Bugaboo Redemption

Sunday morning at Applebee Dome

Two trips to the Bugs in one summer? Most excellent! Kyle was returning to the Bugaboos to climb with his friend Woody who works at the Bugaboo CMH Lodge and I wasn't going to let that happen without me. I even offered to drive and hike in on my own after class Saturday night if they wanted to go earlier than me, but it ended up working out for Kyle and I to leave Calgary at 4 and meet Woody up at camp. Woody had the luxury of a few extra days off and took that opportunity to check out Cobalt Lake before we arrived.

Rejected at Takakkaw Falls

I had a weekday off so we took the trailer out to Field, BC to camp and climb Takakkaw Falls, a 5.7 11 pitch mixed route up the side of the Takakkaw Falls. The forecast looked great and we went to bed early so we could have a good start in the morning. It poured rain overnight and we awoke to grey skies. So much for the awesome forecast, it had morphed into "chance of showers" all day. What the heck?! We decided to just stick to the plan and go for it, maybe the rain would miss us.

No trailers are allowed up the road to the falls because of 3 steep switchbacks, so we parked the trailer at the campground and drove up the road to the viewpoint and start of the hiking trails. There are lots of popular hikes in the area, including the Ice Line trail which I would really like to return and do at some point. This was my first time ever seeing Takakkaw Falls and they are pretty impressive, and one of the tallest waterfalls in Canada at 384 metres high with a 254 metre freefall!

Instructions on how to get up the road in big vehicles (reverse up the 2nd switchback!)

Sister Hang-Out

Angela came to visit! We had all these great plans to do lots of climbing, and take her on her first alpine route, but "Monsoon June/July" kept us a bit closer to home. We took advantage of the poor forecast to head to the Calgary Stampede and watch the rodeo, then Angela showed us all up at Nashville North with her 2-stepping dance moves.

Angela making friends with Harry the Horse at the Rodeo

Bugamoon - Marriage and Mountains

Are you ready for a long one?? Last month was unbelievable. A mere 7 months after Kyle's proposal in Smith Rock, we were on our way to Fernie to tie the knot. We had people from all over the world come to celebrate with us and it was so amazing to see friends and family from all different parts of our lives in one place together. It was a full weekend of fun and although the weather wasn't the most cooperative, I can't think of a better way to start my life with Kyle than in the forest getting rained on. A huge shout out to Miranda Weston Photography for capturing the day so well and being such a great sport!

Tying the knot, for real!

Canmore Triple Crown

Within a month of moving to Calgary, I had already heard about the Canmore Triple Crown, but it took 3 years of living here to finally do it. If you haven't heard of the Triple Crown, it requires the completion of 3 popular hikes around Canmore in a day (Ha Ling, East End of Rundle aka EEOR and Lady MacDonald). It sounded achievable but grueling and despite tossing the idea around many brainstorm sessions, there was always something more appealing on the table and thus it never budged from its place low on ever growing list of weekend activities. A bad weather forecast was shutting us down from our original weekend trip and I threw out the idea of going for the Triple Crown, since you can scramble in any weather. To my surprise, it was met with enthusiasm so we got an early night on Friday in anticipation of a big day of hiking.

Views of misty mountains from Lady Mac

The Weekend Where We Lost All Our Stuff - The Fold Mt Kidd and The North Ridge of Wasootch Tower

Gripped Magazine recently published a list of 4 moderate alpine climbs off of Kananaskis Highway. Included in that list was Joy, a great climb we did a few years ago. Based on that, and the raving reviews on the route description, we decided that the Fold on Mt Kidd (11 pitches, 5.8 trad) would be a great day out. We got off to a slow start after having to register for our campsite and relocate the trailer at the crack of 9 when the campers centre opened. Our next obstacle was the fact that the Galeta Trailhead Parking was closed for the spring. We checked the map and saw that were weren't going to be on any closed trails during our approach, but we still had to park on the highway as the gate was closed. It was a long, steep approach but followed a well worn trail and the route itself was very obvious even from the highway. Unfortunately it just wasn's our day. Maybe Gripped hyped the climb up too much or maybe we just didn't do the route properly, but I found this route to be much more of an adventure than I was hoping for! 

Looking up at Mt Kidd and the Fold

Plutonian Shore 5.9 Raven Crag

The alarm buzzed at 7 am on a sunny Sunday morning. Kyle rolled over and hit dismiss and we fell back to sleep. No alpine start for us today! We finally left Calgary at 10:30 am, heading for Banff to climb Plutonian Shore, a 5.9 sport multi-pitch route. After sitting in traffic on Highway 1, only a few kilometers west of the Cochrane turn-off, we bailed on that and turned around, heading for the 1A. We were not the only ones who had that idea and it took us forever to get through Cochrane. As a result, we finally made it to Canmore around 12:30. To add to the faff of the day we stopped to drop some shoes off to be resoled and picked up a coffee. Finally, we made it to Banff and parked at the Cave and Basin parking lot to head for Raven Crag.

The approach was very straight-forward. We followed the paved road to the bottom of the hill, then took the dirt trail up to the left (identified by a sign indicating area closures). About 300 metres up the trail, there was a small cairn marking a narrow trail heading up to the left. Once we were on the trail, it was easy to follow the cairns up to the crag. At the fork, we took the lower left trail which traversed under the cliffs. The descent trail joined back up with the approach trail at that same fork. The start of the climb was at the end of the traverse trail and was obvious thanks to the well bolted route.

Kyle leads the second pitch