Mount Bowlen

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Valley of the Ten Peaks

Mount Bowlen is Peak Three of the Ten Peaks above Moraine Lake. In Samuel Allen’s original Stoney Nakoda sequence it was Yamnee, the word for three.

In the Moraine view

Bowlen is one of the easiest Ten Peaks to pick out from the Rockpile, especially in the sunrise composition where Mount Fay and Mount Little catch the earliest warm light and Bowlen follows in the same illuminated sweep. It helps build the eastern half of the famous Moraine wall.

Naming history

Like many peaks in the valley, Bowlen’s current commemorative name replaced Allen’s numbered Nakoda designation. That layered naming pattern is one of the signatures of the Wenkchemna landscape. The collective valley name survived; many of the individual peak names did not.

Mountaineering context

Mount Bowlen also appears in the climbing history of the valley because routes toward Mount Tuzo and neighboring summits pass through this part of the ridge system. In accounts of early exploration it is often less the goal than a fixed point in the geography of the group.