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Mount Stephen is a
mountainImage:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
located in the
Kicking Horse RiverThe Kicking Horse River is a river located in the Canadian Rockies of southeastern British Columbia, Canada.The river was named in 1858, when James Hector, a member of the Palliser Expedition, was kicked by his packhorse while exploring the river. Hector survived and named the river and the...
Valley of
Yoho National ParkYoho National Park is located in the Canadian Rocky Mountains along the western slope of the Continental Divide in southeastern British Columbia. Yoho NP is bordered by Kootenay National Park on the southern side and Banff National Park on the eastern side...
, ½ km east of
FieldField is an unincorporated settlement of approximately 300 people located in the Kicking Horse River valley of southeastern British Columbia,Canada, within the confines of Yoho National Park....
. The mountain was named in 1886 for
George StephenGeorge Stephen, 1st Baron of Mount Stephen , known as Sir Stephen, between 1778 and 1891.-Canadian Pacific Railway syndicate:...
, the first president of the
Canadian Pacific RailwayThe Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
.
The mountain is composed mainly of
shaleShale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable. Shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering...
s and
dolomiteDolomite is a carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate CaMg2. The term is also used to describe the sedimentary carbonate rock dolostone....
s from the
CambrianThe Cambrian is the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, lasting from Mya ; it is succeeded by the Ordovician. Its subdivisions, and indeed its base, are somewhat in flux. The period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name for Wales, where Britain's...
Period, some 550 million years ago. The
Stephen FormationThe Stephen Formation is a middle Cambrian unit exposed in the Canadian Rockies of British Columbia. It is famous for the exceptional preservation of soft-bodied fossils: the Burgess Shale biota...
, a stratigraphical unit of the
Western Canadian Sedimentary BasinThe Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin is a vast sedimentary basin underlying of Western Canada including southwestern Manitoba, southern Saskatchewan, Alberta, northeastern British Columbia and the southwest corner of the Northwest Territories. It consists of a massive wedge of sedimentary rock...
was first described at the mountain and was named for it.
The first ascent was made in September 1887 when James. J. McArthur and his assistant T. Riley, which was made even more difficult by the surveying equipment they also carried with them. Unfortunately for them, smoke from forest fires limited visibility from the top.
Climbing routes
- The main route (scramble) ascends slopes on the southwest face but requires much route finding and the final section of 125 m (410 ft) to the top is rated difficult. A cornice
A snow cornice or simply cornice is an overhanging edge of snow on a ridge or the crest of a mountain. They form by wind blowing snow over the crest of the mountain, so they often form on the leeward sides of mountains...
on the summit may prevent parties from reaching the top so if in doubt of conditions, attempts should wait until August. The route also passes through a fossilFossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...
bed and thus requires a special park permit to be in the area. The elevation gain is 1920 m (6,299 ft).
- A rock climbing route on the north ridge is rated III 5.7.