The Skookumchuck Basin of the Purcell Range

THE recent articles by Thorington and Cromwell on the watershed of the Purcell Range1 bring the basin of the Skookumchuck Creek into prominence, as it embraces the relatively unknown area between Findlay Creek on the north and Mark Creek on the south. The important features of the former valley have been described in the second article; the latter and the country farther south have been mapped both topographically and geologically.2 The Skookumchuck basin was explored in 1924 by a prospecting party working for the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co., Ltd., of Canada. The party, consisting of Messrs. J. Davis and G. Holland of Kimberley, J. Warren of Penticton, and myself, traversed the area during the months of June, July, and August of that year, working from the Sullivan Mine at Kimberley. Supplies were brought from the latter town by pack-horses to rendezvous points at prearranged times. Leaving Kimberley by the trail up Mark Creek, we spent the first night in a fire-ranger's cabin at the foot of the steep pass leading into the headwaters of Buhl Creek. We crossed this pass next day and pitched camp near the junction of Buhl Creek and a small tributary flowing from a pass leading to the headwaters of Cherry Creek. From this camp we explored the Buhl Creek valley, the upper Cherry Creek basin, and part of the Mark Creek watershed. The latter ridge afforded some good scrambling, and we had to avoid one or two awkward snow cornices. We then descended Buhl Creek and followed the South Fork upstream. The going was very bad, and it often became necessary to cut out the trail through thick undergrowth. An unsatisfactory camp was made at a point near the stream, and the party divided: Davis and Holland worked south, up a valley closed in by a magnificent amphitheatre of peaks; Warren and I continued westwards towards the St. Mary river watershed. Camp was established on a grassy patch between the forest and the foot of the screes below Mount Sawtooth

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