Twins to the Tops The Highpoints of Canada’s Provinces and Territories

By Eric Gilbertson and Matthew Gilbertson

“Can we stop for another breather?” I yelled up to Matthew. I was exhausted after wading through deep snow for the last three hours while making seemingly no progress up the steep slope. We were each hauling about 60 pounds of gear to cache higher up on the mountain, and it was tough work. We split the gear up between backpacks and sleds, but had to strike a balance – too much gear on our backs made us sink deeper into the snow, but too much in the sleds pulled us back down the slope.
“Yeah, but now it’s your turn to break trail,” Matthew shouted back. It was Day 8 of our expedition on Mt Logan, and we had just ridden out a three-day storm at King Col at 13,500 ft. We were taking advantage of a brief clearing to try to haul some gear up and over the headwall, the steepest part of the King Trench route. But the storm had dumped a lot of fresh snow, and progress was painfully slow. -Excerpt from Mt Logan Report

Long drives, short hikes, long hikes, bushwhacks, mountain bikes, kayaks, month-long expeditions, acclimation, helicopters, commercial flights, bus rides, bush planes, ski planes, float planes, boats, pack rafts, glacier travel near the North Pole, snow storms, snow shoes, skis, sleds, extreme cold, a 20-30 pitch rock climb, and thousands of miles driving. This book documents the journeys of Eric and Matthew Gilbertson to summit all 12 diverse and challenging highpoints of Canada’s provinces and territories. While this is a short list of peaks, it is still extremely difficult. Several of the mountains require serious mountaineering and expedition skills. Up to 2023, Eric is the fifth person to climb all 12 peaks, and Matthew is near finishing.
Eric and Matthew Gilbertson were born in Berea, Kentucky, USA in 1986 and started hiking with their Dad in the nearby hills and “hollers” of Kentucky as soon as they could walk. Before that, their parents Keith and Mary Kay carried them on their backs on hikes. They have climbed the highest point in 140 countries as of June 2023.
Please visit our website for more info: http://www.countryhighpoints.com/

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798823012898

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© 2023 Eric Gilbertson & Matthew Gilbertson. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 08/21/2023

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1290-4 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-8230-1289-8 (e)

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INTRODUCTION

Canada has 13 provinces and territories, and the highpoints of these comprise a diverse and challenging set of peaks to climb. This book documents the journey of Eric and Matthew Gilbertson to climb all of these mountains, the Canada Highpoints. We provide a trip report for each peak, route beta, and a route map for each peak. To date Eric is the fifth person to climb all of these peaks, finishing at 11:55pm on June 18, 2019 on Mt. Caubvick in Quebec and Newfoundland/Labrador, and Matthew is near finishing.

Quebec and Newfoundland/Labrador essentially share a highpoint, so practically this is a set of 12 mountains. While this is a short list of peaks, it is still extremely difficult, a significantly more difficult peakbagging objective than climbing the 50 US state highpoints. Of the 12 mountains, three are essentially drive-ups (The unnamed PEI Highpoint, Baldy Mountain, Manitoba, and the unnamed Saskatchewan Highpoint). Mt. Carleton, New Brunswick, is a half day hike on a trail. White Hill, Nova Scotia, requires a day hike with a short bushwhack, and Ishpatina Ridge, Ontario, requires either a canoe or bushwhack approach to a short hike.

The rest of the mountains all require serious mountaineering and expedition skills. Mt. Columbia, the Alberta highpoint, is similar to Mt. Rainier, though with a longer approach and steeper climbing. Mt. Fairweather, the British Columbia highpoint, generally requires a ski-plane approach, acclimation, and extensive glacier travel. Mt. Logan, the Yukon highpoint, requires a month long expedition and glacier travel with a standard ski plane approach.

Barbeau Peak, the Nunavut highpoint, is a standard glacier climb, but is near the North Pole and access is complicated. Labrador and Quebec essentially share a highpoint, Mt. D’Iberville/Mt. Caubvick, which is a short rock climb, with access usually by bush plane. Finally, the Northwest Territories highpoint, Mt. Nirvana/Nahteni Shi/Thunder Mountain, is likely the crux of the list, generally requiring a multi-week expedition with a 20-30 pitch rock climb to the summit. As of 2023 it has only seen seven ascents (including two separate ascents from Eric).

The first climber to complete the list was Jack Bennett in 1998. Jack conducted valuable research in figuring out which peak was indeed the true highpoint of each province and territory, and spent years and numerous expeditions figuring out crucial beta for climbing each peak. Jack compiled the story of his journey in his book Not Won in a Day – Climbing Canada’s Highpoints. Subsequent completers have been Tom Bennett (USA 2010), Len Vanderstar (Canada 2017), and Darrell Ainscough (Canada 2018).

We started our journey to climb the Canada Highpoints in 2011, and have had very different experiences on many peaks than other climbers have. Learning about these different experiences will be very helpful for future peakbaggers pursuing this goal. For instance, Eric (with partners Dave and Susan) made the first and so far only ascent of the west face of Mt. Nirvana, the NWT highpoint, putting up a 30-pitch 5.9 rock climb requiring multiple month-long expeditions to figure out the route.

Matthew and Eric took a new route up the Nova Scotia highpoint, White Hill, shaving the distance down so it can be done in four hours round trip. Eric (with partners Greg and Steven) made the first ever smash-and-grab ascent of the British Columbia highpoint Mt. Fairweather, summitting in 24 hours round trip from Haines, Alaska. And we both made a bushwhack-approach ascent of Ishpatina ridge, Ontario, that does not require canoeing.

We started climbing the Canada highpoints in 2011 while we were both going to school at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. That summer we made a long weekend driving trip to hit the highpoints of the three maritime provinces. We drove 15 hours to Cheticamp Flowage near White Hill, Nova Scotia, then trail ran around the lake, bushwhacked to the summit, and ran back in just under four hours round trip.

We continued by driving to Prince Edward Island and making the short walk to the highpoint near a farmer’s field. On the way home we did a night hike of Mt. Carleton in New Brunswick, then made a nine-hour drive back to Boston.

One other highpoint appeared to be barely feasible in a weekend trip from Cambridge. That fall we rented a car and made the 17-hour drive out to Ishpatina Ridge, Ontario. With some mountain biking and bushwhacking, we were able to ascend the peak without needing a canoe.

In December 2014, after finishing grad school, we loaded up a car and drove from Boston to Seattle across southern Canada. Along the way we climbed Baldy Mountain, the Manitoba highpoint, and Eric climbed the Saskatchewan highpoint in a snowy field.

The following spring we managed to take a month off for an expedition to Mt. Logan, the Yukon highpoint (and also the highest mountain in Canada). We got lucky with minimal weather delays, just a five-day storm at King Col at 13,500ft. We were able to summit and return in just two weeks, and spent our remaining time packrafting the Jarvis, Kaskawulsh, and Alsek rivers and driving the Dempster Highway.

That summer Eric made his first of three expeditions to the Northwest Territories to climb Mt. Nirvana. With Dave and Susan he tried to establish a new route on the unclimbed west face, but had to retreat after reaching a highpoint 16 pitches up near the summit ridge after five weeks of effort. Eric hiked and bushwhacked out solo, making many first ascents along the way, and packrafted out the Nahanni River.

In 2016 Eric returned with Len, Ron, and Luke and made the first ascent of Mt. Nirvana without air support. Eric bussed and carpooled to Tungsten, NWT, then paddled down the Flat River for a few days. From there the team bushwhacked several more days in to the east face of Mt. Nirvana. Len and Eric climbed partway up the east face on their first attempt, but had to retreat in the face of avalanches. They returned the next day, and successfully made it to the summit on June 21. Their route roughly followed the route of Jack Bennett’s ascent. They napped on the summit ridge to let the snow firm up, then rapped back to camp, arriving 51 hours after leaving. Over the next week they climbed over to the north cirque and hiked back out to Tungsten, making a first ascent of Peak 46 along the way.

In the spring of 2017 Eric joined Len, Brian, Laura, and Serge to climb Barbeau Peak, the Nunavut highpoint. Access was complicated, but the team eventually took a Twin Otter ski plane to the ice cap. They established a camp at the base of the peak, and that night Eric and Brian climbed to the summit in the midnight sun. They later returned the next afternoon to summit a second time with the rest of the team. They then spent the next two weeks hiking back out to Tanquary Fjord for a flight home. That trip was Len’s final Canadian highpoint, making him the first Canadian to complete the list.

Later that summer Eric returned to Mt. Nirvana with Dave and Susan for another attempt on the unclimbed west face. They helicoptered in to maximize climbing time, and gave themselves five weeks to figure out a route. Over the next month they established an advanced base camp on a ledge halfway up the face and attempted various routes from there. The weather was very wet, and none of the routes worked. During the last possible weather window of the trip Dave and Eric attempted a route on a different side of the face, the left side, which worked. They climbed up to the northwest ridge, dropped over to the north face, and climbed to the summit from there. The new route was 30 pitches up to 5.9, and took 41 hours camp to camp. Shortly after returning they helicoptered back to Watson Lake before a long spell of bad weather came in.

In 2018 Eric climbed Mt. Fairweather with Greg and Steven. To avoid the real risk of spending a lot of time waiting in Haines for a weather window or getting stuck for weeks in basecamp riding out storms, the team planned on a smash-and-grab ascent. There haven’t been any other documented ascents like this, but with the notoriously bad weather on the peak it makes a lot of sense. The team waited in Seattle until the weather was favorable, then bought a last-minute flight to Haines, Alaska.

The weather was actually too warm and sunny, so they had to wait a few days for the snow to cool back down. But then in the morning they flew onto the glacier at the base of the peak and immediately reached the summit that afternoon (going up and down quickly since they hadn’t done any acclimation beforehand). The next morning they were able to fly back out before the weather window closed, and made it to Haines in under 24 hours round trip.

Eric set his goal of finishing the list in 2019. In April he tried to climb Mt. Columbia, the Alberta highpoint, in a long-weekend road trip from Seattle with Serge. But avalanche conditions were too dangerous and they had to retreat. Eric returned in May for another long-weekend road trip, making the 9-hour drive from Seattle Friday night after work. He met up with Mike, Terrance, Oakley, Steven, and Merrick and they together made a two-day ski ascent of the peak in excellent and stable conditions.

A few weeks later in June Eric flew to northern Quebec with Steven, Yeuhi, Pat, and Christine. The team took a bush plane to the base of Mt Caubvick/Mt. D’Iberville then immediately climbed the Korac Ridge route to the summit that night, reaching the top just before midnight on June 18. This was the final peak for Eric, making him the 5th completer of the list. The team climbed a few more peaks in the area before packrafting down the Korac River and flying home from the village of Kangiqsualujjuaq.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Eric and Matthew Gilbertson were born in Berea, Kentucky, USA in 1986 and started hiking with their Dad in the nearby hills and hollers of Kentucky as soon as they could walk. Before that, their parents Keith and Mary Kay carried them on their backs on hikes.

With walking legs of their own, they started hiking and backpacking at the Pigg House, the Pinnacle, and Anglin Falls near their hometown. Twice a year, they would go backpacking in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina with their Dad and brother Jacob. In high school, they learned how to survive for days in the wilderness when they went to Philmont Boy Scout Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico.

They started college in the fall of 2004 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where they discovered the MIT Outing Club (MITOC), which opened a whole new world of adventure. MITOC, a group of more than 1,400 students and staff in the Boston area, offered companionship with other outdoor enthusiasts, an escape from the stresses of MIT, and energy for weeks of problem sets, hard work, and little sleep. Through organized trips called Circuses or even Circii, they soon started going on more extreme hikes throughout the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

MITOC’s Winter School program in January 2005 dramatically changed their perspective on hiking. Their first Winter School introduced them to the endless opportunities provided by snow. From experienced winter adventurers, they learned how to snowshoe, ice climb, cross-country ski, build snow shelters, hike above tree line, and survive in the winter. These skills would prove invaluable in their future highpointing adventures.

Before graduating from MIT, they successfully hiked the Appalachian trail, a 2,100+ mile trail stretching from Georgia to Maine. They hiked two-thirds of the trail in the summer of 2006, then finished the remaining third in 2007 and 2008.

After graduating from MIT in the spring of 2008, each with undergraduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering, they took a summer break from studying once again to travel and climb mountains. They flew up to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and bicycled 3,000 miles south to Great Falls, Montana, climbing the Montana and Wyoming state highpoints Granite and Gannett Peak, respectively.

In Fall 2008, they settled down again back at MIT to work on master’s degrees in mechanical engineering, developing a handheld, force-controlled ultrasound probe (Matthew), and a thermally-actuated, deep-sea, oil well safety valve (Eric). By then, they were trip leaders for Winter School and MITOC Circuses and could start passing down knowledge to the next generation of mountaineers.

Two years later, they finished their master’s degrees and both decided to stay on for PhDs in mechanical engineering, but not before another adventure (approved by their advisors). Within 12 hours of handing in their final theses, they were both on a plane to Alaska. Their first trip of the summer was to climb the USA highpoint Denali, which would require the culmination of all their MITOC Winter School skills. Next on the agenda was another 3,000-mile bicycle tour, this time in Europe to hit the country highpoints of Iceland, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, and Liechtenstein.

In the fall of 2010, they were back at MIT working on their mechanical engineering PhDs and squeezing in highpoints whenever they could. During spring or winter breaks, they hit many of the North American country highpoints. Within the year after they finished their PhDs in 2014 (with Matthew having designed an improved, handheld, force-controlled ultrasound probe and Eric having worked with autonomous kayaks), they had finished their final North American country highpoint – Pico Turquino in Cuba – in June 2015.

Eric flew to northern Quebec in June 2019. His team took a bush plane to the base of Mt Caubvick/Mt. D’Iberville then immediately climbed the Korac Ridge route to the summit that night, reaching the top just before midnight on June 18. This was the final peak for Eric, making him the 5th completer of the list.

Currently, Matthew lives in California with his two children and his wife Amanda, also a member of the MITOC community. Eric lives in Washington state with his partner and fellow MITOC’er Katie.

Stay tuned for future books in the Twins to the Tops series, including the highpoints of Europe, Africa and Asia. In the meantime, the reader is encouraged to contact us via email with any inquiries about our trips, such as obtaining GPS tracks and additional photos. Contact information can be found on our website: http://www.countryhighpoints.com/. Also view more photos of our trips.

Books and web page by Eric and Matthew Gilbertson

Mountain Adventures

Whites, West, and the Appalachian Trail 2009

The Great Quest

Fifty Us State High Points and More 2013

Twins to the Tops

The Quest for the North American Country High Points 2018

http://www.countryhighpoints.com/. Trip reports and photos from 140 country highpoints and a variety of other mountain climbs.

Books available from several online bookstores Amazon, Barnes Noble etc, Paperback and eBooks.

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Location of the Canada Highpoints

CONTENTS

1. Nova Scotia

White Hill – 533m

2. Prince Edward Island

PEI Highpoint – 140m

3. New Brunswick

Mt. Carleton – 140m

4. Ontario

Ishpatina Ridge – 693m

5. Manitoba

Baldy Mountain – 831m

6. Saskatchewan

Saskatchewan Highpoint – 1392m

7. Yukon

Mount Logan – 5959m

8. Northwest Territories

Mount Nirvana/Nahteni Shih/Thunder Mountain – 2773m

9. Nunavut

Barbeau Peak – 2616m

10. British Columbia

Mt Fairweather – 4671m

11. Alberta

Mount Columbia – 3741m

12. Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador

Mt. Caubvick and Mt. D’Iberville – 1652m

13. Bonus – Newfoundland Island

The Cabox – 812m

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NOVA SCOTIA

White Hill – 533m

Location: Cape Breton Highlands

Start: Cheticamp Flowage

Equipment: Hiking gear

Climbing Period: May - October

Ascent: 70m

Distance: 30km

Time: 4-10 hrs

Getting there: Drive west from Wreck Cove to Cheticamp Flowage

Red tape: It may be required to register with the park warden for the Cape Breton Highlands National Park at the visitor center in Ingonish.

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White Hill route map. Base map from opentopo.org (CC-BY-SA).

Report:

Author: Matthew

July 16, 2011

3hr 58 minutes car-to-car via Cheticamp Flowage route

So what brings you boys here to White Hill? asked Ian, a local Nova Scotian who with his three companions had coincidentally decided to climb the highest point in Nova Scotia the same day as us.

It was a valid question. Was it the view that brought us? No, you couldn’t see more than 200ft into the clouds from the top. Was it conveniently located, and we were just passing by? No, it had taken us 17 hours of driving from Boston and is located on the northern tip of Nova Scotia. Was it a tall, glaciated mountain? No, the summit is only 1,745 ft above sea level. Had it been easy? No.

In the split-second that it took us to formulate an answer I glanced down at my bloody shins which had been thrashed by miles of bushwhacking. Our shoes were a pound heavier, full of mud and swamp water. We were drenched with sweat and a cold Canadian breeze was blowing in off the lakeshore. But we had done it. Our adrenaline was pumping as we ran and hopped along the rocky lakeshore on the way back to the car.

We’re trying to climb the highest points in all the Canadian provinces and territories, Eric answered. We’ll be done with the State High Points in a couple of weeks so we decided to move on to the Canadian High Points.

Wow, Ian answered.

To us it seemed like a valid quest, a logical next step. About 300 people have climbed all the US state high points, but only 3 people have climbed all twelve Canadian provincial and territorial high points. It was the next sensible list to start working on. But it would be challenging. We’d read that getting to the base of Nunavut’s Barbeau Peak requires a multi-thousand dollar chartered flight to northern Ellesmere Island. The flight to the high point shared by Labrador/Newfoundland and Quebec (Mount Caubvick/Mount D’Iberville) is similarly expensive. And of course there’s Yukon’s Mount Logan, which is just as tough as Alaska’s Denali. No, the Canadian high points would not be easy. But we had to start somewhere.

Early in the summer we had concluded (from Google Maps research) that the high points in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick would be marginally feasible during a 3-day weekend (taking half of Friday off in addition to Monday). It would involve over 2,000 miles of driving and a decent bit of hiking, but it seemed doable. The time for the trip came in late July. We picked up a Hyundai Sonata at Budget in Cambridge and sped off on Friday afternoon.

Now it wouldn’t be a legit adventure without a little stealth camping. We weren’t sure where we’d end up Friday night so I had looked on Google Earth the day before for some good stealth spots along the way. We headed towards the first prospective spot in southern New Brunswick (N45.58467 W65.70689) around 11pm AST. Luckily we had the Canadian road/topo maps on our GPS so finding the site was a snap. The site turned out to be perfect and stealthy and we had a good sleep. Luckily the Canadian border officer hadn’t asked us where we were planning to sleep.

We still had a long way to drive so we sped off after 5 hours of sleep. As we crossed into Nova Scotia we began to realize that Atlantic Canada is actually pretty big. Most US maps don’t show anything north or east of Maine. Well, Eric and I are here to report that there’s an awful lot of Canada north and east of Maine.

By 1pm we arrived at the base of the road to Chéticamp Flowage, a large man-made reservoir in the central highlands of Cape Breton National Park, on the northern tip of Nova Scotia. Things were about to get interesting.

But we had done our homework. White Hill is not one of those high points that you just hike up to. It doesn’t have a trail. There’s no official route. The best route is still being debated (although I think we have now put the best route debate to rest). Some people hike up from the town of Ingonish—partially along logging roads, partially bushwhacking. In one report the hikers covered 23 miles in 15 hours. Some sources say it’s 26 miles. In another route starting from Chéticamp Flowage the hikers covered 15.5 miles in 10 hours.

We did a little research on Google Earth and found that the best route looked to be one starting from the east