High Aspirations: 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.