It’s easy to overlook the Purcells. Driving east to west along the 1, it takes hours to drive through both the Rockies and Selkirks, but you just kind of avoid the Purcells altogether. What you do see from the Columbia Valley doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of their loveliness.\u00a0 Once you peer beyond the front ranges, which are featureless foothills by comparison, there are formidable walls of granite, icefields that rival those on the rockies divide, some of the most diverse rock I’ve seen and almost a dozen 11’ers.<\/p>\n
The day started early. This weekend, due to some work stuff, I only had one day off and thus had to go the day after work, which finished at 11pm. After two hours of tossing and two of sleep, it was time to get up and start the drive to Radium. The road up is some of the slowest going I’ve endured, the fill they have available for the road makes for near constant bumps and course correction, taking two hours to go the 50-odd km from Radium. Which is a different story altogether from the 50km warp drive cruise up the B-road gravel highway to Bush Harbour enroute to the gems of the BC rockies I’ve become so used to. Once you get up to Farnham Creek though, it’s some of the wildest country you can see from a road, all but the largest peaks of the Jumbo massif are visible, not to mention its impressive glacier. Four 11000 foot peaks (Farnham Hammond, Commander, Peter), tower above you in all directions, with a further three (Jumbo, Karnak and Delphine) becoming visible after a bit of elevation gain above the road. Indeed, all but three of the Purcells 11’ers are within as many kilometers, it’s not hard to understand why the nearby proposed Jumbo ski resort came under such stiff resistance.<\/p>\n