ICEFIELDS PARKWAY – Outside his window in the staff accommodation unit of the Columbia Icefields Discovery Centre, British mountaineer Andy Everett has a clear view of the curve-shaped peak known as “Nigel SE3” or “Nigel 2” – a mountain thought by many in the community to be unclimbed.
Standing beside the popular Nigel Peak and perched right on the boundary of Jasper and Banff National Park, the climb quickly became Everett’s season objective.
“It doesn't look so much like that from the other side if you're coming up from Banff, but from [the Icefields Parkway] … looking south towards it, it's got this really iconic shape,” said Everett.
Working as an Ice Explorer driver in the Columbia Icefields after travelling the world for several years, Everett’s itch for exploration only grew when he came to the Rockies in 2024. Eager to tick the peak off his list, Everett and his friend Barney Crump set out for a reconnaissance hike on June 6, going just short of the summit.
“Whenever I see a mountain, if it looks cool, I'm like, ‘I want to climb that.’ It doesn't matter which country I'm in or where I am,” said Everett.
“I remember everyone always saying that as far as we know, ‘No, no one's ever climbed this mountain,’ so that was a big draw as well. I would've done it anyway, but the fact that no one else had done it, it kind of made it even more urgent that I was like, ‘Oh, I'll have to be the first.’”
Joined by a third friend, Tobias White, everything fell into place for a summit attempt on June 26 and the three Brits took off via Nigel’s Pass.
Having done the recce hike and after reading a blog page from a hiker who made it just short of the summit, Everett knew what to expect and came prepared for “the gap” – the section just below the true summit that requires about eight metres of vertical climbing.
“It's a bit unnerving, but then there's one point where basically there's some protection we can put in at the bottom of the route.”
“But to get to the top, I had to outclimb the protection … You're effectively soloing at that point, like the protection's going to stop me bouncing down the mountain, but I'll still hit the deck,” said Everett, describing the final climb.
Belayed by his friends below, Everett completed the "sketchy" climbing section that finishes with a scramble on even more loose rock.
"We didn't think that anyone had ever been up there, so we didn't even know it was possible … it was very kind of nerve wracking picking our way through because we didn't really know whether any of it was doable and how the quality of the rock and how stable it was going to be,” said Crump.
Looking back down from the top, Everett noticed a rusted piton driven into a crack – evidence that proved he actually wasn’t the first to set foot on the over 3,000-metre summit.
“I got to the top, my friends are cheering … and I look down and I see … there's a piton in the top and I thought, ‘Oh, bugger. You know, just [as we’re] cheering and we're celebrating I realize that someone's kind of beat me to it, so that was that point I realized someone else had done it,” he said.
Now at the true summit, Everett found a rusted jar with a note inside listing the names of several parties who had summited the peak years before him – the first in June 1966, followed by two more summits several weeks later, one in 1992 and another in 2020.
“I was speechless [when I saw the piton]. I didn't speak for about 30 seconds afterwards. It was such a mission to get it there, but the jar made it better, at least. It was a little time capsule to find, so that soothed my pain.”
Among the names scribbled down on two of the expeditions was Hans Fuhrer, a ski instructor and park warden who summited many peaks in the area over the years.
“Given when the highway was built and given when he climbed it, I presume [Fuhrer] was the first person ever to do it unless, you know, someone went up without a jar before him, but I'm guessing he's the first,” said Everett.
Well-known Jasper guide Peter Amann had also once stood where Everett was with a summit in September 1992. Everett’s top made it the sixth expedition the mountain had seen.
Beside the names of several local legends, Everett jotted down his, along with the date and a message:
“Sketchy climb, but feel good for doing it. Well done all for getting here! Thanks to Barney Crump and Tobias White who helped me get here and waited below.”
“I thought that was a really special moment because it's not really something that you ever find on top of mountains. You know, maybe there could be a drop box sometimes in places in Europe, but you know, a glass jar that's been there for over 60 years and also the fact that it had very specifically written down the amount of people that done it,” said Crump.
‘Mount Dave Lorraine’
A longstanding dream now accomplished; Everett felt it only right the peak be given an official name.
“No one else has really called it anything. I've seen a million different names online. Some people call it ‘Nigel 2’ because it's close to Nigel Peak. Some people have said ‘Nigel SW3’, but there seems to be no official name or nothing deserving of it anyway,” said Everett.
In honour of his parents, Dave and Lorraine, Everett says the name ‘Mount Dave Lorraine’ has already caught on in his circle of friends and coworkers in the Icefields. Now he’s submitting a proposal, hoping to make the name official.
"It'd be nice to get it named after my parents, but even just any name I think is good enough. I think it deserves one.”
Having grown up climbing back home in Northern England, Everett credits his father for teaching him all the skills he’s now put to practice in his own mountaineering and climbing ventures over the years.
“My dad, he's kind of taught me everything I know anyway [about mountaineering], so I think it seems only right to sort of credit him with it. My mom not so much if I’m being honest, but she still raised me up and it'd be a nice sort of memory to them,” he said.
Along with a moniker for the standalone mountain, Everett is proposing several significant features be named, including “the gap” section right before the summit, the creek and several notable rock features along the route.
He notes in his proposal that naming these landmarks could also help make any future rescue efforts in the area more efficient.
“It's a good mountain. It's got it all. You've got the pass to get up and then you go in for a bit of bush whacking through the forest, then you've got the river, then the scree slope and then the climb at the end, so it kind of got like these five epic stages. They're all different, but all very cool in their own right,” he said.
“That’s the crazy thing is there's thousands of people seeing this mountain every day. It's right off the Icefields Parkway. It's right next to Nigel's Peak … you can see Nigel and Athabasca from it … so there must have been thousands of people seeing it, but just no one getting there, which just kind of blows my mind a bit,” he added.
Naming geographical features
Requesting a geographical feature be named – or the existing one be changed – begins with the submission of a proposal to the Alberta Geographic Naming Program.
When this is done for a feature within a national park, the process becomes even more extensive, requiring decisions from the Alberta government, Geographical Names Board of Canada (GNBC) and Parks Canada.
Through extensive research, consultation of Indigenous communities and the local population, and verification that the name complies with the Principles of Geographical Names, a decision can take more than one or two years.
Often, priority is given to names already commonly used within a community, but a general rule is that no commemorative names will be approved for people still living – a minimum of five years has to elapse from their date of death, according to the Alberta government’s Geographical Names Manual.
Everett acknowledged that while his name suggestion doesn’t comply with some of the naming principles, he will still go ahead and submit the proposal, hoping that, at the least, it will spark a process of giving the mountain an official name – even if it’s not after his parents.
“I [will] submit the application anyway and if they say no, you know, even if they give it any name, I'd be quite happy with that to be honest.”
“I was thinking I'll probably get a sheet of paper and get all my chums here to sign it, saying that we use the name here and that'll hopefully add more weight to it, so I might submit it in maybe a week or two,” added Everett.
Everett said that, with some exposure, he thinks the peak has the potential to attract many more mountaineers and hikers given its location, surrounding views and interesting final climb.
“It's an awesome view and it's pretty accessible as well, so I think even if people don't get to the summit, if they're more hikers, and they go to the other side of the gap, I still think they’d have an amazing day out,” said Everett.
"There's probably plenty of people trudging up Nigel who haven't even thought to do, hopefully, Mount Dave Lorraine in the future.”
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. The position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.
