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This article is about the Canadian mountain. For the Jewish religious site in the Old City of Jerusalem, see Temple Mount. Mount Temple is a mountain in Banff National Park of the Canadian Rockies. Mt. Temple is located in the Bow River Valley between Paradise Creek and Moraine Creek and is the highest peak in the Lake Louise area. The peak dominates the western landscape along the Trans-Canada Highway from Castle Junction to Lake Louise. The mountain was named by George Mercer Dawson in 1884 after Sir Richard Temple who visited the Canadian Rockies in the same year. Mt. Temple was also the first 11,000 foot peak to be climbed in the Canadian segment of the Rocky Mountains. On July 11 1955, in one of Canada's most tragic mountaineering accidents, seven American male teenagers were killed on the southwest ridge route. A warm summer day had caused several nearby avalanches. They finally decided to turn back and during the descent, an avalanche swept 10 members of the party 200 metres (650 ft) down the snowfield through a bottleneck of rocks. Unfortunately, the entire party only had one ice axe among them and were not well prepared for the seriousness of the route. The party had also gone up the route without either of their two group leaders. In 1996 on a blissful summer day, a small wedding ceremony was performed on the summit. Apparently, the wedding night was not spent on top.
Routes The mountain offers several routes for climbers and the normal route on the southwest side offers a moderate class scrambling route. See Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies for a description of that route. Climbers must be careful on this "easy" climb due to falling rock and if lost on the route, steep cliffs and avalanches. Current route conditions can be obtained from a climbing warden at the park information centre in Lake Louise. A climber's log outside the centre may also provide comments from other climbers. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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