Radical Week

Struggling to stay focused, I looked over my notes once more.  I really didn't give a hoot at this point.  It was Friday, and not just any Friday... it was Super Friday: the last day of class before Reading Week.  "Ru is an easy prof, and besides, the exam is open book.  I'm putting WAY too much effort into this." I told myself.  In a few hours, I'd be free and on the road to a week of carefree climbing and skiing.  All that stood between me and freedom was one exam and a couple o' classes.

I ended up cutting my last class and a 2 hour seminar to hit the road early and set up camp in the DTC.  Rushing home, I packed up my perishable food, made a couple grocery/liquor/gas stops, then headed out.  After a quick side trip to pick up my forgotten down jacket at the Rampart Creek Hostel, I pulled in at Erich's and my chosen campsite.  First, I waited around for a bit hoping that he'd show up.  But, with no sign of him, I finally walked up the creek, out of the wind, and put the tent up.  Got my stuff inside, managed to guy it out pretty well, then got ready to crash.  Erich must have gotten side tracked, maybe he'd show up in the morning.

Just as I was nodding off, high-beam headlights lit the tent and I heard the sound of a car door slamming.  He made it!  Well that changed everything.  Fast forward to 2 AM, we were still up, trading BS across a campfire.  I guess our alpine start might be a bit relaxed tomorrow...

We started up Elliot's Left Hand, leaving the car at half past noon.  Walking to the base took a bit but wasn't too bad.  A beautiful view across Lake Abraham gave me a good reason to take a break, and before we knew it, a beautifully fat, easy pitch of grade 3 ice was staring at us.  Erich cruised up, threw me on belay, and I followed.  Some walking on a shortened rope, a little bit of simulclimbing, and some more trudging through snow brought us to the last pitch.  Erich wasn't feeling 100%, and he wasn't confident that he'd have the energy to lead out the last pitch.  Last time he'd climbed ELH, the last pitch had been in 4+ to 5 shape.

Pulling over a small bulge, I spotted the beautiful pillar that makes up the last pitch.  "Wow, that looks rad!"  Erich came up, and looking at the thin top of the pitch, less than vertical, he mentioned that he'd give it a go.  SWEEET!

The last pitch of ELH, in easy shape.

Pulling over the steep part, I followed some lower angle ice up to the tree anchor.  Exchanged fives, then chucked the ropes and rapped off.  some downclimbing followed by two more raps brought us to the bottom where we crushed a bit of lunch and water before walking out.  Crossing the highway as dusk began to set in, we realized that we'd timed things perfectly.  What a way to spend a Saturday: sleeping in until 11, and then climbing a beautiful multi in warm sunny weather.

Late afternoon light across the lake

That night, we demolished some serious meat stocks.  Cooking with the grill was a bit of a challenge with the Bratwurst; Erich's grill is a little widely spaced!  We did enjoy some good food and had a great fire considering that I got the chainsaw running!  However, sometime around 11 or midnight, snow started to fall at an alarming rate!  "Jeez, I'm going to finish this pil in the tent!" I said, before dashing inside and getting cozy in my bag.  Next thing I knew, I was shaking a very surprising amount of snow off the tent.  By the next morning, close to a foot of snow had fallen.  Considering that our location is widely regarded as a "rain shadow", we were quite surprised.

It's a three-season tent, but they never specified which three seasons...

Concerned about the obvious accumulation and the anticipated sluffing that was bound to occur on every big climb, we headed to Balfour Wall and did laps (3-4 laps back to back) on the 4 at the far left.  Although not as fun as working up a bigger route, it was great training and my shoulders were feeling it by the end.  We then drove into Lake Louise, picked up some groceries, then rally-raced the 1A to the Castle Mountain Hostel.

Balfour Wall

Mt. Chephren through the clouds

Our UAOC friends soon rolled in, and after a great dinner, we hung out for the evening.  The next morning, after getting scooped by 3 guided groups on Guinness Gully in Field, we salvaged the day by XC skiing at Lake Lousie.  It was a beaut of a day, and not a bad way to finish the long weekend.

After returning our skis, we parted ways.  I headed down to Canmore as Erich cruised back to Edmonton.  Pulling into town early, I got some grocery shopping done, and dropped by my favorite store, Switching Gear.  I managed to find a gem, $30 GoreTex pants, and then I headed over to the Knight house.

Bill and I hung out, crushed some of my Lasagna, then tried to decide where to ski.  "I don't want to go somewhere I've been a ton, let's go somewhere new!" was my opinion.  Eventually, things took what is generally a turn for the worse: we started looking at Google Earth images.  We found a zone, agreed to ski it more out of lack of another option, and hit the hay.

Tuesday found us on the Smith-Dorien highway, trying to decide where we were going to park, and at the same time, making sure that we weren't close enough to the bear closure to attract unwanted attention from the Fun Police.  We ended up getting a little lost in the thick bush, but some of the best "bullsh*t luck" dropped us into our drainage and right onto our desired slide path.  A little climbing skinning, and we were on top.  Beautiful terrain all around, good snow, and calm weather.  Exploring couldn't have gone better.  Clocking about 1300m vert, we headed back to the car completely satisfied.

Where's Waldo?

Wednesday, we chose to ski the Hero Knob chutes.  The original plan was to have a friend of Bill's meet us from Calgary, but he had food poisoning so it was just the two of us again.  We got to the parking lot pretty late, and ended up joining what appeared to be every skier in Kananaskis.  At one point I counted 10 people within sight, I know that there were many more there.  By early afternoon, the whole area looked like a ski resort!  Luckily though, nobody was skiing our chutes so we enjoyed a bit of peace and quiet while skiing these awesome gullies right off the top of the knob.

The number of pole-holes there is a testament to the number of people

A cool line for next time

Booting up to the ridge

3, 2, 1, GIVER

Thursday, Bill and I were out of ideas again so we headed back to the new zone, to ski the other aspect and the next drainage over.  This time, we found better access with only about ten minutes of jungle-style bushwacking.  Skiing a real nice line from the new knob, then climbing to the top of a slide path across the way, we skied two more runs.  There was a convenient slide path which, extending almost to the road, made for an easy exit.  This was the easiest time we had getting out of the area and it's the way I'll use to get in next time.  Another great day, but with some definite wind-punishment near the ridgetops.

The new zone, dubbed "Hipster Knob".  You've probably never heard of it, it's pretty underground.

The exit/entrance strategy

Bill near the top

Wind-hammered ridge

Click in and GO

That afternoon, Peter showed up.  Jetlagged, tired and sore from the skimo world champs in France, we took him out to the Stony Nakoda resort for the cheap buffet.  Hurting from so much eating, we dragged ourselves back out of the car and went straight to sleep.

Friday, I joined Fiona and her friend Thomas for a day of meadow skipping.  We headed up to Rummel Lake and I managed to check out some chutes there, there are at least three that look like they'd go, more will likely fill in by mid-April.  On Saturday, Bill, Peter and I headed into another new spot on 93S, but ended up getting only marginal skiing and took the skis for a long walk.  As Peter pointed out, Vermillion is never a bad option down there, probably a better bet than walking around looking for terrain.

And that's how my reading week ended... on Sunday I drove home and spent the rest of the day drying gear, cleaning up, and trying to catch up on homework.  It's back to the grind of school for a bit now...

Ice Clime Bing

Even though I'm no good at it, I've been slowly starting to ice climb.  I've traditionally skied straight through the winters, but ice climbing is a necessary skill in the summer and something that I've wanted to work on for a while.  That got me motivated to start, and since then I've been hooked on it.  It challenging, scenic and cool.  Although, I will admit that it feels a bit like pussyfooting when you only have a 10 minute approach and end up pissing around in one little area.  That aside though, I think I'll end up climbing more as time goes by.  It would be nice to work up to leading ability in a few years.

This weekend, Erich's ACC trip was sort of thrown a curve ball when his coleader Justin broke his leg. I can't lead on ice, but I volunteered to step in if Erich changed it to a top rope trip.  That was the original plan, but since the participant list suddenly shrunk, we ended up climbing a multipitch on Saturday anyway!

After forgetting my harness (twice!), we got rolling out of Edmonton.  It was just three of us, Erich, Louise and myself.  We got into Rampart and BS'ed a bit before calling it a night.  We were starting up the trail around 8:30, on the approach for Meltout.  I was getting some major chirps about my ski boots, but those soon were quieted when I broke trail up to the climb.  It was a great time in the warm weather and sticky ice.  The second pitch, though, was rather "soggy" as Erich put it.  I climbed a significant portion of it holding my tools by the head, the ice was that sticky.

Erich on the second pitch of Meltout

Me at the first belay

The view across the valley, towards the Columbia Icefield.  Surprisingly little snow in the area.

Louise finishing up the last pitch

We were done early, so we sat around at the bottom and enjoyed the sun for a while, then went back to the hostel.  I read for a while, the other two had naps.  After a HUGE dinner (I've never felt so full), we headed out to the sauna which, although built for hobbits, was real nice.  I think Erich and I were in there from about 9-12, pounding pils and BS'ing some more.

On Sunday we stopped on the way home at the Cline River Gallery which was pretty cool.  Lots of interesting lines in there, I definitely want to go back.  I got mega pumped on the 4+ there, even though it was apparently in about 3+ or 4 shape.  It was long and tiring to swing on.  I clearly have to work on my technique so that I'm more efficient...

The Cline River Gallery.  Some walkable ice on the left with some steeper short bits above, and then the mixed overhang in the middle.

Where we spent most of our day.  It's apparently a 4+ but it was definitely is 4 shape or easier.  It kicked my ass, I have to get in climbing shape!

Poking Around

I've been on a good streak of weekends recently.  For the last weekend of January (capping off an all-weekends month), I headed out for some skiing with two great friends, Fiona and Lukas.  We were pretty slack on the plans, but decided that we'd head somewhere down 93S on Saturday.  As Lukas and I drove down to Calgary, we bounced a few ideas off each other and eventually decided on a certain spot that neither of us had been before.

I spent the night in Fiona's basement which was a real nice place to crash.  Got some cool conversation in with her fam too, they made me want to take up backpacking again!  Anyhoo, we left town at a relaxed hour on Saturday and spotted our area from the highway.  The day began with some challenging routefinding through copious deadfall.  I was confused by the size and quantity of the fallen trees until Fiona pointed out the fact that most standing trees were missing their uphill branches... to heights of 50ft+!  Something huge must have absolutely obliterated the area in the past, transporting mature timber to the bottom of the mountain and with enough of a powder cloud / shock wave to blow branches clean off trees!

We eventually moved into an avy path and had some fun lapping the bottom half.  The area seems to have some narrow paths, but as I learned these can be a bit bushy in spots.  Still, we had great turns in totally untouched snow with no wind effect at all.  It was pure dreamy!

Skinning up in the fog.  An inversion layer moved around the valley through the morning.

Down the Valley

Another line for another time.  Fiona in the foreground.

Oold Skool

Lukas cruises the lower angle runout zone

The fun part, the steeper (but slightly bushy) upper slide path

  After skipping back to the car, we headed into Lake Louise and met Bridget.  Hanging out at the hostel and drinking beer consumed the night, and before we knew it we were crashing at 11, totally wasted.  It's sometimes surprising how even an easier day can make you tired by the end of the day.

On Sunday, the original plan was to go after the Dolomite Circuit.  Car trouble (and associated multi-hour delays), weather and a lack of wanting to force Lukas to suffer the low angle exit from the circuit meant that we just lapped Katherine Ridge instead.  The snow wasn't bad, and Lukas and I even managed to ski a nice shot off the West side of the ridge.  It was another good day, better not because of the snow or turns, but because of the people I was with.  Nothing quite makes a great day like great partners!

On our way into Helen Creek

Lukas comes up to Katherine Ridge

Fiona being... well... Fiona haha

Lukas drops into one of the West-facing bowls on Katherine Ridge

And shreds hard on his Olive Splitboard.  Cool deal, it being built in Edmonton and all.

After swooshing back down the creek, we crushed beers in the parking lot before starting the long haul back home.  Lukas was actually able to make it out Helen Creek without splitting the board, he's got his technique pretty well dialed!  All in all, a great weekend with great people.  I can't wait to get out with these guys again!