Mount Robson
Interesting facts
- In the early 1900s the Robson Glacier fed both Berg and Adolphus lakes, straddling the Continental Divide and draining to both the Arctic and Pacific oceans.
- Since then the Robson Glacier has retreated by more than 2 km and now feeds only the Robson River, on the Pacific side.
- George Kinney claimed the summit on his twelfth attempt in 1909, but he is now generally thought to have been turned back at the final ice dome.
- No higher summit lies within roughly 460 km of Mount Robson, an unusually large topographic isolation for a Rocky Mountain peak.
- From the shore of Kinney Lake the south-west flank of the mountain rises about 2,975 m to the summit.
- The surveyor James McEvoy established in 1893 that Robson was the highest peak of the Canadian Rockies.
- The 1913 first ascent was part of an Alpine Club of Canada camp whose members arrived on the newly finished Grand Trunk Pacific railway.
- Many people long assumed the mountain honoured John Robson, an early premier of British Columbia, though the fur trader theory is considered more likely.
- Among peaks lying entirely within British Columbia, Mount Robson is second in height only to Mount Waddington in the Coast Mountains.
- Berg Lake, below the mountain's north face, lies at about 1,646 m and stretches roughly 2 km in length.
Why it is worth it
Drivers on the Yellowhead Highway see Mount Robson the way few great mountains are ever seen: whole, from the valley floor to the summit, with nothing in front of it. At 3,954 m it is the highest point of the Canadian Rockies, and with 2,829 m of prominence it stands further above its surroundings than any other peak in the Rocky Mountains of North America. The south face rises in banded tiers of rock and snow above Kinney Lake, and the layered look is old enough to be in its name: in the Secwepemc language the mountain is Yexyexéscen, "striped rock". The English name most likely goes back to the fur trader Colin Robertson.
The far side is wilder. There the Berg Glacier comes down off the mountain and calves straight into Berg Lake, below a wall of ice and rock; beyond it the Emperor Face, some 1,500 m high, remains one of the hardest objectives on the continent. Robson is a hard mountain: only around one attempt in ten reaches the top. The first ascent, on 31 July 1913, was made by William Foster and Albert McCarthy with the guide Conrad Kain, who led them up an ice face that was then the most demanding yet climbed in North America.
The mountain sits entirely within Mount Robson Provincial Park, created by the British Columbia legislature in 1913, the year of that first ascent, and today part of the Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks World Heritage Site. The park covers 2,249 km² and holds the source of the Fraser River, British Columbia's longest. Its best-known path, the Berg Lake Trail, was first cut in 1913 by the Jasper outfitter Curly Phillips; it climbs along the Robson River past Kinney Lake to Berg Lake, about 19 km in, where the upper mountain and the calving glacier come into full view.
Getting there
Mount Robson lies on Highway 16, the Yellowhead, in eastern British Columbia. The park visitor centre, a regular stop on the highway, has the classic roadside view of the south face; the Berg Lake trailhead is about 2 km beyond it. The nearest village is Valemount, about half an hour's drive away, and Jasper in Alberta is roughly an hour, about 90 km, to the east. Edmonton is about 390 km east of the park and Prince George about 290 km west. The nearest airport is Grande Prairie Airport (YQU), about 230 km away to the north.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Mount Robson is the most prominent mountain in North America's Rocky Mountain range; it is also the highest point in the Canadian Rockies. The mountain is located entirely within Mount Robson Provincial Park of British Columbia, and is part of the Rainbow Range. Mount Robson is the second highest peak entirely in British Columbia, behind Mount Waddington in the Coast Range. The south face of Mount Robson is clearly visible from the Yellowhead Highway, and is commonly photographed along this route.
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