"My geologist brother Russ Prior and I (J Bruce Prior) attempted the class 5 NNE ridge of Gabbro Mountain on 1978-07-17, but slick rainy conditions made us decide not to do the single technical pitch. We camped down on the alder-choked logging road and then the next day 1978-07-18 Russ and I climbed the SW ridge, skirting the north side of Talus Lake and following a zig-zag route up the SW ridge, which had some snow patches, but didn't require roped techniques. Hoping for a first ascent, we found a cairn on the summit. Unless sasquatches build cairns, ours was not the first human ascent. The Hanging Creek valley is a classic example of the devastation by clear-cut logging on steep slopes. The result is not pretty. After the climb, I proposed the names, Gabbro Mountain, Hanging Creek (because the Hanging Creek valley is textbook example of a glacially-carved hanging valley), Talus Lake and Gabbro Lake, all of which eventually appeared on the 1:50 000 Port Coquitlam quadrangle. The obvious contact between gabbro and the adjoining granitic rock on the NNE ridge was misplaced on the geological map which we used in 1978. " — Nanuq • Jul 18, 1978