The Mystery Mountain Project
A new documentary tells the story of a group of mountaineers trying to re-enact a legendary 1926 expedition to BC’s highest peak. The Mystery Mountain Project features ACC members from Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and Calgary retracing the steps of Don and Phyllis Munday’s epic journey to find and climb the mountain now known as Mt Waddington. The film is on Amazon Prime and Vimeo on Demand, but ACC Sections interested in arranging a virtual film night and Q&A with the filmmaker and participants are invited to email i.s.petrov@gmail.com. Check out the film trailer at: https://canadianehsociety.ca/
Don and Phyllis Munday.
In 1926, a young couple set out into the British Columbia wilderness in search of an undiscovered mountain – taller than any peak in the Canadian Rockies – that experts said didn’t exist.
Their epic journey is now the subject of a new documentary, The Mystery Mountain Project. Shot in B.C.’s remote Homathko Valley, the film tells the story of Canada’s original extreme sports couple, Don and Phyl Munday, a pioneering husband and wife mountaineering team with over 40 first ascents to their name.
The Mundays were determined to find and climb an undiscovered peak they nicknamed Mystery Mountain. They believed it to be in the Coast Range about 350 kilometers north of Vancouver, in an uncharted part of the province – a region of endless glaciers and rugged peaks that could only be reached by hiking through the almost impenetrable brush of the Homathko Valley.
With only a compass to guide them and mapping by hand, they dodged grizzlies, quicksand, avalanches and rockslides. They fought off hunger and felled trees to cross raging rivers — all the while hauling hundreds of pounds of gear in homemade wooden packs.
Almost a century later, the film follows a group of ACC members as they set out to retrace the Mundays’ journey to Mystery Mountain — and climb it — using vintage 1920s gear. The aim is to reignite public interest in the Mundays, whose exploits made them icons of the mountaineering community but who are now largely forgotten.
Bryan Thompson, Joe Vanasco, Ron Ireland, Susanna Oreskovic, Paddy McGuire and Stuart Rickard would not be using any modern equipment. No Goretex jackets, no Salomon hiking boots, no waterpoof tents, and worst of all no mosquito repellant. Even the food would be vintage. Instead of freeze dried lasagna, they would painstakingly haul cans of corned beef and baked beans into the wilderness.
I came along on the expedition to film it. As such, I was exempt from the requirement to use old-style gear and clothing. I had a comfortable modern tent and Goretex jacket, and a digital camera.
But even with modern technology, shooting in the backcountry is tricky. How do you recharge your camera batteries? I considered solar panels, until I saw a weather forecast for rain the entire time we were to be there. How do you keep your camera dry in a downpour? I brought along an umbrella hat thinking it would do the trick, until I realized it would catch on every little branch I walked through. What do you do if you run into a grizzly – get out your camera and start filming, or run for your life? When it actually happened, I couldn’t make up my mind.
Expedition members tackling a section of trail they nicknamed “The Maze of Death”
In the end, Don and Phyl proved the experts wrong. They not only found and mapped Mystery Mountain – now known as Mt Waddington – but came back with photos as proof.
The Mystery Mountain Project is as much a tribute to them as it is chronicle of our journey.