Easy Street (5.6), Yamnuska

For my second and Liam's first climb on Yam, we decided to try out Easy Street, a 6 pitch 5.6 route that makes its way up the west end of the iconic wall. From the parking lot, our route looked much shorter than the ones that travel up any other part of Yamnuska, but according to the guide book, it was still over 200m of vertical climbing, and that doesn't include the hike up to the base! We left Calgary at 5am and it was already bright. The sun was up shortly after and it was amazingly warm when we left the car at 6:10 to head up the steep switchbacks to our climb.

Beautiful morning (6:30 am) for the hike up to Yamnuska

May Long Weekend - Stone Hill Climbing

For the long weekend, we escaped the rainy weather in Calgary by heading south to Montana for a weekend of climbing. We arrived late Friday night and set up camp in the dark after picking up some cheap beer at the gas station. We spent Saturday at Hold Up Bluffs North, a crag with lots of good trad and top rope options. The ratings down at Stone Hill are pretty difficult, and it can be a bit demoralizing to have trouble with 5.7 routes, so we let Liam lead and set up some top-ropes for us on some of the harder climbs.

Elizabeth flossing the crack on dental floss

West Coast Road Trip

At the beginning of May, Kyle and I headed west to escape the lingering snow. We spent 10 days riding and climbing all over the "best coast". The first three days were spent on the Sunshine Coast for the Coaster XC and DH races (for me) and camping, shuttling and beers (for Kyle, and me a bit). I raced both the Marathon XC (4th) and the DH (3rd) on the same bike - my awesome Specialized Enduro Carbon Expert, and won first in the Overall category. It was wet and muddy out there, and boy was it a blast! A highlight was going to the "codfather" for a codfather poutine at the end of the weekend. Fries drenched in seafood chowder and we of course had to get some fish on the side.

Sunshine Coaster DH race - I raced the Works Category (XC marathon and DH on the same bike)

Mt. Joffre Attempt (Kananaskis) - Easter Weekend

After reading lots of trip reports, we decided to give ourselves 3 days to do Mt. Joffre in Kananaskis (Peter Lougheed Provincial Park). David and Kyle got into town Thursday night and packing chaos ensued.

Route planning on the Thursday night

"Mini" Chickaboom Traverse

I hadn't been out ski touring in months so it was great to get the call from Liam that they were heading out on Sunday to go check out the Chickaboom Traverse. I was worried about the avalanche conditions but it seemed like everyone else was in the same boat so I agreed to go for a bit of a walk and check out a new area.

Chickadee Valley

Coire Dubh/Integral WI3/5.7

 Kyle, Liam and I took advantage of the Chinook that we were having  (6 degrees in Canmore!) to go out and climb one of the easier mixed multi-pitch routes in the area, Coire-Dubh/Integral. The Coire-Dubh part is 3 pitches of ice and snow and the Integral is two pitches of rock with lots of snow in between. The whole route was about 700m of elevation gain. We were told to get an early start, unfortunately for us it was also the night of the time change. 5am came too quickly (since it was actually 4am), but we were the only ones in the parking lot when we arrived.

Alpine start (which felt way worse with the time change)

Rogan's Gully (Groundhog Day) Trip Report

We got up at 5am to meet Liam at the Cascade Falls parking lot for 7. It was -19 when we got there... By the time we had finished faffing at the cars, the sky was beginning to brighten and headlamps were not necessary for the rest of the day.

Gearing up in the dark