Category: climbing

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canada climbing general

the ghost

The Ghost River Wilderness Area is an amazing place.

Hiking in

We hiked in to climb Fang and Fist, WI5. Before this, the hardest thing I’d climbed was WI3 (or maybe WI3+).

Fang and Fist

This photo was stolen from the Interwebs – it was taken not long ago, so the climb looks roughly the same now. Because when we arrived at it, I was too busy being terrified by how steep it was (and wondering if I’d actually be able to climb it) to think of taking photos.

The mission was successful though. Despite my fear that my arms would fall off, we managed to get up all 400 metres before the sun set, only to rappel down and hike out in the dark (hurrah for headlamps).

Categories
canada climbing general

completely lacking in cougars

We parked in a parking lot in the middle of Canmore (well, not the exact middle perhaps, but it was certainly surrounded by houses, and there were lots of people out walking their dogs and that sort of thing) and started walking up Cougar Creek.

Cougar Creek

 

Partially frozen, the walking got interesting at times; there was some falling through to lower layers of frozen creek, hardly any cougar attacks, and lots of crossing back and forth across the creek.

And this would be why it’s nice to be the lightest one in the party

 

A side fork and a couple of hours later and we were at the base of Ghoster Coaster, a WI3 route that is about 150 metres long.

Climbing in a canyon

 

Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of the most interesting pitch, which was 50 metres of scrambling over driftwood that had been frozen into place. This was followed by a short ice pitch, then the top out, which was a fairly memorable bit of mixed ice/rock/dirt climbing.

Not the top out, though it gives you a good idea how windy it was in the canyon

 

After the rap down we walked out along the frozen creek by the light of the full moon, and still weren’t eaten by any cougars.

Categories
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).

Categories
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
 

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canada climbing general snow

ice ice baby

All right stop collaborate and listen …

 
 

Erm, so I went ice climbing. Nine in the morning and we were strolling along a packed snow path up to Mt Stanley Headwall. Two hours later, and we’d completed the final slog up through deep fluffy snow, arrived at Sinus Gully, and were strapping on crampons. In my case they were a pair of antique crampons that attached to my ski boots via a mechanism involving a couple of trusty leather straps that were probably just as good as they were when the crampons were originally purchased (in Kathmandu in 1972 – no really).

Ice tools and crampons on backpack on the walk-in

 

James heading up Sinus Gully (WI3)

 

Snowy creek on the walk-in

 

Ice screw