $400 for this trip but since it was successful I should be able to meet all obligations. P.D. McTavish and some more of the boys very kindly presented me with a cheque for $100 which nicely met that note referred to above."[Alpine Club of Canada 1906-1924]

SPIRAL ROAD - DIGITAL BANFF