Climbing Adventures

Rockies!!

After our adventure on Mt Colonel Foster Bill went back to Campbell River BC and I headed for Nanaimo to start loading my truck with all my life goods to then start my driving/climbing to the east coast of Canada.

I made it to Squamish and had to get a little work down on my truck (new section of exhaust). Climbed some great routes!! Spent a day cragging with Sean Pickersgill at Penny Lane where he was on a sending spree. The next day Joel Beckman, Sean and I went up and climbed Mt. Haybrich via Life on Earth a fantastic 6 pitch 10c... great sustain climbing! I also got to catch some of the Squamish Mountain Fest events which was nice! Thanks Paul McSorley for a great slideshow! And climbed a few more awesome routes with Scotty Burrell, Cruel Shoes 10d 5pitches and Liquid Gold 11a 4pitches. Highly recommend both of them!

Joel Beckman and I tried for an adventure into the Chehalis Range. We made it in there both sick with head colds so we just strolled around and checked things out. Nice to get in there and see things! Excited to get back in there healthy!

Slab climbing in Squam... Cruel Shoes pitch 4. Photo by Scott Burrell

Sean on his red point of Crime of the Century 11c.

Sean climbing on Haybrich.

Summit of Haybrich with Sean and Joel!

Joel hanging out in the Chehalis Range.

Bardean.

As I got in my truck to drive east I had mixed emotions. I was thinking well I know I'll be back! And it was cool to be leaving because I was going to meet up with Cory Hall in Banff to get some climbing in in the Rockies. Never climbing in the Rockies prior to this trip I was excited to see what we were going to get into!

So I got to Banff and met up with Cory. We stayed at his friends Kelsey's place for 2 day while we deciding what objectives we wanted to tackle. We decided on the NE Ridge of Mt Alberta, which seems to have a hefty reputation and the Emperor Ridge on Robson which is huge! 2500m actually.... and that is just the climbing.

Since Alberta was on the way to Robson we stopped there first. We crossed the oh so warm Sunwapta River and hiked up Woolley Creek to the Alberta Hut.... they saw 6-8 hrs...... more like 5ish once at the little hut we made ourselves comfortable and ate dinner and went to bed.

Sunwapta River crossing. Photo by Cory Hall

The alarm sounds at 3:30am and we are slow to move but once we remembered where we were and what our objective was we started moving much faster! After a little oatmeal we were out the door... 4am. We roped up at 5am and started simu-climbing through loose 4th and 5th class terrain. As things steepened we started to pitch things out. The climbing was exciting, belays mostly good and gear moderate to good at best..... and few and far between. The amount of loose terrain keep both of us on our toes. Once off the rock the summit ridge provided awesome exposure and fun snow climbing as we weaved around cornices to the summit.

Looking at the headwall on the NE Ridge of Alberta with the N Face in the shade. Photo by Cory Hall

Cory starting up the headwall.

Climbing!! Photo by Cory Hall

Topping out the rock on Alberta.

Snowy ridge on route to the summit.

We topped out at 2pm knowing only of 4 other parties to have climbed this route. We descending the Japanese Route and arrived back at the hut at 9:15pm for a total of 17.25 hrs. We hiked out in 3hrs the next day and headed to Jasper to prep for Robson.

Heading down.

Summit of Alberta with the North Twin behind.

Cory walking back to the hut.

Unfortunately Cory got a gasto-intestinal bug and we decided not to head into Robson.... also he was supposed to get on a plan to head to India on August 5th. He is in India now with James Moneypenny with grand plans! I wish them the all the best on there climbing endeavours!!!

I said goodbye to Cory and started my way for the east coast. I stopped into Edmonton and visited Mac Schafers family.... what an incredible experience. Gene and Elaine you are wonderful people and I look forward to seeing you again soon!

I also stopped in Red Deer to visit my friend Emily Schnurr and family... thanks for the beers, food and company!

And my last stop, pretty much, before my alpine driving push was at my friend Steve Hazelhurst's in Calgary. Great to see ya!

And then it was on! I drove from Calgary, leaving at 11am, just west of Winnipeg I stopped at around midnight. Got up at 6am and drove to Kapuskasing Ont. on highway 11... 18hrs and the next morning got up at 5am and drove to Fredericton... 20hrs. Was going a little crazy by that point. Thanks to my little Ford Ranger for working hard and being nice to me :) it does have 426000 km.

Now I am home and in the middle of the wild blueberry harvest! Looking forward to working hard for the next month!

Thanks for a great first adventure in the Rockies Cory! I am going to make the Rockies a large part of my climbing in the near future!

Thanks to all my other climbing partners in Squamish for sharing a rope! Look forward to my next visit.