As the Greyhound slipped along the Trans-Canada into the night, I managed one last longing look back to the mountains that had been home for the last two weeks. Having barely scratched the surface of what this area has to offer, I know I’ll be back again.
That’s it for this trip, I’m on the way home to Melbourne.
Thanks for watching, and Goodnight.
James
We headed back to Lake Louise Falls to cap off what has been an amazing two weeks of ice climbing. Leading the last pitch over 100 meters above the base of the falls is something I’m not going to quickly forget. On the way back we found a promising looking bouldering line…
Walking up the frozen, blue-ice creekbed through Grotto Canyon has to be one of the more interesting approaches I’ve made. “His” and “Hers”, twin 15m ice pillars along with Grotto Falls set the tone for the day. I managed a lead on Grotto Falls and Hers before some mixed climbing to finish the day… We will all sleep well tonight.
The sun came out to shine as we drove the 200+ kilometres into British Columbia to the Gibraltar Wall. At around 150m tall it was to be climbed in 3 pitches. Turns out the sun was shining a little too hard for the ice and only the first two pitches were safe. It was however a great view down the valley from 100 meters up.
Well, I’ve been a little tardy of late with the updates. I’m going to blame it on the weather closing in on Canmore… Yesterday we trooped our way to Johnston Canyon, It’s a tourist spot with a nice pathway all the way to the main falls. The wall you can see is 55m tall at one end and very steep!!
As I sat having breakfast the clouds rolled in, then the snow came down. So it was off to somewhere protected for the day’s climbing. Bear Spirit set the stage for some top-roping on grade 4 ice and a little M7 mixed. As we walked down the gully to the car the temperature began to plummet. It’s now -17 degrees Celsius.
Jessie gave us one last piece of advice as we roped up… “It’s simple, Just don’t fall!”, and we didn’t. The last day of my Ice climbing course saw us lead* the four pitches up Chantilly Falls. A truly awesome day.
Thanks to Jessie for taking my camera up with him.*Leading a climb involves dragging the rope up behind you, placing ice screws in the ice as protection. If you fall, you fall past the last screw before the rope grabs. This is instead of the customary “top-roping” where the rope is secured at the top of the climb before you start.
The aim for today was to climb steeper ice in the morning and then overhanging mixed (rock and ice) routes in the afternoon. We hiked a good hour from the trail head into a place called Bear Spirit. The main ice pillar was about 15m tall and the surrounding rock routes were very, very overhung.
Two pitches into the climb up Louise Falls is a mammoth cave with a spectacular view out over the lake and back to the Chateau.
This is an amazing place… Click for more!
If the ice doesn’t touch the ground… No problems. Mixed climbing means using Ice Tools on rock and ice to get to the top.
