Skookum1

I'm not meaning to dwell on the past; I'm not as "close to this" as many other relatives of the dead. All I'm asking is that people don't have a flippant attitude towards remains that they find up there, or disregard for the special character of the place not only as what it means to the relatives of the dead, but in plain and simple terms because those skulls, femurs, etc were REAL PEOPLE, not just curiosities to be shrugged off. I would be saying the same thing about a native burial ground...imagine if someone had a flippant attitude about fooling around in graveyards...same deal. Has nothing to do with the past, and everything to do with how people behave in the present.

What does your friend Dick have to do with whether the flight would have hit another mountain than Slesse?

That's assuming that you knew their trajectory, which you didn't; I've seen the flight studies; a few seconds (compass seconds) of variance in the flight-path and according to what I saw, they would have cleared ALL summits. As it was they almost missed Slesse altogether - "almost" is a big word. Sure, they might have hit the Border Peaks, or even American Sumas Mountain during their desc3ent if they'd cleared the big peaks. The point I was making was that at the altitude they were at, it was a bit of a freak accident that they hit Slesse at all...(they weren't supposed to be that far south, for one thing....)

Here's one for ya....I just talked to one of my cousins in Winnipeg, and mentioned the shaving kit and suitcases mentioned in some of the posts here. The one thing he said he knew of that would identifiably be his father's was a gold signet ring given to him by his mother; it had no stone, but was a plain gold ring with a thumbnail-sized surface inscribed with "H.C." (Harald Cleven, whose name you will find on the monument down by Chilliwack River Road). Obviously jewellery is the kind of thing that, if found, isn't likely to go missing and this may have wound up in a jeweller's shop in Chilliwack long ago. But if any of you climbers DO happen to find it, please consider returning it to the family, or at least secreting it at the Bone Cairn (with any finger bone it may still be attached to....).

"A doll, and a toothbrush..." There were only a handful of children on that flight...there's something like a 1 in 3 chance that the owner of that doll could be identified (only so many were girls). Did you keep the doll, or did you leave it up there? If you kept it, I'm sure you realize what I'm going to suggest next - either take it to the Bone Cairn next time you're up there, or try and identify the family of the victim who owned it and return it to them.....

Thank you for your story on the Bone Cairn. I'm going to forward it to my cousin in Winnipeg who's visited the site. He was about 10 or so when his father died in the crash, and the first visit was overwhelming for him. He'll be glad to know that a secret shrine has been set up, where idle hands can't paw what might be his father's bones...(and maybe Uncle Harry liked your granola bar, too)...I'm afraid to ask you to describe the suitcases....

I'm afraid to ask if that shaver-case had the initials H.C. on it, as chances are 1 in about 40 that it was my uncle's. Did you leave it there (as you're supposed to), or did you bring it out? If it's engraved....well, all I can ask is that you go by the Slesse Memorial down by the Chilliwack River and compare it to the list of names, and you can decided what to do with it from there. Among the original findings in 1957 were bits of the pilot's briefcase, engraved in gold; it was returned to the site and buried in the main burial mound (many bodies and remains were gathered and piled, with stones piled on top in a giant burial mound/cairn. A service was held with a preacher and some of the families attended; I don't know if my father was there, actually, but I'd think he was. That's not the Bone Cairn, but it's nice to hear that that exists. It points to the presence of decency amid at least some, hopefully the majority, of people who visit the site, and maybe there is hope for humanity after all. There were stories over the years of kids from Chilliwack bringing down skulls and femurs and using rolling them around and taking potshots at them, or with them..... The original impact? Somewhere up on the flank of the mountain there's a ledge, where there's still debris and some remains; something like 100 ft, or is it yards, below the summit, on the hardest part of the mountain to reach. Most of the wreckage fell down from that shelf. 50-100 yards or whatever it is to the right or left, or that much higher, and the plane would have cleared the only peak in the vicinity of that altitude, which came up on it unseen in heavy cloud and storm. Why the plane, returning because of heavy weather from the Princeton area, was on the flightpath that took it to Slesse is a matter of some conjecture but because of sensitivity over the issue among others of the Families I have agreed not to discuss the details (except to say they are there). Nobody knows what happened, and nobody really wants to know, in fact; it's too hard for some of those who remember their lost to find out more details; they've had what closure they can get, they don't need the bones disturbed, literally or figuratively; except to be given a better rest than to be left around for some people to pick up as souvenirs.... I may have a picture of the crash site and the debris, or can get one, but I actually came by here hoping someone might have a good picture of the main spire, or even a nice shot from the distance, say from the Vedder Canal area, to illustrate the Wikipedia article on Slesse.....

"Let us hope now, finally, all those people who persist in climbing Mount Slesse never lose sight of the fact that they are entering an eternal resting place for 62 souls who deserve to be left in peace." I thought at the very least it denigrates the efforts & motivation of those who choose to climb Slesse, as I'd hope to one day. I don't understand. How does it denigrate climbers to ask them to be respectful of the remains of those who died there. One was my uncle, my father's favourite brother, and although I've never been up there I know the area is held in great sanctity by members of the Families of Slesse organization, who discovered that the provincial government had not lived up to its commitment to preserve the site originally, pawning off a small roadside memorial near the Chilliwack River Road many miles away. Eventual settlement of the problem - which was what brought logging roads right into some of the area where remains were, and also made Slesse a LOT more accessible to climbers i.e. not just the hardcore - and it was to the credit of hardcore climbers that the crash was found in the first place, in the late summer after the plane disappeared. I don't understand how asking you to respect that when you are in the place denigrates you, but I do know that your disrespectful attitude - or what seems to be so - does denigrate the dead, and their living. I don't understand how you being asked to respect the tragedy and the dead, and the feelings of their survivors, I don't understand how that denigrates YOU. The site is actually subject now to a special amendment to the BC Cemeteries Act, and is the only official "open grave" in the province as a result of the efforts of the Families of Slesse to preserve what was left of the wild character of the site. Because of the application of the Cemeteries Act, there are stronger penalties for removing remains and other relics of the crash than would be if it was simply removal of human remains, period. When you are in the one big cirque, you are in an official cemetery of sorts; and in the minds of the families you are in an open grave. Please learn to respect that. Or go find another mountain - there are lots more, after all.