Mount Waddington

This article is about the mountain. For the Regional District, see Regional District of Mount Waddington, British Columbia.
Mount Waddington
Highest point
Elevation4,019 m (13,186 ft)[1]
Prominence3,289 m (10,791 ft)[1]
Listing
Coordinates51°22′25″N 125°15′48″W / 51.37361°N 125.26333°W / 51.37361; -125.26333[2]
Naming
Native namexʷoʔoxʷ (Comox)
Geography
Mount Waddington is located in British Columbia
Mount Waddington
Mount Waddington
DistrictRange 2 Coast Land District
Parent rangeWaddington Range
Topo mapNTS 92N6 Mount Waddington[2]
Climbing
First ascent1936 by Fritz Wiessner and William House[3]
Easiest routeRock/ice climb

Mount Waddington, once known as Mystery Mountain, is the highest peak in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia, Canada. Although it is lower than Mount Fairweather and Mount Quincy Adams, which straddle the United States border between Alaska and British Columbia, Mount Waddington is the highest peak that lies entirely within British Columbia.[4] It and the subrange which surround it, known as the Waddington Range, stand at the heart of the Pacific Ranges, a remote and extremely rugged set of mountains and river valleys.

It is not as far north as its extreme Arctic-like conditions might indicate, and Mount Waddington and its attendant peaks pose some of the most serious expedition mountaineering to be had in North America — and some of the most extreme relief and spectacular mountain scenery.

From Waddington's 4,019 m (13,186 ft) fang to sea level at the heads of Bute and Knight Inlets is only about 32 kilometers; across the 3,000-metre-deep (9,800 ft) gorges of the Homathko and the Klinaklini Rivers stand mountains almost as high, and icefields even vaster and whiter, only a few aerial miles away, with a maw deeper than the Grand Canyon, comparable in relief to the Himalayas (to which the terrain of British Columbia was compared by colonial-era travellers).

Mount Waddington is the namesake of the Mount Waddington Regional District, which takes in the seaward slope of the Waddington Range and the adjoining coastline and parts of northern Vancouver Island adjacent to Queen Charlotte Strait.

  1. ^ a b "Mount Waddington". Bivouac.com. Retrieved 2008-12-31.
  2. ^ a b "Mount Waddington". Geographical Names Data Base. Natural Resources Canada. Retrieved 2021-07-31.
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Scott_fa was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ "Mount Waddington". BC Geographical Names. Retrieved 2015-01-13.