Newps wrote:
wrote:
IFR minima require a flight altitude 2000' above
the peaks.

Above the terrain, not necessarily the peaks. You may be in a valley
several thousand feet below the peaks at a legal IFR altitude.

Yup. Canadian IFR reg 602.124 (2) says:

(2) When an aircraft referred to in subsection (1) is not being
operated on an airway or air route or within airspace in respect of
which a minimum altitude referred to in paragraph (1)(b) has been
established, the pilot-in-command shall ensure that the aircraft is
operated at or above

(a) an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle located within
a horizontal distance of five nautical miles from the estimated
position of the aircraft in flight;

(b) in a region designated as a mountainous region in the Designated
Airspace Handbook and identified therein as area 1 or 5, an altitude of
2,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal distance of
five nautical miles from the estimated position of the aircraft in
flight; and

(c) in a region designated as a mountainous region in the Designated
Airspace Handbook and identified therein as area 2, 3 or 4, an altitude
of 1,500 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal distance
of five nautical miles from the estimated position of the aircraft in
flight.

Nobody (sane) is going to take off with the intention to
navigate that way with just a magnetic compass, because other regs
require sufficient and appropriate radio gear to track such a course
clear of the granite. However, if all the electrical goodies failed, a
mag compass is better than nothing in such a place. But not much
better.
Here in the Rockies the peaks are many and close enough
together that to be legal a pilot isn't going to be IFR in the valleys.
Not legally, anyway. A few try it but usually come to grief. And their
ELTs don't often work, either. Even with a good ELT they hit so hard
that everything shatters.

Dan