Pat Richardson put one snow-encrusted boot in front of the other as wind whipped his face. “At times, I couldn't see two metres in front of me,” says the 58-year-old World Financial Group (WFG) office manager from Winnipeg.

He glanced at the faces of the climbers surrounding him, many of them novices.

“As the whiteout enveloped us, they looked at me with 'What have we gotten into?' expressions,” he continues. “When the wind started howling, I just wanted to get the newcomers out of there. I had climbed the mountain before so for me it was a rush, but I knew it could be terrifying.

“Reluctantly, we went back down—but we were going to go back to Mount Baldy!”

Belief in a Cause
The idea for an ascent of 2,190-metre-high Mount Baldy, nestled in the southern Rocky Mountains near the British Columbia-Alberta border, occurred when Pat was planning to drive from Winnipeg to a convention on Vancouver Island with some younger co-workers.

“I thought we'd stop along the way at Mount Baldy and I'd teach them how to climb,” says Pat, a veteran climber. “Then the whole thing took off. WFG colleagues and friends across the country got on board and it soon turned into a fundraiser.”

The beneficiary of their donations? Salvation Army women's shelters.

“I've always donated to The Salvation Army,” Pat explains. “I've read Robert Watson and Ben Brown's Leadership Secrets of The Salvation Army and I hand it out to my co-workers. It is one of the best organizations in the world. We wanted to raise funds for a cause we believed in and we wanted to team up with a trusted and respected agency.”

Preparations were completed in less than two months, and in early September, 63 climbers assembled for the expedition. Even after the aborted practice climb, every one of the climbers was ready to tackle the mountain two days later.

On September 7, the sky cleared for the fundraiser.

As the group huddled at the base of the mountain, Dianna Bussey, The Salvation Army's director of correctional and justice services in Winnipeg and the territorial anti-human trafficking chair, read aloud letters from three women who had been caught up in human trafficking.

“Not all of our group were Christians but they all wanted to rally behind this cause,” Shawn Marshall from WFG Calgary says. “A lot of us hadn't grasped the fact that this kind of thing actually goes on right here in Canada. Dianna reading those letters made me think, Those women could be my next-door neighbours! Hearing her describe their rescue with the help of The Salvation Army was pretty powerful. We gained our focus, then lined up two by two to start our climb up the mountain.”

We were all shapes, ages and sizes but we climbed that mountain as a team,” says WFG friend and colleague Manjit Rukhra.

Message in a Canister
The climb was no autumn stroll. Four-hundred-and-fifty-metre drops meant that the climbers had to take care, and while there was medical support at the base, it was fortunately not needed.

Salvation Army Captain Les Marshall accompanied Dianna and the climbers but neither of the two made it to the summit. “Once I was high enough that I was looking down on a passing helicopter, I knew I had gone as far as I wanted to go,” Les says.

They were not alone. Despite the preparations, two thirds of the group made it two thirds of the way up Mount Baldy, leaving 21 to make it to the summit, 20 of them WFG colleagues.

Among them were Pat and Manjit. It was Manjit's first climbing experience but he was at Pat's side the entire time. They had even done a pre-climb together early that morning to set markers in place.

“It was scary at times,” says Manjit, “but knowing that the money raised was going to go to vulnerable women made the journey worth the effort, not just for me but for the others also.”

All that morning, the summit had been veiled in cloud but when the group reached the top, the sky cleared and a warm sun shone down on the exhausted, happy climbers.

“There wasn't a dry eye in the group when we finally made it to the top,” Pat reports. “It was a life-changing moment for these people who'd gotten involved to raise money for a life-changing organization.”

When asked what the view was like at the top, Pat doesn't describe the wonders of nature that were most certainly evident.

“I was looking at those 20 people and it was the best view ever!” he says. “They were beaming and so proud of themselves. They'd done something they never thought they could do. ”

The triumphant climbers congratulated one another as Pat said a silent prayer. A waterproof canister is kept at the top of Mount Baldy. On a piece of paper, they wrote “The Salvation Army” at the top, everyone signed it and they placed it inside the canister.

All too soon, the group made their descent, tired but with no injuries. “The Salvation Army fed us lunch when
we reached the bottom,” says fellow WFG climber Shawn Marshall. “Then we all gave a cheer, and three minutes later the rain fell. It seemed as if God held it off as long as He had to.”

To date, the Mount Baldy climbers have raised more than $25,000 in support of Salvation Army women's shelters, and plans are underway to assemble 250 climbers to tackle nearby Mount William Booth over a three-day period in July. “Isn't that great? A Salvation Army fundraiser involving the namesake of its Founder!” says WFG employee and climber Mason Stewart.