Beach walking in Winter!! Way more fun then in Summer.... for me anyway!

Cory Hall climbing over Shepody Bay in Dorchester Cape NB.

As a lot of you know I have ventured to Chilean Patagonia to work for NOLS the past few years.... this years is no different except that I would be leaving Patagonia in early December to come home to New Brunswick for my little sisters wedding and to also enjoy the holidays with family and friends.

Getting ready for snow school! One of the funnest classes in the mountains! Photo Steve Robitshek

Teaching Glaciology. Photo Steve Robitshek

So when my NOLS course finished in early December I was quick to check and see what the weather was doing, to see if there would be some early season ice. Fortunately ice season in NB had started, especially in Parlee Brook. And even more exciting there was a cold spell basically 3 days before I arrived home with no sign of letting up! So that means the infamous coastal ice climbing on the Bay of Fundy would be forming too!

On December 8th I arrived in Halifax and made it to Sackville later that evening. On the 9th I was out checking ice conditions in the greater Sackville area (Pecks Point, Cape Maringouin and Dorchester Cape). That day I climbed 15 pitches of ice and got to all these locations. A great welcome home!

Cory Hall climbing a WI4+ 35m route in Dorchester Cape NB.

Luc Gallant walking into Dorchester Cape

As my time progressed I would venture over to Parlee Brook NB, St. Martins NB, Joggins NS, Cape Chignecto NS and Cape D'Or NS. Each area provided amazing climbing and even better exploring! I got to be a part of 18 first ascents all on the Fundy Coast, in NB and NS.

Parlee Brook is the ice climbing destination in NB. It is in early and late regardless of weather.... minus a huge rain event. Climbing in here ranges from WI2- the infamous Truancy Falls WI5+. It is well worth the visit.

Parlee Brook early December. Blue Pillar on right. 

I spent most of my time focusing on coastal ice. Especially on the Chignecto Penninsula of NS. There is so much ice in this area both coastal and inland. Cape D'Or, Cape Chignecto, Apple River and Joggins host routes from 20m to 200m of all difficulties. And Moose River NS has some amazing inland ice up to 50m in length.

Luc Gallant on NB Pillar Moose River NS, March 2013.

Moose River!

I teamed up with Luc Gallant and Greg Hughes for most of my ice climbing adventures this last month.

Greg and I got out to Cape Chignecto and estabished 2 WI4 175m routes (Maritime Alpinism and High and Wild) with Mike Delaney and had a little adventure getting out.... all in all a great day of climbing and walking that lasted 16hrs or so.

High and Wild follows a line on the left and Maritime Alpinism follows a line hidden in the center and tops out on an upper ice curtain, the right most ice line is unclimbed.

Unclimbed route in Cape Chignecto..... Get after it!!!!!!! Greg is on the beach on the left.

Luc and I were the first to get a glimpse of the SW aspect of Cape D'Or which hosts some of the Maritimes hardest and longest unclimbed lines ranging from 100m to 150m with difficulties reaching WI6. Luc and I climbed 2 60m WI3 lines just north of the lighthouse.

Unclimbed goodness in Cape D'Or. Psyched to hear when this gets climbed!

More unclimbed goodness in Cape D'Or.... this was from the first trip out there... it has fattened up since!

Just before New Years Luc, Greg, Cory Hall and I headed to St Martins, NB to check out an area called the Controls. It is known for hard thin climbing with the bottoms washed away by the tides. And that is what we found. We ended up looking around and finding a new gem that NB ice hardman Joe Kennedy hadn't seem before. It is 300m west of the Controls. 4 routes were established... Side Doggy WI5 70m Cory Hall & Greg Hughes, Hot, Sweet V WI4+ 70m Luc Gallant & Max Fisher, WI4 70m Max Fisher & Luc Gallant and WI4+ 80m Greg Hughes & Cory Hall.

The Controls, St Martins NB

Greg and Luc looking at the WI4 and WI4+... they had fun mixed starts!!

Side Doggy WI5 and Hot Sweet V WI4+

Cory and Luc on a classic coastal top-out in St. Martins.

My next visit to Cape D'Or was with Greg Hughes. We rented a little trailer for a night and spent 2 days climbing.... the tides weren't ideal but we established 2 really fun, high quality routes!
Enter the Dragon WI5 130m with Matt Peck and The Sweet Chimney of Love WI3+ M5 R 110m.

Enter the Dragon WI5 130m

Greg on the top of pitch 2 (WI4+) of Enter the Dragon. What a unique place to climb! 

Greg on the first pitch, WI3, of The Sweet Chimney of Love

Enjoying the cold below the Sweet Chimney pitch.

The Sweet Chimney of Love pitch 2 WI3+ M5 R 50m

I also had the privilege of climbing with Lucas Toron in Parlee Brook and Dorchester Cape. And I also took my friend Mike Mandele out ice climbing for the first time.

All in all an amazing 28 days in NB visiting family and friends, drinking beer, a great wedding, sharing stories and climbing. I got to climb 17 days, 18 new routes and 56 pitches of ice. Thanks to winter for coming earlier then it has in the past few years and for my motivated ice climbing friends to drag me out and up some pretty awesome ice climbs!

Well it is time for my winter to end, I'm off to Chilean Patagonia tonight at 7pm. Take care all and see ya when I return. I love the Maritimes!

Crack Climbing in New Brunswick?? Yup it's true!!

Greg Hughes on the FA of Harvest 5.10- at McQuirks in St. George NB

Climbing in NB, for years has been centered around Welsford NB. Which is totally fair due to the amazing amount of stone found in the area. Cochrane Lane (the epi-center on climbing in NB with 350 routes), Sunny Side (predominately a sport crag), Mt Douglas, Bear Mountain, Eagle Rock and Bald Peak. There are a few other areas located around the St. John and Hampton area. Kingston Cliffs, Cedar Point, Hampton Marsh and Gondola Point to name a few (all within roughly an hour from Welsford).

Dom Caron climbing Human Eraser Direct 5.11a at Minkey Wall, Welsford NB Photo by Franca Zambito

Franca Zambito on-sighting Hitchhiker 5.11a at Upper Tier in Welsford NB

Franca on Hitchhiker!

More recently there has been some hard work put into developing new crags in the St. George area. The past 2 weekends I have ventured down to one of these crags (McQuirks) that, in my opinion, is the best traditional climbing in NB!

The other area, Utopia, that is being developed is a steep overhanging wall of granite that will most likely boost NB's hardest rock routes in the years to come. Thanks to Adam Morgan, Terry Melanson and Dom Caron (among others) for working hard at bolting and sending at this impressive crag.

I accompanied Greg Hughes, the main developer of Mcquirks, both this weekend and the last to climb at this 60-70m wall.

My first visit was fantastic and I got to climb pretty much all the established routes, which is around 20 pitches of climbing from 5.7-5.10-.

Beautiful granite climbing high on McQuirks Photo by Greg Huges

Each pitch I climbed I could stop smiling! The rock was excellent, gear was solid and most importantly the climbing was just so good!

Octopus Ink 5.8 Photo by Greg Hughes

Greg mentioned to me that there has been some talk that the grades in the area are a bit stiff. So as I climbed each route I took that into account. My feeling was that the grades are pretty accurate for the style of climbing which is predominately crack climbing and in NB there aren't a lot of routes you need to purely jam your way through a crux.

Second pitch of yet another awesome crack! Photo by Greg Hughes

Climbing there again this weekend I was in awe of how good the climbing is! I again climbed Neutral Tribe 5.8 (one of the best crack climb in NB... in my opinion), The Nose 5.8+, and I combined the crux (fingers) of Black Fly 5.9+ into the top crux (fingers & hands) of Crack Machine 5.9+ for a new line called Black Crack 5.9+.

Neutral Tribe! One of my new favourite routes in NB! Photo by Greg Huges

Neutral Tribe 5.8.... if you know how to jam ;) Photo by Greg Hughes

Greg climbing The Nose 5.8

After climbing Black Crack I started to rope up at the base of 50 Mission Cap. Presently that hardest route established at the crag at 5.10+(c/d). I added a few extra finger sized pieces of gear and started up. The climbing felt hard yet smooth and I soon found myself at the top pumped and psyched! This route is full value with great gear and exposure, a must really!

Onsighting 50 Mission Cap 5.10c. An excellent 35m climb with a beautiful corner/finger crack, delicate traverse and a steep finger/hand crack.  Photo by Greg Hughes

Pulled the first crux and starting into the traverse. Photo by Greg Hughes

We called it a day after that and went back to camp, a 2 minute walk from the crag and a 5-7 minute walk from the car. We ate dinner and chatted around the fire with the wonderful company of Mike, Melissa, and Lizzy Parker!

The next morning it started to rain a bit.... regardless Greg and I hiked up to the top of the crag and rapped down to the Party Ledge where we climbed a nice wet 5.5 or 5.6 before heading out.

Thanks to Greg Hughes and Mike Parker for all there hard work developing this crag! I highly recommend this area to everyone who enjoys climbing! It has excellent gear, solid stone and high quality climbing! There are rap/belay stations midway on the wall so you don't have to climb with a tag line or half ropes. This area deserves more traffic!

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.