Announcement! Canadian High Point #6 (and #7?) in 2026!

I am now on the back half of the list of Canadian province/territory high points, with only technical summits to go*. I had planned to ski Mount Columbia (the highest point in Alberta) in May 2025 but that didn’t quite line up, however I am confident I will be able to cross that one off the list next ski season.

*As noted in a later post, the Nova Scotia high point has been confirmed to be Western Barren and not White Hill, thus I will need to return to Cape Breton Island at some point in the future to grab the new high point.

If you know anything about the remaining five, these will take many years owing to financial and logistical challenges, and I was not expecting to tackle the objective that is the topic of this post until much later. Well, circumstances have changed and I am super excited to announce that in approximately one year (May/June 2026), I will be heading to the Yukon to climb the highest mountain in Canada, Mount Logan!

How did I find myself heading out to the Yukon next year? When I was in the Adirondacks with the Alpine Club of Canada in February of 2025, I was chatting with Bryan Thompson, the chair of the Canadian EH (Exploration Heritage) Society, a a non-profit organization dedicated to telling the stories of Canadian pioneers. Bryan is known for, with the Society, re-enacting the first ascent of classic climbs in Canada, and working with film-makers to document the adventures. And by re-enact, I mean climbing the peaks with replica gear from the first ascent, along with matching the itinerary as close as possible (within reason and safety). So far, him and his teams have gone to the Bugaboos to replicate the first ascent of Bugaboo Spire by Conrad Kain in 1916 (as shown in “Hobnails and Hemp Rope”) and made two attempts at Mount Waddington, first explored (they only reached the shorter northwest summit) by Don and Phyllis Munday in 1928 (as shown in “The Mystery Mountain Project” and “Chaos Glacier Country”). More details about the planned Logan expedition can be found here. The expedition will have a number of sponsors and grants, and the film will be sponsored by the National Film Board of Canada. There are a number of other fundraising/sponsorship initiatives as well and thus costs will be reduced for expedition members.

Bryan mentioned he was looking for one more member for the support team for his Mount Logan expedition planned for the spring of 2026. The support team would be climbing in modern gear and eating modern food, and their role would be to assist the re-enactment team in the event of a mishap, and also film the adventure as the filmmaker would not be present. I indicated my interest, given Logan is on my Canadian high points list, that it would be in a support team capacity (was not keen to climb in replica gear!), and that the support team would be using skis for part of the expedition (skiing in the Yukon is a bucket list item) and confirmed my participation in March.

Mount Logan, situated in Kluane National Park deep in the Yukon Territory, was climbed for the first time in June 1925, by a team led by Albert H. MacCarthy, after a 65 day trip starting in Alaska. Logan stands at 5959 meters (19551 feet) tall and is the second highest mountain in North America, after Denali in Alaska, and just ahead of Pico de Orizaba in Mexico, which I climbed in November 2024. Logan is known for having the largest base circumference of the non-volcanic peaks on the planet, and features a massive summit plateau with plenty of minor peaks, and over 11 kilometers of the standard (Kings Trench) route is spent above 5000 meters.

I’ll get into more details later, but the approach won’t be precisely the same as that taken by MacCarthy’s team in 1925. However, we are expecting the expedition to last about five weeks, including any time needed for working on the film (interviews, etc.). Suffice to say, this will be far and away the most challenging mission I’ll have attempted to date. I’ve put together a rough route in OnX here.

In mid-March, I began a training program which I put together based on the methodology in the “Training for the New Alpinism” book by Steve House and Scott Johnson (who run the alpinism training companies Uphill Athlete and Evoke Endurance respectively) and I’m looking forward to seeing progress. I contemplated buying a 16 week program from Uphill Athlete (I had bought their 8 week mountaineering program in 2024) but given I’m trying to be thrifty while job hunting and also because I want to better understand the science behind their methodology (I am a man of science/engineering, after all), I decided to carefully study their book and craft a program that works for me. I might put together a post sometime doing an overview of their methodology and how I’ve implemented it into my preparation.

I plan to do 1-2 intermediate objectives (one of which is coming up this July) to prepare for Mount Logan. I picked up a pair of cross-country skis for cheap from friends in early April (thank you Rob and Barb!) so I plan to do a lot of skiing (cross-country and touring/ski mountaineering) next winter as a part of my preparation, as well as possibly complete more avalanche training if time/funds permit. Hopefully this ski preparation will also include my second crack at Mount Columbia in Alberta; the Columbia ski season is late April to early May which is just before the planned departure for Logan, so that fits in nicely. Logan is a serious endeavour even for the seasoned alpinist, so I am taking this training and preparation extremely seriously.

Stay tuned for updates on my preparation as well as any intermediate objectives that will be undertaken as I prepare for this epic adventure. Super stoked and thankful to Bryan and the Canadian EH Society for this opportunity!