When I was a much younger man climbing mountains in British Columbia, Canada, there was one that really intrigued me, called Stein Mountain. 125 miles from my home town of Mission was the town of Lytton – they both sat on the banks of the mighty Fraser River. Mission was only about 50 feet above sea level, but, surprisingly, although Lytton was so far upriver, it was little higher in elevation.

One time, I had driven up to Lytton with a friend and we had tried to climb the mountain. The thing is, it was in the summer, and Lytton is the hottest bloody place in Canada. We both soon wilted in the heat and headed home defeated. Now that I have lived many years in the desert, were I to return to Stein in the summer, I’d take the heat in stride and probably climb the thing just fine.

Fast forward to 1977. Early that year, I had been in California for a month and had met a character named Steve Bell. A fellow climber, we had hit it off pretty well. He had ended up in Alaska and spent a disastrous month on some volcano without reaching the summit. After his ass-whuppin’ there, he had stopped in at my place for some proper climbing. We spent a couple of days on some good rock, then I talked him into trying Stein. He thought it’d be a walk-up after what he had recently been through. We threw some gear and food into my station wagon and drove to Lytton. After we crossed the river on the ferry, it was a short drive of five miles to reach the bridge over the Stein River. We spent the night camped beside the car at an elevation of 590 feet.

I knew the next day would be hellaciously long, so the alarm went off early. Steve had a hard time with that, but I knew better. And I knew that he knew that I knew I was right. I have always been a fan of the early start – it’s an extra bit of insurance, and you can’t ever have too much of that in the mountains. With full packs, we set out while it was still dark, Steve grumbling as we went. So far I wasn’t impressed – I mean, we were here to climb, so let’s climb for Pete’s sake.

The first part took us across a fairly flat area, then up a long slope to finally reach a ridge at 2,780 feet. It was cool and overcast, thankfully, which made that long push up to the ridge go a lot easier. Don’t get me wrong, it was still a serious effort, but better than it would have been if it had been the normal 100-degree-plus temperature of the summer months. Once we gained the ridge, our perspective changed – we could see the route ahead much better. I’ve always liked ridge routes, and this promised to be an exciting one. Our route now took us northwest for a spell, to arrive at a bump at 3,640 feet. Once there, we made an abrupt change of direction and headed southwest – downhill! It felt good to not be fighting gravity for a while, but it sucked to think that we’d have to make up that footage, twice, as we’d be coming back the same way.

After the downhill stretch, we weren’t so much on a ridge but, rather, were heading up a broad slope which took us up to about 4,920 feet before we could say we were on a ridge again. By now, we were heading northwest, but the ridge kept changing direction and we had to pay close attention. Visibility stayed pretty good as we moved on, but the wind was really strong. By around 5,580 feet, the ridge had become more obvious once again and we stayed on it. Finally, at around 7,300 feet, we found a sheltered spot, sort of. It was above treeline and barely flat enough to pitch the tent for the night. We turned in early.

It snowed overnight. The next morning, try as I might, I couldn’t convince Steve to get up and get moving before 8:00 a.m. I was pretty steamed – we had so much ground to cover in deteriorating weather, so needed an early start, IMHO. Once we continued, we had to cross over a couple more bumps, and, after one more large one, lost yet more elevation. At around 7,800 feet, we decided it was time to leave that endless ridge – it was becoming a highly broken mess, more trouble than it was worth. That forced us to drop into the basin to the south of Stein Mountain.

The south side of Stein was just a scramble, but in strong winds and blowing snow. It took us longer than we anticipated. As we neared  the top, we found it was a double summit, the one on the northeast being the higher of the two. It offered a bit of icy class 3 to 4 climbing. At 1:00 p.m. we stood on the 9,105-foot summit. There was no sign of a cairn or register on either summit, so we left one on the higher. The peak had no doubt been climbed in the past, probably by prospectors or maybe some long-forgotten climber. Through ragged clouds we glimpsed bits of country far below – the river was over 8,500 vertical feet downslope.

There was more to do, so, dropping down the southwest ridge, we headed over to Stein’s neighbor. This peak, at 8,700 feet, we ascended by its east ridge. It was an easy scramble among blocks of rock and drifted snow. There was no sign of any previous visit there, either, so we left the requisite cairn and register. It was now 2:30 p.m.

I talked Steve into doing one more, so we dropped southwest to the next saddle and headed up the east ridge of Peak 8,800′ – it was an easy scramble. By the time we built a cairn and filled out a register, it was 3:30 p.m. Decision time. The next potential objective was peak 8,900′, well along the ridge to the northwest. It made us tired just looking at it, so we decided it was time to bail. Heading back the way we had come, we completed our second traverse of Peak 8,700′, then dropped south back into the basin south of Stein. There, we found a trickle of water, but probably only because there was melting snow up above. Nowhere else on the entire trip did we find any water. Simply put, water was a major problem  – we just couldn’t carry enough and were always thirsty. The entire ridge was as dry as the Sahara – if you ever use this route to climb Stein, pack in as much water as you can carry.

Our tent was still sitting on the ridge, right where we left it. That was one cold and blustery night. Early the next morning, we broke camp and left – out of water, low on food and in 20 cm of fresh snow. There’s not much to tell about the return trip down the ridge – that freakin’ endless ridge with all its bumps. By the time we reached the car, we had racked up 11,800 vertical feet of climbing for the trip.

One final note: back in the day when we did this climb, the basins north of the Stein-Siwhe divide were heavily glaciated. Map sheets 92 I/5E and 5W were very disappointing, showing nothing of those glaciers. That was a complaint I had about many of the 1:50,000-scale maps in southwestern BC – they omitted so many glaciers, icefields and permanent snowfields. What was needed was a climber in charge of the mapping division in Ottawa.

There were a lot of good-looking peaks waiting to be done in the Stein-Siwhe group. Hopefully by now, 36 years on, determined climbers have spent time in the area and knocked off the rest of them. If they haven’t, they should.

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