The weather’s taken a turn for the unpredictable recently – weather forecasts keep looking promising, then turning to scattered showers the day beforehand, and the day in question ends up being miserable and rainy. And that’s exactly what happened when I tried to finally climb at Lake Louise.
There was low cloud lurking through the Bow Valley, and all the way along the drive there.
“It’ll be fine!” we said. “At least it’s not raining!” we said. The rock was horribly cold and uninspiring. The longer you spent on the climb, the more warmth was sapped from your fingers and your toes, so instead of warming up you’d just get colder and colder, until you couldn’t really feel your fingers at all, and your big toes were definitely quite numb (possibly your next toes too, and some of the others). You’d have to place your feet and hands visually and hope the hold was good enough to stick to, as it was just impossible to tell by feel.
By the time we finished the second climb (which was actually quite fun climbing on Arapiles-style horizontals) it was a little warmer. Perhaps we would keep going. But then it started to rain. We retired to town for hot chocolate and brownies.