Haldan Borglum Sets Canadian Rockies 11ers FKT and Becomes Youngest Finisher

[josephnephi]

For those of you who might not be aware, the big 58-peak list in Canada is the "11ers of the Canadian Rockies" (as outlined in Bill Corbet's book). To the best of my knowledge, only 24 people have finished the list. The easiest peak on the list is class 3 and low class 5, snow, ice, and glacier travel are mandatory for most of the list.

Haldan Borglum just shattered the previous FKT of 5.5 years (set by Ben Nearingburg) with a time of 736 days (just over 2 years). He also now holds the age record at 26.6 (previously held by Steven Song at 27). As a cherry on top, he did not use the typical helicopter support for Clemenceau, Tusk, or Tsar.

I highly encourage you to check out his strava and website. Some of his days are insane... A 20 hour, 37 mile, 13.3k vert push for Warren & Brazeau??

It's an incredible achievement for North American mountaineering!

[nyker]

Not familiar with these mountains in detail but the photos look like a wild and beautiful place. Some good effort here!

[seannunn]

Wow that's awesome.
I may be way off here, but is this the same guy that did the Colorado 14ers UNSUPPORTED?

Sean Nunn
Peculiar, MO

[Tim A]

You left out that most of the approaches are through mosquito -infested swamps and include finding crossing points of full-blown rivers.

If I just climb Assiniboine, Hector and Robson in my lifetime, I’ll consider myself very accomplished. Props to this dude for knocking these out in such a short span. It’s barely fathomable what this takes, and many consider the Canadian 11ers to be a more formidable challenge than the UIAA’s 4000ers or the Himalayan 8000ers (especially since there are double the number of finishers for the 8000ers v the 11ers).

[seano]

This is wild stuff. I would definitely say this list is harder than any of the Lower 48 elevation-based lists, and harder than the UIAA Alps 4000m peaks (technically almost as difficult, with way more challenging approaches and little information).

For example, having looked into it, I believe only a handful of people have climbed Clemenceau and Tusk without a helicopter in modern times. Land/water approaches are rare enough that there is not an established route to reach them, especially given the rapidly-changing state of logging roads, bridges, and Rockies glaciers.

[Scott P]

I would definitely say this list is harder than any of the Lower 48 elevation-based lists

The Utah 5, 6, and 7er lists are almost surely harder. A lot of those peaks have never been climbed, even after several attempts and many of the peaks that have been climbed have only been climbed once. The weather and approaches are a lot less extreme than in the Canadian Rockies but technical difficulties are harder and the rock even more rotten.

[jfm3]

Here is an excellent blog/trip report website from a guy named Steven Song. He lives in Vancouver and has climbed, among many other things, the Canada 11ers and Everest.
https://stevensong.com/

Sean, do you know him at all? The community of hardman peak baggers gets small quickly....

[seano]

Here is an excellent blog/trip report website from a guy named Steven Song. He lives in Vancouver and has climbed, among many other things, the Canada 11ers and Everest.
https://stevensong.com/

Sean, do you know him at all? The community of hardman peak baggers gets small quickly....

Yes, I haven't met him in person, but I corresponded with him a fair bit when he was first getting into peak-bagging, and he found several of my Canadian trip reports helpful. He has very much passed me by since then.

The Utah 5, 6, and 7er lists are almost surely harder. A lot of those peaks have never been climbed, even after several attempts and many of the peaks that have been climbed have only been climbed once. The weather and approaches are a lot less extreme than in the Canadian Rockies but technical difficulties are harder and the rock even more rotten.

I stand corrected -- when I think of elevation lists, I narrow-mindedly think "everything above X." I would not be surprised if many lower lists are harder in states with desert towers like UT, CO, and maybe WY and SD.

[bdloftin77]

Thanks for sharing, Joseph! I'm checking out his strava right now. Here's the big day that was mentioned.

Mt. Robson, the highest point in the Canadian Rockies and the most prominent Rocky Mountain peak, was a huge effort!