Nordegg Ice

The last weekend of March was a bit of a toss-up for me.  Pete was in another skimo race (the one at lake lousy), and Erich had Friday off.  In the end, I decided to head out and try to climb something with Erich.  I honestly don't really enjoy racing, and the prospect of giving AthaB a shot was too tempting.

In the end, the idea of AthaB had to be shelved, since a large snowfall and winds caused North aspects to become quite sketchy that weekend.  The avy bulletin scared us all the way back to Nordegg.  We phoned into the Sunda Hostel (the HI online bookings went to shit), and found out that there was room, but that we'd have to join in on a wine and cheese on Saturday night.  A classy weekend of ice it was!

We got out of town early and even managed to avoid fast food.  Made souvlaki on the barbie!  Started to party it up with another ice climbing pair from Edmonton.  It turns out that one of them (I think his name is Ross) had almost been on a club trip with me about 4 years ago.  That was a trip to Mt. King Edward that was canceled at the very last minute because the leader's father had a stroke.  Anyhoo, it was a blast to catch up with the other two climbers there.

On Saturday, we got a bit of a relaxed start, then headed for "Good News and Bad Dreams".  Pulling into the parking lot, we parked beside a Honda Element.  Not many people drive those ugly things, and I thought that there might be a chance that it was Peter Amann.  Whoever the car's owner was, we followed their tracks up to the base of the climb.  Just as we were getting near though, we heard them below us.  They must have bailed, not exactly a great sign.

Moving into the gully below the climb, I could see why they had bailed.  Most of the first pitch had fallen off.  We got up to it, and had a look.  We could see that someone had bolted a mixed variation to the start, but heck neither of us has ever mixed climbed.  We decided to try and scramble up and to the right on lower angle rock.  Being in my ski boots, this plan was soon abandoned when I blew both feet and ended up nearly coming right off.  And that was on what looked like an easier portion of the climb.

After bandaging my hand, we moved over to the looker's left and managed to pick our way up some mossy terrain with the odd tool hook and intercept the route at the bottom of the main (crux) pitch.  Climbing from here, Erich led a beautiful 50m stretch of grade four ice.  Just a blast!  I unfortunately got the barfies and had a bit of a painful start to the pitch.  Otherwise, it was absolutely exhilarating!

Back to the hostel we went, rapping past a pair now leading the first pitch.  The leader seemed to be in need of a new pair of underwear, having placed about eight screws in as many meters of climbing.  Luckily, the terrain let us rap beside rather than over them, so it was a positive exchange as we went by.

The wine and cheese was definitely good value for Erich and I.  We ended up crashing a bit earlier, and slept in a bit too.  Oh and Ernst and Margriet showed up as well.  Sunday morning found us heading South on the Forestry Trunk Road.  The section near Nordegg is quite hilly and tight!  About 3/4 of an hour in, I ran over some car poop on a bridge deck.  It made a pretty nasty sound on the undercarriage, but the car seemed OK so we carried on.  A few minutes later, I spotted some more brown ice chunks on another bridge, and moved over to avoid them.  I thought I had missed them (Erich did too), when suddenly the driver side wheel was absolutely pounded by the ice chunk.  Instantly the car acted funny and I stopped.  The ice had bent the rim right open and I could see inside the tire!

After an adventurous spare tire swap (my park brake doesn't quite work!), we got rolling again.  I was pretty pissed off at myself for hitting the ice, but as Erich reminded me, shit happens.  I've gotta work on getting less worked up over small accidents like that.  Don't worry, be happy! Soon enough though, we pulled in at the Ram Falls Provincial Park, stopped the car, loaded the packs, and made the short walk down to the falls.

The ice around there was unreal.  There is some easy stuff along the SE wall of the canyon, a moderate section as well (probably 3+), some thin and steep but short curtains on the NW wall, and then two flows down from the main falls.  We climbed the left flow which was an absolute blast!  Steep-ish ice in a 5-star environment.  I thought it was mega cool.  The ice at the top was absolute crap though, Erich belayed me on 4 screws and thought that they were all worthless.  I'll have to remember to bring some knifeblades if I go up there again, there is a small wall on the left at the top that is probably compact enough to take a couple of pins for a belay.  It's probably been climbed before, but there's no info to be found on it.  We called it "Sheep Thrills", WI3+.

We rapped down off trees and enjoyed the free-hanging rappel back to our packs.  Then, Erich being a bit tired, we rambled up the lower angle ice back to the edge of the canyon.  Had lunch, then walked back to the car.  Another good weekend out, and I'm even more hooked on ice climbing.  Great fun!

Good News and Bad Dreams

 

Erich on the main pitch of Good News and Bad Dreams

The other team leading up the first pitch.

On our way into the Ram River Canyon.  Looks like a typical scramble, minus the guard rail.

Could be a short challenging adventure, or fun mixed terrain.

The giant ice cave

Sheep Thrills

Erich starting Sheep Thrills

The top of Sheep Thrills from rappel

The main flow of Ram Falls.  An very unique piece of ice!

Kananaskis Cabin Fever

The UAOC tradition of hosting a "cabin fever" every semester took a bit of a rocking in the Fall '12 semester when our relationship with the new HI Shunda manager broke down.  Brent was always such a bro, but the new manager is clearly not a fan of big groups like ours.  In light of this, we chose a new spot to go to for the winter term cabin fever.  Nate and Justin organized the weekend at the Kananaskis hostel, and it went pretty well.  The managers were very "hands-off" and let us do our thing.  We made sure to clean up well afterwards, and I think that things went alright.  Hopefully we'll manage to maintain a good relationship with Gareth and Sarah, and come back in years to come.

I ended up getting out of town a little late on Friday, and we got to Kananaskis even later because I had to stop in Canmore to pick some stuff up from Pete's place.  Once we got there, the onsie party was in full swing and some sick beer pong - flip cup games got us caught up to the rest of the party.  The next morning, Fiona, Thomas, Alan and myself met Bridget at the Timmy's in Canmore.  Peter and Malcolm tagged along as well.  Trying to decide what to do was a serious challenge, as nobody in the group apart from me, Pete and Malcolm seemed to know a damn thing about where the good skiing would be.  Regardless, we ended up deciding on skiing at Taylor Lake.

I sort of ditched the rest of the group and skied with Peter and Malcolm that day.  We worked our way up to the lake, then went towards Panorama Ridge where we checked out some of the couloirs around there.  With avy hazard at Considerable in the alpine, we weren't quite confident in skiing the biggest ones.  Overhead cornices were also being baked on the opposite side of the ridge, and I really didn't feel like getting steamrolled by car-sized chunks of snow.  So instead, we skied a mini-golf couloir with little overhead hazard and which was not very steep at maybe 30-35 degrees.  It was still a blast to strap the skis to the pack and boot right up.  The views of Mt. Bell were impressive, and this trip definitely added a few items to my to-do list.

Some big moose tracks on the way up the trail

Mt. Bell as seen from Taylor Lake

Taylor Lake Mini Golf

Peter skiing across the meadows beneath the Couloirs at Taylor Lake

Malcolm with a million dollar view behind

The two best-looking lines.

The Peter Knight Stairmaster (Patent Pending).

Looking back to Castle Junction and down the Bow Valley.

Mt. Bell, with three beautiful lines on it.

Looking back down our mini-golf run.  At 300 meters it was a nice little bit of radness to punctuate the day.

After skiing the mini-golf, we turned tail and headed down the trail.  We were pretty sure that the rest of the crew was going to be there waiting for us.  But, it turns out that we beat them down.  So, we hung out around the trailhead, bullshitting until they showed up.  It turns out that they skied some south facing terrain on Panorama Ridge, which was predictably sun-fucked.  Thomas and Alan apparently were inspired by our jaunt up our couloir and ran up one further lookers left before coming down to the cars.  Goon on them!

After another night of partying (near my limit thanks to Nate), Erich and I decided to try to get our rock season off to an early start.  We walked up Cougar Canyon, and Erich brought us to a 5.9 he knew of.  There was a frozen waterfall covering the first 2m.  There was snow everywhere.  Erich led up the first two bolts, then bailed because his hands were frozen.  I took over the lead, and after clipping a third bolt, couldn't find any more pro.

I looked all over, brushing snow off of holds.  The fact of the matter is that the following 2 or 3 bolts were hidden underneath snow on ledges, and with frozen digits and sketchy feet (on wet or icy holds), I was hesitant to waste time looking.  I ended up running the following 10-15 meters out to the second to last bolt.  That was an experience that I still think has actually changed me as a climber.  Getting into a position where a fall would involve hitting the ground at full speed, I had to buck up and just focus on where my holds were, how I was going to fluidly move to the next stance, and how I was going to maintain balance.  There was no option to fall, and on difficult terrain like that (try climbing 5.9 in boots, with wet and icy holds, and you'll understand), it was a mind-changing experience.  When I got back to the ground, I couldn't stop laughing for the next 15 minutes.  Erich and I would stand there, quiet, then start to nervously giggle.  I'd look up and see the draws, and laugh harder.  Then we'd say something like "god, that was stupid".  Then we'd go quiet before starting to giggle again...  All in all though, it's another positive memory.  And I think it's going to help me in the long run.  I have the confidence that I can really run stuff out without freaking.

On our way into Cougar Canyon.  "At least we don't have to cross the creek!"

The climb before hopping on.  Note the waterfall in the lower left.

After getting back to the ground.