CANADIAN ROCKIES – Haldan Borglum’s been busy.
After two years of chasing summits on the 58 highest peaks in the Canadian Rockies, the Canmore alpinist set a new speed record on one of the toughest peak-bagging objectives in the range as of Sunday (June 14).
“I went into the 11,000ers not going for the speed record,” said the former World Cup biathlete.
“I went into them to just try to do these harder peaks and progress as a mountaineer and an alpinist. Finishing the list is a big step towards that.”
Borglum stopped the clock at two years and six days after standing atop his final peak measuring above 11,000 feet (3,352 metres), surpassing the list’s previous speed record of five-and-a-half years set by Ben Nearingburg in 2018.
On top of the record, Borglum, 26, is now the youngest to complete the list that’s become more prominent in the mountaineering community through Bill Corbett’s book, The 11,000ers of the Canadian Rockies.
“Having stood atop all the 11,000-foot high points, I have an extremely expanded perspective on the range I call home,” said Borglum. “I definitely have more of an appreciation of what’s out in our backyard.”
While only a handful have completed the list that requires advanced mountaineering skills, Borglum says when the goal is speed, you have to learn to adapt at any moment.
“Over a third of [the peaks] had some kind of significant obstacle that came up at the very start of the trip or within the first day approaching that would have caused a lot of people to just be like, ‘no, not doing it this time,’” he said.
“If I had turned around for all those times, I’d be at 40 right now.”
Facing road and wildlife closures and spring conditions in his final stretch, Borglum learned to pivot on a dime in order to make the most of every weather window.
“You have to be able to change plans on the fly and do some grinding to get some of these done,” he said.
With some of the toughest technical peaks on the list, Mount Alberta and Mount Robson, already behind him, crossing off the final few would become one of the project’s biggest cruxes, Borglum says.
“The three last trips were quite brutal in terms of just physical exertion, stats, everything,” he said.
Getting Mount Edith Cavell out of the way in late May, Borglum squared up with his final two peaks and the most remote on the list, Mount Clemenceau and Tusk Peak.
Located on the Clemenceau Icefield in B.C., some in pursuit of the peaks opt for helicopter access to skip the long approach, but with the goal of doing the list self-propelled, Borglum was intent on canoeing across Kinbasket Lake to access the route.
“I grit my teeth to make that happen,” he said, describing the final trip.
With a broken-down truck on attempt one, gusting winds and waves on Kinbasket Lake forced Borglum and his climbing partners to turn around on attempt two.
“We get 500 metres in, and the waves get two feet high, and we’re amateur canoers,” he said. “You don’t want to mess with that.”
The third time was the charm for Borglum and some climbing partners when they scouted a new route via satellite imagery that took them more than 100 kilometres deep into the backcountry on an old forestry road.
But when the gully from the satellite images started looking alot different in reality, the tough terrain and a storm to top it off, left Borglum as the last man standing.
“Doing it solo ever since I parted ways from my partners, it was like, ‘OK, it’s getting real. Like, I’ve gotta earn this now. It’s not a given,’” Borglum said, noting he pressed on for the summit while his partners turned back.
“I wanted it bad. I didn’t want to have to do that approach again with the heavy bag if I didn’t have to.”
Reaching a hard-earned summit on the glaciated Mount Clemenceau, Borglum checked his last box on the list.
“This was the king of the slogs,” Borglum said, noting the final trip stats, between the gruelling approach and summit push for Mount Clemenceau and Tusk, racked up to about 1,500 metres shy of the elevation of Everest.
“It does show there’s probably some pioneering left to be done in this range especially for the more seldom done [peaks].”
With plenty of rest days ahead of him this summer, Borglum says he’s onto dreaming of more mountain objectives, taking the skills he refined on the 11,000ers into new Canadian ranges and abroad.
“I see the 11,000ers, for me personally, as a jump-off point,” he said, noting a trip to Peru is already on the drawing board.
“The 11,000ers of the Canadian Rockies are, in my opinion, probably one of the best training grounds for the bigger ranges in the world.”
The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. This position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.
By Leah Pelletier, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Jun 26, 2026 at 09:33
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