Tag: canada

Categories
canada climbing general

perhaps my ice climbing trips are jinxed this season?

Unfortunately this time the jinx did not take itself out on me, but my hapless climbing partner. We drove to Haffner Creek, changed into boots, loaded ourselves up with climbing gear, hiked in to the climbs, picked a likely looking first climb, climbing partner racked up and started leading.

The ice was quite hard, the climb was very vertical, and climbing partner started to get pumped and shaky, attempting to place an ice screw that just wouldn’t bite. Front bail of one of climbing partner’s crampons popped off, and climbing partner rapidly went from being a few metres up on the ice to being on the ground.

Luckily he was falling onto snow and his legs were fine, but unluckily he nicked himself in the face with his tool on the way down. Meanwhile the other tool was still up in the ice. And a lot of blood.

 

Kind man bouldering up to retrieve the tool

 

After the lone tool was rescued we packed up and drove home. A hospital visit and two stitches later and he was as good as new again.

 

Post-hospital with a couple of stitches under the left eye

 

So we dashed off to the Junkyards for a couple of hours of laps on a toprope – and ended up getting some climbing in after all.

Categories
canada general snow

to the inkpots

The avalanche danger has been very high recently, so a lot of the more interesting backcountry skiing has to be avoided at all costs. And most of what’s leftover has to be approached with a healthy dose of paranoia.

So on my day off I went and did what was basically a hideously ungroomed nordic trail, with no avalanche danger whatsoever, as it was so flat and far from anything that could conceivably be viewed as a skiable slope. But still pretty.

 

 

We kept the mountains at a healthy distance, and there were signs of natural avalanche activity everywhere.

 

The Inkpots

 

But there was sun! And even if the downhill back to the car didn’t involve floating through fresh powder, well at least it was downhill.

Categories
canada general snow

that strange source of light hanging in the sky

The sun shone on us feebly from far away.
 

 

But the snow was soft and fluffy.
 

Mt Assiniboine

Categories
canada

vaguely christmassy

Suffering from the standard hemisphere-displacement complaint of “It just doesn’t feel like Christmas if it’s not stinking hot/minus 20oC/snowy/dusty/filled with venomous snakes”.

 

 

We do have a Christmas tree though. Well, Christmas cactus. At least it’s trying. I don’t think it would take many baubles without complete cactus-failure occurring though.

Out on the streets it’s a different matter, with shiny lights and snow-covered Christmas trees everywhere.

 

 

(PS. Imperial leather is an odd name for soap)

Categories
bikes canada

back on the bike

Fed up with not having any exercise for the last week and a half, I decided to test out my knee on a short bike ride. Unfortunately the warmest it managed to make it to today was -22oC (-8oF) or so. And there was a lot of snow around, so it ended up being a longer than planned bike ride with large sections of pushing. As I set out it was like a world of pastel though, with everything snow-covered and subdued sunset pink and blues soaking through.

 

 

I went back out and cycled along my nemesis track – the powerline trail where I crashed and hurt my knee. Much less icy this time round. However I then made the mistake of turning off to cycle a loop along by the dam – I got bogged pretty much straight away, but for some reason decided to keep going.

 

 

So the pushing began, as even deflated, my tyres weren’t fat enough to deal with the snow. The sun was setting – and I was getting colder. My eyelashes got lovely and icy – as did my eyebrows apparently. And yes, I have a red polka-dot balaclava. It means I look more like a Russian peasant than the serial killer or cat burglar looks that you get with the standard black balaclava, but I’m ok with that.