Voices
The Climber’s Guide to the Coastal Ranges
Video Transcript
Background Description: At the top of the screen is the title, “The Climber’s Guide to the Coastal Ranges”. A colour photograph likely from the 1970s depicts a woman and two men having a picnic behind their car on a city street.
Narrator speaks: As the sixties gave way to the seventies, one climber surfaced as an unstoppable force in the Coast Mountains.
Background Description: A colour photograph shows the same woman and two men on a peak with a backdrop of snowy mountains.
Narrator speaks: Described by a close friend as being a very unusual young man ...
Background Description: We see two young men sitting on a peak.
Narrator speaks: Dick Culbert is best known for uncanny route-finding skills ...
Background Description: A black and white photograph shows Dick from the side hanging onto a steep, jagged rock face.
Narrator speaks: ... and an almost super human ability to steadily climb up the most rotten rock imaginable.
Background Description: A colour headshot of Dick with sunglasses, beard and mosquito net on his head.
Narrator speaks: With herculean ambition and the energy of youth, Dick Culbert imbued self-reliance.
Background Description: A photo shows Dick in the foreground hiking away from us on a rocky mountainside overlooking a snowy valley.
Narrator speaks: His education and profession as a geologist provided a diverse academic knowledge that few possessed within the mountainous lands he thrust himself into.
Background Description: A colour photograph shows Dick hacking into the side of a snowy cliff with his ice axe.
Narrator speaks: Long remote alpine traverses gave way to serious technical routes up difficult peaks.
Background Description: Next, a photograph of Dick traversing a snow-covered glacier towards a jagged mountain. The photograph gives way to a book cover with the title, “‘Alpine Guide to Southwestern British Columbia,’ by Dick Culbert.”
Narrator speaks: A consummate mountaineer and the author of the Alpine Guide to Southwestern British Columbia ...
Background Description: A colourful photograph shows dramatic mountain peaks with forest in the foreground. Quoted writing reads, “‘For countless aeons have I known, the monarchy of magnitude, implacable to flesh and time I brew my clouds in solitude’ Dick Culbert (1957)”
Narrator speaks: ... Dick Culbert’s little known passion for writing poetry provided a way to express his mountain spirit.
From: Passion for Mountains, produced by the British Columbia Mountaineering Club, directed by Bill Noble, 2007.
