Mount Steele

Elevation

Mount Steele's exact elevation is uncertain. Until the 1960s, Canadian topographical maps showed an elevation of 5073 m, which was determined in 1913 by International Boundary Commission surveyors. However, this height was never tied to the sea-level datum established by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. More recent Canadian topographical maps no longer show a spot height, and their contour lines indicate a summit elevation of 5,02020 metres (about 16,47060 ft). The older figure continues to be quoted by other sources.

First ascent in 1935

Walter A. Wood led a team consisting of Foresta Wood (Walter's wife), Swiss guide Hans Fuhrer, Joseph W. Fobes, Harrison Wood and I. Pearce Hazard. The expedition approached the peak on the eastern side from Kluane Lake. Base camp was established at the foot of the Steele Glacier with horses carrying loads to Advance Base Camp (known as Camp 6) further along the glacier. ABC provided good views of the mountain and the team decided on the east ridge as their line of ascent.

After waiting for the weather to improve after heavy snowfalls, a four-man team consisting of Walter Wood, Harrison Wood, Fuhrer and Forbes left Camp 8 at the base of the ridge. Their plan was to make a 2440 m push to the summit. After steady upwards progress, deteriorating weather forced them to return to Camp 8 where they waited out a five-day storm which dumped over a metre of fresh snow. They started out again on August 15 and the ascent was made easier this time by windblown and hard steep snow slopes rather than steep soft snow on their earlier attempt. At 4570 m, a plateau of wretched snow forced the team to crawl on all fours. Walter Wood commented:

The humour of it impressed me. Here were four supposedly normal human beings crawling across a snow field 15,000 ft. up in the air, engaged in what they fondly believed to be a sporting venue.

Alternating the lead every 100 paces, they made their way from the plateau to the top, finally reaching the summit at 2:30 pm. The team enjoyed a blissful thirty minutes of windless conditions on top before beginning their descent.

Avalanche and landslides

On 22 July 2007 at approximately 13:25 Pacific Daylight Time, a massive avalanche took place on Mount Steele when a slab of ice with a volume of about 3,000,000 m3 broke loose from its north face. The slab broke up as it fell down the side of the mountain, developing into an avalanche that crossed Steele Glacier, overtopped a 275 m ridge, and continued onto Hodgson Glacier, where it finally came to rest after traveling a total horizontal distance of 8 km. The avalanche covered about 2 km2 of the surface of Steele Glacier. The avalanche registered as a 2.1-magnitude seismic event.

At 17:57 Pacific Daylight Time on 24 July 2007 – only two days after the avalanche — a massive landslide occurred on the north face of Mount Steele With a volume estimated at between 27,500,000 and, it lasted about 100 seconds and reached a maximum speed of at least 252 kph. Falling 2,500 m down the side of the mountain, the landslide traveled across the 1.5 km Steele Glacier, and reached the top of a 275 m ridge on the opposite side of the glacier, where it came to a stop before sliding back down onto Steele Glacier.

On 11 October 2015, 45,000,000 MT of rock, snow, and ice with a volume of about 20,000,000 m3 slid 1 km down the side of Mount Steele and 2 km across the surface of Steele Glacier. It was one of the ten largest landslides of the year worldwide.

References

References

1. "Mount Steele".
2. {{cite opentopomap. Mount Steele. 61.0932017. -140.3107453. 2022-07-17
3. {{cite cgndb
4. 1:250,000 Sheet 115G & 115F, "Kluane Lake", Department of Mines and Technical Surveys (Canada), 1961
5. International Boundary Commission. (1918). "Joint Report Upon the Survey and Demarcation of the International Boundary Between the United States and Canada Along the 141st Meridian from the Arctic Ocean to Mount St. Elias".
6. Wallis, Roger. (1992). "The St. Elias Mountains". Canadian Alpine Journal.
7. 1:50,000 Sheet 115F/1, "Mount Steele", Department of Energy, Mines and Resources (Canada), 1987
8. "Mount Steele - Peakbagger.com".
9. (November 2008). "The July 2007 rock and ice avalanches at Mount Steele, St. Elias Mountains, Yukon, Canada".
10. (August 6, 2007). "Monumental landslide shakes Yukon's Mount Steele". CBC News.
11. Anonymous. (August 7, 2007). "Mount Steele slide called massive". Whitehorse Star.
12. Petley, Dave. (20 October 2015). "The Mount Steele rock avalanche: more details from the seismic data".
13. McColl, Karen. (24 October 2015). "Mount Steele landslide 1 of the 10 largest of the year: researcher".