It’s been such a long time since I first visited the Scuzzy Creek area of southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Looking back over my maps and notes, I see that it was on November 4, 1976. I went in to check things out, to do a quick reconnaissance of the area, but without enough time to climb. I was impressed with the good access on the logging roads, though, and vowed to return soon. What an odd name to drop on the area, “scuzzy”. It means dirty, shabby, foul – I’ve never been able to figure that one out.

One winter’s day a few months later, January 30th to be exact, I made that follow-up trip into the area with friends Paul Berntsen and Cam Dolman. There was snow on the ground as we drove in – in retrospect, I’m surprised we got as far as we did. Where we stopped was definitely the end of the line – the snow on the unplowed road was getting too deep for my Volvo station wagon.

The valleys there abound in large slabby faces of very good rock. It was a crisp, sunny day as we climbed a few pitches of excellent granite, then camped for the night. And a chilly night it was. The next morning, Paul’s feet were bothering him from some recent climbing in Garibaldi Park so he relaxed while Cam and I set out to climb something. Hard by where we were camped was a 2,000-meter peak, so away we went up its southwest ridge. There was no problem keeping warm as we ploughed our way through the snow, which was waist-deep in places as we neared the top. There was a somewhat open spot on the windswept summit, and we left a register there among some rocks. It appeared unclimbed. We wallowed down through the snow to Paul and drove home. That was the last time I ever saw Cam.

The following year, I was the recipient of some terrible news – Cam had drowned in a diving accident in the Yucatán. He was a true outdoorsman to the end. I was shocked to hear of his passing. His father, a local school teacher, called me and asked if I could write a short eulogy on behalf of his son, which I happily did. I felt it appropriate to call the peak we’d climbed together “Cam’s Peak” in an unofficial way – I never applied to have it given that name officially. Somehow the name seems to have stuck, as it can be found on Google Earth today. Many years later, I saw some online chatter criticizing me for throwing out that name – they said I shouldn’t be naming a peak after a living person, a flagrant violation of the rules. My online response was that I was quite aware of the rules, that the name was unofficial and that Cam had passed away before I threw the name out there. That seemed to silence the embarrassed critics.

My winter’s experience in the area left me wanting more. I bided my time, but by the fall I couldn’t wait any longer. On October 14th, I went back in alone, by now familiar with the route. It was a hundred miles from my home to Boston Bar in the Fraser Canyon, then across the bridge over the Fraser River, and finally a dozen more miles up logging roads to the west. It was my intention to climb a ring of peaks surrounding the south-flowing tributary of Scuzzy Creek which drains the Scuzzy-Fraser-Nesbitt basin. A short backpacking trip seemed to be the best way to get this done. An excellent road climbed along the west side of the tributary to 1,220 meters elevation, but the road was cross-ditched at 975 meters, so that’s where I parked. It was noon. I loaded my pack, checked everything twice and set out from the car. Back in those days, I didn’t worry too much about leaving my vehicle unattended, nobody did – it was a kinder, gentler time. Here’s a link to a Google map of the area.

I walked north to the end of the road where the timber thinned out. I crossed the creek and scrambled east up the gully separating Cam’s Peak from its higher northern neighbor, Peak 2073 M. After a second ascent of Cam’s Peak at 6:30 PM and then 2073 at 7:12 PM, I spent the night in the saddle (1935 M) separating the two peaks. Early the next morning, I set out,  traversing around the east side of Peak 2073 M to the saddle between it and Scuzzy Mountain. From there, I ascended Scuzzy (2217 M) by its south slope on pleasant, gentle slabs. By 11:00 AM I stood on its summit, where I found a big cairn, no doubt left by surveyors. I left a register.

Exiting the peak by its southwest slope, I ran into a real mess of brush. Once through that, I could see that I’d have been better off coming straight west off the summit. At noon, I started up the east ridge of Fraser Peak. This was an area with great long views in all directions. It didn’t hurt any that the rock was excellent, blocks of granite with bits of Class 5 on boulders, interspersed with nice scrambling on open ground. By the time I reached the north summit of Fraser Peak, 2103 M, it was 1:30 PM. I built a cairn and left a register, then traversed a pleasant horseshoe-shaped summit ridge to gain the south summit, which appeared to also be 2103 M, at 2:30 PM. I left a cairn there too, then descended the brushy south ridge.

By 3:30 PM, I arrived at the summit of Peak 2000 M, about 1.1 KM southwest of Fraser’s south summit. Leaving another cairn, I continued south along the ridge and reached the top of Peak 2012 M. By now, it had clouded over and the ceiling was dropping quickly. I left my final cairn and register of the day, then descended the southeast and east slopes to regain the road at 1100 M by about 5:00 PM. Half an hour later, I was back at my car. It had been a good day. The only peaks on which I found any sign of a previous visit were Cam’s Peak, of course, and Scuzzy Mountain. I think the area has been visited a time or two by climbers since I was in there, all those long years ago, but it looks like the guide book for the area gave the old Desert Mountaineer credit for being the first one up those peaks. I still have, to this day, nice memories of the area.