Category: general

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canada climbing general

climbing frozen waterfalls

In lieu of any new ice climbing activity on my latest days off, I’ll just have to reminisce about climbing Cascade Falls the other week.
 

 
Just outside of Banff, the 300 metre high Cascade Falls are a popular tourist destination in Summer (there was even a tour bus that had stopped to admire them as we were walking back to the car after finishing climbing for the day – noone on the bus showed much of an inclination to get out though). And in Winter they turn into a fairly classic WI3 ice climb.
 

 
We only did the first 150 metres or so, which is fairly low angled and steppy for the most part. It was very odd to see the waterfall still flowing underneath the ice in some spots though (and hear the gurgling of water rushing past after an ice screw was removed).

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general

gear saturation

Gear saturation: That mythical time, at some point in the future, when you will own everything you would ever need to do anything you would ever possibly want to do.

Gear saturation is a state that you can only ever strive towards, and that you will never actually reach. Always something pops up and is incredibly necessary. And if there’s not gear to be bought for new activities, then there’s always old gear that’s past its prime, falling apart, being superseded by technological advances, or being eaten by wombats.

Indeed, if you ever actually reached gear saturation, it would truly be a sad day. You could only wander around gear stores disconsolately, your debates about which item and brand was truly the superior for the intended purpose would have no fire, and your browsing on the internet would have no point.

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canada climbing general

king creek: k-country ice

Because standing in a snow and ice filled gully receiving no sun is a perfect place way to spend a negative fifteen degree day.

 
Even the glacier worms were finding it cold
 

Categories
canada general snow

hurrah for the pineapple express

Over the last week or so, a nice big flow of warm moist air has been sweeping over here from Hawaii – the particular weather pattern is referred to as the Pineapple Express, and is renowned for bringing large dumps of snow. We got 50 or 60 cm over a few days, and the snow has kept trickling in since. Today was the first day with much blue sky since all the snow arrived to cover the diminishing base…

 

Heading up to the top of Lookout Mountain

 

Not a bad view to ski to

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canada general

a night at the hockey

It was a night at the hockey at the Calgary SADDLEDOME DOME DOME dome dome… dome. Calgary Flames versus the St Louis… somethings. I spent the night staring at their emblem, which seemed to be a little musical note with wings. According to the internet they’re the St Louis Blues.
 

 
Not having brought oxygen with us, we found the air a little hard to breathe from our seats. Thankfully we were surrounded by rabid Flames fans, which made things all the more interesting. The whole stadium was pretty much solely filled by rabid Flames fans, so the barracking was a little one sided. Apparently St Louis sucks. To the same tune you could also chant Go Flames Go.
 

 
In the end they did go, and won 3-1.

Half time entertainment was reminiscent of the sole AFL (Aussie Rules Footie) game I’ve been to, where small and incompetent children are brought out to play on a miniature version of the playing field.

 

 
Oh, and the had a real live tshirt gun – those things are impressively powerful, no wonder Marge Flanders was killed by one.