their captains and lieutenants, and the movement itself centred and dynamic. From the tiny germ of an idea initiated because of her personal situation, and definitely motivated as a solace to her own self, the Lone Guides movement grew and thrived under Phyl’s dynamic leadership. She transformed it into an ongoing passion – one that continued long after she and her family moved back to Vancouver and off the mountain.
9
Rising Above All the Others
On a clear, crisp Saturday afternoon in March 1925, Phyl heard cries outside the cabin. She ran to the front door and out on the verandah overlooking the bluff. Yes, there it was, clearly, a voice calling for help. But where? Phyl shouted for Don.
“Someone’s hurt, Don. I can hear a call below the bluffs.” Pausing long enough to tie up her hiking boots and wrap herself in a winter jacket, Phyl left the cabin and went out on the plateau.
“Hello!” she called.
“Help!” came the reply. “Down here. My friend, he’s gone over. I can’t see him.” Sure enough, there was a teenage boy on the bluff below the cabin. He was in an awful state – scared stiff and panicking.
The main tower of Waddington (elevation 4019 metres) rises to its full
glory. “A nightmare molded in rock and ice” is how Don Munday described
this mountain, located 300 kilometres north of Vancouver. This view was taken in 1928 from the northwest – and lower – summit, the closest
the Mundays ever got in their quest to ascend their “Mystery Mountain.”
“Are you injured?”
“No, I’m OK. We were playing and sliding down the frozen slope, but all of a sudden Sid hit a real icy patch beneath the snow. Sid just fell flat down on his back and rolled right off, down the slope and into the trees.”
“You just stay still there now. We’ll come down to you and get you back up to our cabin. Then we’ll look for your friend.”
Don arrived with a rope that he anchored and then passed down to Phyl, who stood as far as she dared on the edge of the slope. Receiving the rope, she called to the teenager.
“Here, look up now. I’m sending you a rope. You will have to reach out and grab it. Tie it round your middle and let us know when it’s knotted good and tight.” The boy did as he was told and then he pulled himself up to a stand and began to scramble up the slope. With the rope bearing most of his weight, he was able to climb unaided to the plateau where Don and Phyl untied the rope.
Rescuing his buddy was another situation altogether. Fourteen-year-old Sid had not been nearly as lucky as his friend had. Not only had Sid gone completely down the slope, but he had managed to slip between the trees and tumble almost six hundred metres farther down to the brink of another cliff. There was no discussion. Don with his weak left arm would be at a disadvantage in leading a rescue. Phyl had her first aid training and could assess the boy’s medical condition, and besides, she was strong and in good health.
Phyl went down in among the trees to search for him. She carried one of their climbing ropes and a small pack containing some bandages and a blanket. A toboggan trailed behind her. She didn’t know what to expect. Down she went, fearful that she too might lose her balance, but fearful also of what she might find. After more time and patient searching she found him. He was a long way down. So far down she thought she might have missed him as she moved along. His fall had finally been stopped by a windfallen fir tree. There he lay, mere metres from the cliff edge, unconscious.
At first Phyl thought he was dead, but she was able to discern shallow breathing. After a careful examination, Phyl could detect no major bone breakage, and his neck appeared unharmed. But she wasn’t taking any chances. She knew he must have a head injury, so they would have to move him with the utmost care. He was limp, a dead weight. Don appeared from above with another rope that he tied around some trees, and then, using the rope to steady himself, he joined Phyl. They tied the other end of the rope around the unconscious boy. Together Don and Phyl dragged him up a slope to the trees. Gently she moved him prone on to the toboggan. Using supplies from her pack, she strapped him and wedged the wool blanket around his head and neck for extra support. Now began the real challenge – somehow to drag the boy on the toboggan back up the mountain.
For three long hours Phyl had to hold the toboggan tail from above as they traversed the slopes, keeping the boy as flat as possible. Finally they got to the cabin and brought him inside, still on the toboggan. Edith was sleeping, and the other boy who had stayed at the cabin to take care of her was now warmed by the fire in the fireplace. He was calmer, but extremely worried about his friend.
“I’ll go for help, Phyl. I’ll find a doctor and bring him up.” With that, Don grabbed the bug light. He would need it on the return trip with the doctor. He ran out the door and down the mountain into North Vancouver to search frantically for a doctor willing to climb up Grouse Mountain to aid the injured boy, whose name was Sid Harling. Meanwhile Phyl knew what she had to do. Leaving him where he lay, she wrapped Sid up in blankets. She then heated water on the wood stove and put the water in empty jam jars, which she placed all around him. She knew that she shouldn’t move him, and she knew also that a badly chilled body should not be heated quickly. All the while Phyl checked his pulse and breathing. She was certain that he would die at any moment. But he didn’t, and by the time Don returned with Doctor Dyer and a nurse, Sid was breathing evenly and his body was warm.
The doctor examined the boy and indicated that he had suffered a bad concussion. He applauded Phyl’s decision to leave him on the floor and move him as little as possible, adding that in his estimation, if Sid had been exposed to the elements any longer than he had, death would surely have resulted. Only the speed with which he was rescued and removed from the cold had saved his life. Both the doctor and the nurse agreed to stay at the cabin for the next forty-eight hours to monitor Sid’s condition.
The following evening, the Mundays left Sid in their hands and came down the mountain to attend the local celebrations for the twentieth anniversary of the Alpine Club of Canada, a dinner held at the Hotel Vancouver. Word of the accident had just reached the club, and “cheer after cheer reverberated through the dining room when Mr. and Mrs. Don Munday arrived with apologies for ‘being a little late,”’ noted the ever-vigilant Province newspaper.
The injured boy was unable to travel. Phyl nursed him for over three weeks before he was sufficiently recuperated to handle the trip down Grouse. For her rescue and nursing of Sid Harling, the Girl Guides Association of Canada awarded Phyl their highest honour, the Bronze Cross for valour. She was the first woman in the country to receive this recognition.
Phyl had a busy time on Grouse, for it was only a few months later that she piggybacked an injured teenage girl down the mountain. But the climbing season geared up beginning in May with a little warm-up jaunt to Mount Garibaldi, and then two weeks later she and Don joined good friend Tom Ingram for what Ingram claimed would be “his farewell gesture to climbing.” At age fifty Ingram believed his climbing days to be over. Don and Phyl, to humour him, went along. The threesome travelled to Vancouver Island, and by stage from Nanaimo along the Alberni road towards Mount Arrowsmith (elevation 1817 metres). They planned for a
