purchased much of Grouse Mountain convinced Don and Phyl to partner in a venture to develop and open up Grouse for recreational use. In July, Don reported in the BCMC newsletter that beginning in August, a new trail up Grouse would be completed by “the interests who intend to place a hotel on the plateau.” This new route, which Don cut himself, began at the Lonsdale streetcar terminus, headed east to St. George Avenue, past a sawdust pile left over from an abandoned mill, along an old skid road up the open west slopes of Dome Mountain, to the trees at the edge of Mosquito Creek at 935 metres elevation. From here the new trail angled westward toward the end of the existing trail on the bare rocks overlooking the city and continued up above the east bank to the creek. It then zigzagged up the side of Grouse to the plateau. The trail boasted an easy gradient suitable for all foot traffic and for pack or saddle horses, the latter available for rent at trail-head from Don Munday. Don was also in charge of building a cabin, the first phase of the development before a chalet-style hotel was to be constructed. For this work, Don was to be paid five dollars a day.
To be more accessible to the mountain, Don and Phyl moved from South Vancouver to North Vancouver, at 162 King’s Road West. It wasn’t long until they realized the days could be more productive if they just stayed up on the mountain during the heavy, tiring days of building the log cabin on the edge of the bluff of Grouse Plateau. They lived beside Grouse Lake in a large canvas tent complete with cook stove. The stovepipe angled up through a hole in the canvas roof. The tent bore a wooden sign that read Alpine Lodge, the name of the as yet unfinished cabin. From this tent Phyl ran a refreshment stand and served sandwiches and cool drinks to hikers.
Many weeks went by as Don toiled. When the snow came, complications arose, not the least of which was living in a tent with baby Edith. The heavy snowfalls in the night meant that the Mundays had to set their alarm clock to wake them every hour, so they could get up and scrape the snow off the tent roof to prevent the whole thing from collapsing in. One night, Phyl woke with a start and put her hand up. The tent was practically right down on top of them! Hurriedly they put a wooden apple box over the sleeping Edith, in hope that it would give her air if the tent came down. With great care they squeezed out of the door and gently took the snow off in such a fashion that they did not leave the tent roof unevenly weighted.
Phyl wrote an account of their experience for the Vancouver Province newspaper. “Don spent every daylight hour working on a substantial log cabin, while I sawed and chopped firewood, cooked the meals, took care of my baby, scraped snow off the tent (every hour) and helped Don between whiles. The middle of December came with the weather getting worse and the snow deeper, so we knew we must soon move under a solid roof, or be buried under the wreckage of our tent. Even with two friends to help us, the situation was fast becoming desperate unless the weather relented. Part of the cabin was roofed but lacked floor and windows, and the walls were still unchinked. We watched the sky anxiously… by night the mountaintop was enveloped in a raging blizzard. The heavily iced edges of the fly whipped and crashed against the roof of the tent till it seemed the canvas could stand the strain no longer… We worked all that night. The usual five minutes walk to the cabin now took half an hour or more with fifty-pound bundles of floor boards on our backs… The only light was a feeble electric torch… One man laid flooring and one packed it from the tent, while I alternatively helped with both jobs. The other man worked without rest shovelling snow from the tent where my baby was peacefully sleeping through it all.” By dawn enough flooring had been laid to bring in their supplies and furniture. They nailed the frozen canvas fly from their tent over the unwalled section of the cabin and then used the cabin door as a sled for the first load.
“Edith thought that the wonderful world of snow must have been made purely for her own pleasure. She thoroughly enjoyed trip after trip from tent to cabin. Her joy relieved the strain on us, for we were all decidedly tired and the trips had to be made. By ten o’clock that night all the important things such as the stove, winter food supply, bedding, clothes and household equipment were safe under a solid roof.”
That night, ten days before Christmas 1923, the family moved in to the unfinished three-bedroom cabin. Phyl and Don were thankful to be under a safe and strong roof. But it was cold. The ceiling and inside of the logs were completely white with driven snow and frost, and the spaces between the logs had become chinked with snow. Phyl draped large canvas tarps over all their possessions, and then they lit fires in the big stone fireplace in the main room and the cast-iron stove in the kitchen. As the warmth of the fires circulated, everything dripped. The dripping lasted a long time, and as the spaces between the logs thawed, Phyl chinked them with sacking. They did not lack for water inside for many days until all the snow was thawed and had evaporated.
During the few remaining days before Christmas, Phyl managed to steal some time away from her family. She went down the mountain to the house on Kings Road, changed from her mountain gear, and travelled into Vancouver to shop for Christmas. Laden with parcels, she climbed back up to the cabin. Don cut down a balsam fir for their very first mountain Christmas tree, and they decorated it with their own ornaments carefully packed up the mountain. On Christmas Day, Phyl gave her stove its first real test when she cooked a turkey with all the trimmings.
For the Mundays, 1924 was a notable year, not the least because of their abode high above the city. “We were now out on the very edge of the world, 3000 feet sheer above the floor of Capilano Valley, out where you felt you could look out and face the world.” Alpine Lodge served not just as their home, but as a business offering “Meals, Refreshments etc. at all hours. Special prices for members of the B.C. Mountaineering Club and the Alpine Club of Canada.” A sign outside the front door listed “hot drinks, coffee 15 cents, soup 20 cents, sandwiches 20 cents, meals 1 dollar.” Phyl worked hard at this venture, but during the winter months, with no source of water, she was kept constantly busy melting snow into water to cook the meals and for drinking and to clean dishes afterward. The cabin had no electricity. The wood stove kept it heated, and oil lamps provided light at night. Everything was done by hand, and Phyl and Don were the only hands available. With a young child underfoot, operating the Alpine Lodge was a challenge.
It was in 1924 that Phyl achieved what no woman had done before her: she ascended the summit of Mount Robson, highest point in the Rocky Mountains. Fifty years later Phyl would remember the beautiful windless day and the clear unending sea of mountain peaks beneath her feet. “Its something I shall never forget if I live to be a hundred.”
But it wasn’t just the view from the summit that Phyl remembered. Robson had a reputation for being unpredictable and dangerous. The Mundays’ climb was fraught with danger. Two harrowing incidents on their ascent caused them to fall behind schedule and put their lives at risk. In the first situation one of the guides, Joe Saladana, fell and dropped his ice axe down a crevasse. It was a costly error. To go onwards without his ice axe was too dangerous. Ice axes, as all the party knew, were essential on such a climb; they were used not just for cutting steps, but as support on slippery slopes and as an anchor for dangerous sections. It was risky to proceed without it and equally risky to rescue it.
The second incident occurred when Annette Buck, the other woman in the party, disregarded orders – with consequences that were almost fatal. She was on Phyl’s rope in the rear position. In front of Buck was another climber, then Phyl, with guide Conrad Kain in the lead. Kain instructed them to move only one at a time and to drag themselves prone across a fragile ice bridge. Ignoring these instructions, Buck moved carelessly and quickly. The bridge shattered and she dropped into the crevasse, jerking the unprepared man above her from his footholds. He too fell. Don and his companions on the second rope watched helplessly while Phyl braced herself to hold the double weight and Conrad Kain frantically snatched in the slack. Kain knew he could not possibly check the three if
