Diadem Peak on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Diadem Peak is a
In the summer of 1898, J. Norman Collie, Hugh Stutfield and Herman Woolley, had made their way up Woolley Creek and initially had their sights on reaching the top of Mount Woolley by climbing the icefield that separates Mt. Woolley from Diadem Peak. However, after a brief downpour which forced them to seek shelter among some rocks, they had just begun preparing the rope for ascending the icefield when a large collapse of ice from the summit made them switch their objective to Diadem Peak. The party ascended the southeast ridge along loose
File:Mushroom Peak and Diadem Peak.jpg, Mushroom Peak (left) and Diadem Peak (right) seen from the
peak Peak or The Peak may refer to:
Basic meanings Geology
* Mountain peak
** Pyramidal peak, a mountaintop that has been sculpted by erosion to form a point Mathematics
* Peak hour or rush hour, in traffic congestion
* Peak (geometry), an (''n''-3)-d ...
located in the Sunwapta River
The Sunwapta River is a major tributary of the Athabasca River in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada.
Course
The headwaters of the Sunwapta River are near the Columbia Icefield in the valley west-northwest of Sunwapta Pass, which divides Ja ...
Valley of Jasper National Park
Jasper National Park, in Alberta, Canada, is the largest national park within Alberta's Rocky Mountains, spanning . It was established as Jasper Forest Park in 1907, renamed as a national park in 1930, and declared a UNESCO world heritage site ...
, Canada. Diadem Peak is essentially the high point of a ridge leading down from the slightly higher Mount Woolley (). This peak was the first 11,000er north of the Columbia Icefield
The Columbia Icefield is the largest ice field in North America's Rocky Mountains. Located within the Canadian Rocky Mountains astride the Continental Divide along the border of British Columbia and Alberta, Canada, the ice field lies partly ...
to be climbed and one of the few peaks in the Canadian Rockies
The Canadian Rockies () or Canadian Rocky Mountains, comprising both the Alberta Rockies and the British Columbian Rockies, is the Canadian segment of the North American Rocky Mountains. It is the easternmost part of the Canadian Cordillera, w ...
to be climbed before 1900.
The mountain was named in 1898 by the first ascent team of J. Norman Collie, Hugh Stutfield and Hermann Woolley. Upon reaching the summit, they discovered a crown (diadem
A diadem is a Crown (headgear), crown, specifically an ornamental headband worn by monarchs and others as a badge of Monarch, royalty.
Overview
The word derives from the Ancient Greek, Greek διάδημα ''diádēma'', "band" or "fillet", fro ...
) of snow about high covering the almost flat layer of rocks on top.
__NOTOC__
Climbing history
In the summer of 1898, J. Norman Collie, Hugh Stutfield and Herman Woolley, had made their way up Woolley Creek and initially had their sights on reaching the top of Mount Woolley by climbing the icefield that separates Mt. Woolley from Diadem Peak. However, after a brief downpour which forced them to seek shelter among some rocks, they had just begun preparing the rope for ascending the icefield when a large collapse of ice from the summit made them switch their objective to Diadem Peak. The party ascended the southeast ridge along loose shale
Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock formed from mud that is a mix of flakes of Clay mineral, clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g., Kaolinite, kaolin, aluminium, Al2Silicon, Si2Oxygen, O5(hydroxide, OH)4) and tiny f ...
and ice, eventually finding a small rock rib that took them to the summit on August 25. Collie recorded an initial elevation of using a mercurial barometer
A barometer is a scientific instrument that is used to measure air pressure in a certain environment. Pressure tendency can forecast short term changes in the weather. Many measurements of air pressure are used within surface weather analysis ...
. With the use of crampons
A crampon is a traction device attached to footwear to improve mobility on snow and ice during ice climbing. Besides ice climbing, crampons are also used for secure travel on snow and ice, such as crossing glaciers, snowfields and icefields, as ...
, the difficulties of the southeast ridge route are reduced by following a shallow snow gully up much of the way.Corbett, pp. 52-53
In 1962, William Buckingham and Bill Hooker, ascended Diadem Peak by what is now known as the South Ridge route. This route initially traverses loose rock ledges to reach a snow/ice couloir
A couloir (, "passage" or "corridor") is a narrow gully with a steep gradient in a mountainous terrain.Whittow, John (1984). ''Dictionary of Physical Geography''. London: Penguin, p. 121. .
Geology
A couloir may be a seam, scar, or fissure, o ...
which is followed until the glacier levels off and is no longer fractured. Traversing left across rock to the glacier, the route follows the glacier up to the Woolley-Diadem col where Diadem's summit is reached after an easy ascent up the ridge. Jim Elzinga and Jeff Marshall made the first ascent up a mixed route on the North face of Diadem in July 1981. This route is known as "Humble Horse" (IV, 5.7, W4).
Geology
Diadem Peak is composed ofsedimentary rock
Sedimentary rocks are types of rock (geology), rock formed by the cementation (geology), cementation of sediments—i.e. particles made of minerals (geological detritus) or organic matter (biological detritus)—that have been accumulated or de ...
laid down from the Precambrian
The Precambrian ( ; or pre-Cambrian, sometimes abbreviated pC, or Cryptozoic) is the earliest part of Earth's history, set before the current Phanerozoic Eon. The Precambrian is so named because it preceded the Cambrian, the first period of t ...
to Jurassic
The Jurassic ( ) is a Geological period, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), stratigraphic system that spanned from the end of the Triassic Period million years ago (Mya) to the beginning of the Cretaceous Period, approximately 143.1 Mya. ...
periods. Formed in shallow seas, this sedimentary rock was pushed east and over the top of younger rock during the Laramide orogeny
The Laramide orogeny was a time period of mountain building in western North America, which started in the Late Cretaceous, 80 to 70 million years ago, and ended 55 to 35 million years ago. The exact duration and ages of beginning and end of the o ...
.
Climate
Based on theKöppen climate classification
The Köppen climate classification divides Earth climates into five main climate groups, with each group being divided based on patterns of seasonal precipitation and temperature. The five main groups are ''A'' (tropical), ''B'' (arid), ''C'' (te ...
, Diadem Peak is located in a subarctic climate
The subarctic climate (also called subpolar climate, or boreal climate) is a continental climate with long, cold (often very cold) winters, and short, warm to cool summers. It is found on large landmasses, often away from the moderating effects of ...
with cold, snowy winters, and mild summers. Temperatures can drop below -20 °C with wind chill factors below -30 °C.
Gallery
Icefields Parkway
Highway 93 is a north–south highway in Alberta, Canada. It is also known as the Banff-Windermere Parkway south of the Trans-Canada Highway ( Highway 1) and the Icefields Parkway north of the Trans-Canada Highway. It travels through Banff Nat ...
See also
*List of mountains in the Canadian Rockies
A list of highest mountains and peaks in the Canadian Rockies over is shown below. Sources for the elevation, prominence and first ascent can be found in their respective pages and/or Wikidata
Wikidata is a collaboratively edited multiling ...
References
;Sources * {{Canadian Rockies, state=collapsed Three-thousanders of Alberta Winston Churchill Range Alberta's Rockies Mountains of Jasper National Park