Mount Fee

Mount Fee is a volcanic peak in the Pacific Ranges of the Coast Mountains in southwestern British Columbia, Canada. It sits 13 km south of Callaghan Lake and 21 km west of the popular resort town of Whistler. Standing tall at 2,162 meters, or 7,093 feet, it rises above the rugged landscape along an alpine mountain ridge.

This mountain is part of a north-south volcanic field, with Mount Fee sitting right on its base. It has a narrow ridge made of fine-grained volcanic rock and some broken material. The ridge stretches 1.5 km long and is half a kilometer wide, with very steep sides. Mount Fee has two main summits—the southern one being the higher peak. Between these summits is a U-shaped crevice, making both towers look especially striking against the sky.

Geology

Mount Fee is one of the southernmost volcanoes in the Mount Cayley volcanic field. This volcanic area is part of the larger Garibaldi Volcanic Belt, stretching from the Silverthrone Caldera in the north to the Watts Point volcano in the south. The volcanic belt formed because of the Juan de Fuca Plate moving under the North American Plate along the Cascadia subduction zone.

Mount Fee looks the way it does today because glaciers shaped it over time. It was once a bigger volcano, but ice and rocks wore it down. What remains is a ridge made of strong rock called dacite. Nearby, The Black Tusk is another old volcano that also shows signs of being worn down by ice.

The volcano at Mount Fee is very old, formed more than 75,000 years ago. Scientists think it had at least three main periods of eruption long ago. The earliest eruption left behind small pieces of broken rock. Later eruptions created flows of thick lava that poured down the sides of the mountain. After each eruption, erosion and glaciers changed the land again.

The rocks at Mount Fee contain different minerals and glass, showing how the lava cooled and hardened long ago.

Human history

Human habitation near Mount Fee dates back hundreds to thousands of years. Ancient people used glassy volcanic rocks, like rhyodacite, to make sharp tools such as knives and chisels. These rocks were collected from Mount Fee, as well as from nearby Mount Cayley and Mount Callaghan.

In September 1928, the mountain was named by British mountaineer Tom Fyles after Charles Fee, a member of the British Columbia Mountaineering Club in Vancouver. Later, in 1980, volcanologist Jack Souther included Mount Fee among the volcanoes in the Mount Cayley volcanic field in his illustrations.

Like other volcanoes in the Garibaldi Belt, Mount Fee is not closely monitored by the Geological Survey of Canada. This is because there have been no major eruptions in Canada for over a hundred years, and the volcano is in a remote area. While there are no known recent earthquakes at Mount Fee, scientists believe there would likely be warning signs, such as small earthquakes, before an eruption. However, the current network of seismographs is too far away to give detailed warnings. Still, scientists are working to better understand these volcanoes to prepare for any future activity.

Climate

Mount Fee is found in a special kind of climate called the marine west coast. This climate is common in western North America. Most of the weather there starts in the Pacific Ocean and moves eastward. When the weather hits the Cascade Range, it is forced upward, which makes it rain or snow a lot.

During winter, it can get very cold, with temperatures sometimes dropping below −20 °C. The best time to climb Mount Fee is usually from July to September when the weather is nicer.