A Snowy July

The first weekend of July, I was signed up to go on an ACC trip to Athabasca.  Unfortunately, it had snowed about 1-2 feet the week previous, so we ended up pulling the plug.  It was lucky we did, considering that a class 2 avalanche ripped out on the route we were planning on climbing.

In place of Athabasca, we decided to scramble Eiffel Peak in the Valley of the Ten Peaks.  It had a good reputation of giving out great views and a fun scramble.  Unfortunately we would enjoy neither of those attributes; it was zero visibility at the top and the snow conditions made it a wee bit more than your average scramble.

Valley of the Ten Peaks from Larch Valley.

We drove down to Lake Louise and had breakfast at Laggans before driving up to Moraine Lake.  We moved fast off the start, blasting up the Larch Valley trail's switchbacks in under an hour.  It was foggy and quite cool in the valley, and we were forced to kick steps up a small slope to just get to the base of Eiffel.  It definitely did not feel like July!

We kept to the verglas-covered scree for most of the scramble, and off the snow.  We had all made the decision to leave our crampons in the cars and now we were regretting it.  The snow on the face was powdery near the bottom of the slope (actually would have made great skiing) but near the top it turned icy.  When the face constricted, we were forced out onto the snow slope.  Some of the others tried their luck at an icy dihedral to the right and were pushed back.  I spent some considerable time hacking out steps in the icy snow.  It took seven kicks to make a reasonable step.  Luckily this was only for the last hundred meters or so and soon enough we were on top.  There wasn't any view to speak of.

Marc and Brad descending the snow pitch.

We headed back down, quite carefully because of the risk of slipping.  Without crampons we were in a bit of a pickle but slow moving let us get out of there safely.  Soon enough we were descending the Larch Valley trail to the fascination of all the tourists.

After speaking with the parks office in LL, we decided to not bother thinking about Athabasca for Sunday, and instead do another scramble.  Narao Peak was thrown around as an idea, but we eventually settled on Mt. Weed because it was close to our campsite in David Thompson Country (free camping is always worth the extra drive in).

Weed is a bit of a pain in the rear as far as scrambles go.  I would absolutely not go back there without snow in the gullies to climb on.  Scree bashing all the way up would be my definition of hell.  You start out ridiculously low in elevation, and after bushwacking for over an hour you realize that you are barely level with Bow Summit, the high point on the highway.  Then you boulder hop and walk across badly foreshortened scree to the base of the steep gullies.  We gladly found snow in these gullies, and armed with crampons this time, made quick progress up to the top.  Again, we found ourselves in the cloud ceiling and did not get to experience what would undoubtedly be a great view of the Wapta.

Marc moving around a cliff band in the gully.

The gullies did have their hazards, though.  We experienced some small icefall events from some small waterfalls along the sides.  Luckily the snow was all well bonded and so avy hazard wasn't high in our minds.

Brad following up the gullies on Weed.  Peyto and Bow Lakes behind.

After summiting we carefully downclimbed the gully and then bashed our way back down the the highway.  It was a good climb in the upper sections where the snow made it fun and much more enjoyable than scree, but the lower bushwack and scree march would not be worth it if the gullies were snow free.  This one would be a great one to do early in the season when you can count on some nice snow slopes to made the climbing more aesthetic.  The views from the top on a clear day would be amazing.  If not for the undeveloped approach, I think this peak would be extremely popular.

CaNoRock

I got the chance of a lifetime this fall.  The CSA, along the the universities of Alberta, Calgary and Saskatchewan (in Canada at least) fund an introductory rocketry course called CaNoRock.  It's essentially a one week exchange where they fly us to the Norwegian arctic to do a launch with a bunch of Norwegian students.  I was lucky enough to get selected to go, and on September 30 I started the 2 day trip to Andenes.

Sunrise while flying over the Atlantic

I met the U of A gang in the Edmonton airport, and soon enough I was headed to Europe!  I hadn't really had a chance to get excited but the further I got from home the more it sunk in.  Hopping over to Oslo took only a short flight and soon enough we found ourselves at the airport hotel which had been booked for us.  After waking up at ungodly early hours we flew north to Tromso (Paris of the North!) and then hopped on a Dash 8 which flew us to Andenes on the island of Andøya.  We also managed to meet up with the rest of the Canadians in the Oslo airport which was comforting; we had begun to think we were screwing something up.

Our Dash 8 fueling up in Tromso.  Just like Paris, except not

The Andøya Rocket Range is the northernmost rocket launch facility in the world and is commonly used to launch sounding rockets.  These aren't news headline grabbing human launches to the ISS, but instead they are used to do high altitude scientific experiments.  Even still, NASA was on site assembling their CHAMPS rocket which launched a few days after we left, studying meteorite debris around 120km altitude.

A model of the first rocket launched from Andøya

The island was quite a bit warmer than I had expected (we were in the Arctic Circle, after all) and it was actually a pretty nice place to be!  The Arctic Ocean was right there complete with white sand beaches, and a small mountain range shot up right behind the range.  The weather, on the other hand, wasn't so peachy.  Apparently, 120 days of the year, Andenes experiences gale force winds OR HIGHER.  Still, it's a cool town and an even cooler place considering that I was at a rocket range.

The town of Andenes, Norway

The course got up and running pretty quick.  We got some lectures on general rocketry and then they split us up into small groups to tackle the various parts of the rocket and its launch.  I was placed in the telemetry group, which meant my group would be dealing with the transmission of data from the rocket back to the ground.  We mostly spent our time working with the ground antennas and calibrating the radio equipment for our specific rocket.

The rest of the groups went over the rocket physics, payload, the experiment, and there was even a group devoted to atmospheric sciences.  The rocket physics group modeled the rocket's flight and estimated our apogee elevation and an estimated splashdown location.  The payload and experiment groups worked closely with the sensors we were sending up on the rocket.  The payload group also made sure that the rocket was properly balanced.  The atmospheric group launched two weather balloons and also constructed the humidity sensor that went on board.

On launch day, we all were assigned responsibilities.  I was in charge of steering the manual antenna to receive the radio signal transmitted by our rocket.  It was notoriously tough according to the U of S students; apparently it almost never managed to maintain a radio sync.  The antenna has to be steered using two dials which control the azimuth and elevation angles, so I ran a couple of practice runs to get a feel for the dials and make sure I was at the right angles at the right time.  When the actual launch went down, we kept a sync the whole way.  Disappointingly, the computer software used to download and store the data decided to freeze right after the launch, so we never managed to retrieve the data we collected.

Steering the antenna during the launch.  The antenna is the funny white thing outside the window.

Our rocket blasting off.  I was busy steering the antenna, so this is one of David P's photos.

I learned pretty fast that rocket launches are a lot like hunting; it's all fun until you shoot.  We had a post-flight meeting where we reviewed the launch.  Right after that the calculators came out and we started mashing data.  We prepared our presentations and then went into Andenes for pizza and a brief (read: horribly expensive) visit to a local bar.

Me holding the rocket about an hour before launch.

The course finished off with a tour of the local atmospheric radar station ALOMAR.  They use high powered LIDAR to study the upper atmosphere, which is pretty darn cool.  Apparently their lasers have a safety distance of 350km.  That means that if the ISS were to fly over ALOMAR (it doesn't) the astronauts on it would have to board up all the windows to prevent eye damage.

CaNoRock was one of the coolest things I have done.  It definitely changed the way I look at rocket launches.  There is a lot of work that goes into even a small student rocket like the one we fired off; I can't imagine the preparation that must go into the larger launches they do from Andøya.  This had made me definitely want to get more involved with rocketry and the space industry, we'll see if I can find a summer placement or internship.

If you're a undergraduate student in Physics or Engineering at one of the partner Universities, and you're interested in the aerospace industry, you should definitely check this program out.  I didn't think I had a chance, but low and behold I got accepted.  Information on CaNoRock can be found at the following websites:

ISSET-CaNoRock
ISSET-CaNoRock V (January 2012)
CaNoRock Program Description
Andøya Rocket Range

Leadership

When I first joined the ACC, I was 12 and literally thought I could go climbing.  Neither parents were very "hardcore" in the mountains, they don't even backpack.  Alot of day-hikes were what they did, and my Dad had at one point taken a rock climbing course with the famous Hans Schwartz.  I think he went up Wiwaxy too.  But that was the entire extent of my parental encouragement.

I took the Edmonton Section's "Summer in the Mountains" which was awesome.  We were taught by an awesome group of experienced members of the ACC.  I won't name 'em because I don't want to track them down to ask permission but they instilled some great skills on me and my dragged-along Dad (required to come along with me due to legalities).  I owe a whole ton to these people who let me get started out in the mountains.  I also owe my Dad a pretty big slap on the back for devoting so much time to my new hobby.

After the course I remember signing up for my first ACC trip.  It was the "good old days" of the club when a guy named Jim led 12 of us beginners up Temple.  Now that trip was mostly a hike but its still a big peak and how the club ever allowed one guy (and an ancient, wrinkled, sage named Wayne) to take 12 people onto a 11,000 foot peak I don't know.  The short story is that I took a non-Chantalle approach to the snow slopes below the summit, and decided it would be faster to descend by running down them than to walk down the ridge (oh how 12 year old minds work).  It was midsummer and I inevitably post-holed and fell flat on my front.  Skidding down the snow (I must've weighed 80lbs or less) I then lost hold of my ice axe.  After wrangling it in, I managed to arrest (thank god for that part of the SIM course), but neither my Dad nor Jim were very impressed.

Fast forward just shy of 8 years and I'm leading an ACC trip of my own.  Not much has happened over those years; discovery of my Dad's chronic altitude sickness plagued my ACC membership until I turned 18 at which point I started doing some scrambles.  I never really picked it up though.  This summer would be different.  I had plans for almost every weekend of my 4-month hiatus from university.  The first trip Chris and I would do together would be a "beginner" scrambling trip to Heart Mountain and Baldy.

"Beginner" Scrambling

We met some of our group at the campground on Friday night, and in an odd turn of events the only local on the trip managed to get lost on his way to Mt. Kidd RV Park.  Anyway, we found him on Saturday morning at the Heart Creek parking lot and set off (beginner mistake #1: not signing the waiver!)  We worked our way easily up to the summit and it felt far too early to head back down so we spotted a peak lying to the S and decided to see if the connecting ridge would go.

Our group on the top of Heart Mountain, with our extension behind.  Little did I know this would likely be one of the only weekends with consistently good weather all season!

It turned out to be overall quite easy with a small tough down-climb hidden by some trees.  We went down on the right hand side, and after traversing a ledge managed to get down a short (slightly overhanging) step to easier ground.  There was also a nice-looking corner feature which looked quite good but had a much larger fall potential.  From there a nice walk with some short but airy exposed parts took us to the summit block which we climbed on solid rock to the climber's left of an obvious gully.

Go up on the left, down via the gully.  You could head up the gully if you're bored of solid rock and are looking for some of that awful treadmill scree, which we just don't get enough of in the Rockies.

Once on top there is another, twin summit, with a real register and some sort of weather/survey pole (?).  The map says they're about the same height and I'd tend to agree.  Getting there involves descending a gully on the South side and contouring around the summit block to intercept the connecting ridge.  From there walk over to the other summit.  We experienced some hair-trigger wet-snow avy conditions and had to tread carefully but later in the season it should be pretty darn easy.

The West twin.  This nice peak isn't named on the map but at least 5 different names were in the East register.

We sat around and enjoyed our lunch before setting off back towards the cars. This was much easier than coming over and we made good time back to the main summit.  Although one participant was quite slow on the descent we still made it off in one piece.  Although Chris and I both know we made a few mistakes up there, we made it out with everybody in one piece.  I'll call that a success.