A Valemount resident has scaled Mount Robson in commemoration of the 100 year anniversary of Rev. George Kinney and Don ‘Curly’ Phillips attempt on the peak.

On Aug. 15, 2009 Andreas Thoni and Crosby Johnston, nearly 100 years to the day of Kinney’s attempt on the highest peak in the Rockies, summited the 3,954 metre mountain. While Kinney and climbing partner Curly Phillips (who had never climbed a mountain in his life at that point) took weeks to march from Jasper to the near peak of Robson, Thoni and Johnston were able to complete the task in three days.

“It’s definitely the biggest climb I’ve done,” Thoni said. “I’ve wanted to climb it for eight years.”

The first day, Thoni and friends made their way to Berg Lake and set up camp in preparation for the ascent. The group had planned to make a weekend of the trip.

However on the Saturday, Thoni and Johnston set out for the peak. While they didn’t take the same route Kinney and Phillips tried, they also had to contend with snow and ice. Thoni said the conditions, ‘weren’t too bad,” but said most people take five days to summit.

“Once we got to the dome, it’s ice and snow the whole way,” Thoni said. “It’s all trad climbing. We put ice screws all the way up and V-slats to repell off.”

“It was a good 16 hours of climbing,” Thoni said

Thoni has been climbing for four years, and has topped almost every peak around Valemount. He’s wanted to summit Mount Robson since he moved to Valemount eight years ago from Jasper.

“It’s a long way. Most people are turned around by the weather,” Thoni said. 

The duo returned to their friends at Berg Lake, and made their way home by 2 p.m.

Like Kinney, this was Thoni’s second attempt at the summit. He had previously been turned around by bad weather two years ago.

“It’s a long way, and most people are turned away by the weather,” Thoni said. “But just being up there, away from everything is amazing.”

Despite the effort, Thoni and Johnson’s climb was a relative cake walk compared to Kinney and Phillips’s three-month journey. However Thoni, who also designs mountain bike tracks and works at the Caribou Grill restaurant in Valemount, doesn’t want to stop.

“I want to do Whitehorne next.”