Thursday, April 19, 2012

skiing barnaby

our place from the summit of mt barnaby

 our view from camp cuffe is inspired by therriault pass, flanked by mt barnaby, at 6,803 feet and mt gilbralter, 7,131feet, to the right. barnaby burned in a fire about 10 years ago.
the namesake of the the mountain was jack barnaby, a quarter breed colville trapper and packer, who was tall and strong, about 6 feet 1 inch, 190 pounds and dark complected. he could speak french as well as indian. he lived at "kansas johnny's meadow" on glen lake. barnaby also had cabins at wolverine lake, paradise lake and weasel lake.
this guy knew all the good places!
in the fall of 1904, he finished a thanksgiving dinner with the rich family and set off up the indian creek trail to his usual trapping grounds. he was a lone wolf, so no one suspected anything was amiss until his little dog appeared, half-starved, one day in july. a search party was organized. dan shea and lou babcock found jack barnaby's body at the foot of a steep cliff. it was determined that he had been cought in an avalanche, pinned down, and had died of starvation.
deputy sherriff george rich and justice of the peace john cuffe (jo and lo's great, great grandfather) went up, and seeing it was useless to attempt to move the badly decomposed body, wrapped him in a blanket and buried him beside the trail, as he no doubt would have wished.
in the spirit of a man who loved these mountains as much as we do, we climbed mt barnaby.


my classic summit pose, i love the mountaintops!   ksanka is behind me to the west on the ridge.
looking across therriault pass behind me to the east.  incredible view into canada.
skiing the backyard,  not too bad.





heading up the big face. 


No comments:

Post a Comment