East Ridge of Edith Cavell

This is my 5th summer living in Alberta. In that time, I have climbed a lot of classic rockies routes but what Kyle and I have not been able to do is summit one of the 11,000 ft peaks in the rockies. It is not for lack of trying. In the spring of 2014, we made an attempt on Mt. Joffre on skis. Wind loading on the upper slopes made us reconsider and we turned back at the base of the final face. In 2015, we made it to the ridge of Mt. Victoria after post-holing for hours up the glacier, but turned around due to treacherous snow-covered rock, sketchy sun-warmed faces and fatigue. Last year, we made it half way up Mt. Temple but were once again thwarted by recent snowfall that had us tunneling through waist-deep drifts. This year, we decided to try Mt. Edith Cavell (Grade III 5.3) in Jasper National Park.

The upper half of the East Ridge of Edith Cavell on the left side of the photo

Takakkaw Falls (Weekend Double Header - Part II)

So excited about Takakkaw Falls!

Following our amazing day on Achilles Spire, Kyle and I made our way to Field, BC where we found space in the overflow camping at the Monarch Campground. Too exhausted to do anything useful, we milled around and contemplated just sleeping on the ground, until we were basically adopted by a group of older ACC'ers that were camped nearby. They force-fed us beer and smartfood popcorn (with very little resistance on our part) while we tried to figure out what time they were getting up to climb Takakkaw Falls in the morning so we could beat them to it. They even let us share a campsite so we didn't have to sleep on the incredibly uneven tent spot we had chosen in our fatigue. Eventually they caved and told us when they planned on climbing, so we got up and out of the campground an hour before them. A nice sleep in until 5:30 had us at the approach to Takakkaw Falls for 6:40 am. Shockingly, we were the only ones there (not).

Achilles Spire (Weekend Double Header - Part I)

Achilles Spire is a 300m, 13 pitch 5.8 sport route on Mt. Andromache (beside Mt. Hector) off the Icefields Parkway. Tiff and Connor invited us along for a big day out and we all stayed at the Mosquito Creek Hostel (3 km from the trailhead) on Friday night for an alpine start on Saturday. Kyle and I arrived at the hostel early enough to scrounge some free wine, cheese and mustard left over from previous guests. Score! We enjoyed the addition to dinner and also took advantage of the hostel's wood sauna, interrupted by brief plunges in the frigid Mosquito Creek. Feeling very relaxed post-sauna, we were in bed early.

The alarm went off at 4 am. I apologize to our hostel-mates but we didn't want to get scooped on the route by the hypothetical people driving up from Canmore who had got up at 3. Luckily our concern was all for naught, and we didn't see another party until mid afternoon when we were most of the way back down the route. We were on the trail at 5:30 and got to watch the sun come up illuminating the mountains of the Wapta Traverse and the turquoise Hector Lake. The approach climbs steeply up past a waterfall before turning towards Mt. Andromache, crossing rocky ledges. When Achilles Spire came into view, we got really excited, but we still had 45 mins of approach to go. All told, it was a 1.5 hour grunt up 710 m of elevation (over 2.7 km if Kyle's watch is trustworthy).

Following cairns on the sunrise approach to Achilles Spire. Lake Hector to the left

Wheat Kings on Cascade Mountain (5.7 sport, 7 pitches)

What does one do when you finish a 24 hr shift? If you lucked out and got to sleep for 6 hours, you get in the car and drive to Banff to go climbing for the day! I met Joseph at the carpool just before 10 am and we zipped out to Wheat Kings, a 5.7 sport multi-pitch on Cascade Mountain. Phil had climbed it about a month ago and his write up made it sound like a wonderful way to spend a post-call day. Not too challenging and all around enjoyable with great views. See his post here: Mountain Wagon Blog - Wheat Kings.

A Day on the Fluffy Goat Butt Face

Last year, Tyler Kirkland and Mark Carlson put up a new route on the Goat Wall, Fluffy Goat Butt Face. Numerous friends were recruited to help build trail, ferry ropes and gear and bolt the 21 pitch, 605 m sport route. Kyle spent a day on the wall helping clean the route and was excited to hear that Mark and Tyler had recently climbed the complete route. When Tyler invited us on a day on the Goat to test out the route descriptions and beta we couldn't say no, despite the new official grade of 5.11.

Morning light on all the goats. Goat buttress is far right, 1/2 in shade, 1/2 in sun. We climbed the sunny face on the right side

Rafting the Himalayan Rivers and Safari in Chitwan, Nepal

After our rest days in Pokhara, we got our adrenaline pumping with two days of rafting on the Marshyangdi and Trisuli Rivers. Since we were traveling in the off season, there were not very many rafting trips scheduled, but the companies were very flexible and willing to make something work. We had two options for trips and of course we chose the more "extreme" one. We are not white-water paddlers by any means so in reality we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We chose the raft company Adrenaline Rush Nepal in Pokhara. They were very professional (they even have a website!) and were happy to discuss how they scout rapids and have 2 kayakers spotting the raft. We were the only clients on the trip so were joined on the raft by 6 enthusiastic guides-in-training and a fully trained raft guide. 

Our raft team - a crew of river guides in training

Pokhara Nepal

View of Machapuchare from the hotel balcony

Arriving in Pokhara after another harrowing bus ride from Tatopani at the end of the Annapurna Circuit was a huge relief. The next issue was finding somewhere to stay. The main road into town was barricaded so we were dropped off far from the tourist district. Happy to be off the bus, but hot and bothered in the 35 degree humidity, we soon started arguing about which way to go to find a hotel. Kyle was frustrated with my haphazard navigating and wanted to stop and figure it out. After a few snappy comments back and forth, we stopped for a cold pop to cool the tempers. Thinking a bit more clearly, we realized that we were only a few blocks from where we wanted to be and took off in the direction of some of the hotels recommended by Lonely Planet. We were intercepted by a guy who saw our guidebook and convinced us that we should check out his hotel instead. The room was clean, there was A/C and the price was right. We also were not very interested in wandering around haggling for a room. Hotel Penguin became our home for the next few days.