| The Bugaboo Spire sits about 2 km east of the Columbia-Kootenay divide, between the Vowell Glacier to the west and the Crescent Glacier to the east. It offers some of the most spectacular alpine climbs climbing areas in Canada. First climbed by Conrad Kain and party in 1916, who applied the name Bugaboo to the peak for its famous gendarme. The name "Bugaboo" was used by miners to refer to Bugaboo Creek and Bugaboo Pass, but Kain certainly felt the name matched the peak. Bugaboo means "An object of obsessive, usually exaggerated fear or anxiety. As in: "Boredom, laziness and failure . . . These bugaboos, magnified by imagination, keep the workaholic running". At the time of the first ascent, while Canada was engaged in World War I, it was the hardest technical climb to date and one of the finest moments of Canadian mountaineering. The climb in August 1916 was the crowning point of Conrad Kain's career. In the spring of 1917, Conrad Kain married H. Ferreira, and settled down at Wilmer, 5 km north of Invermere in the Columbia Valley. In addition to his marriage, the entry of the United States into the First World War probably reduced the flow of his mostly American clients into Canada.
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