Rundlehorn

We have been having a beautiful April! With a forecast of 20 degrees, Jen and I decided to warm up our climbing for the season on the Rundlehorn, an easy 5.5 multi-pitch that claims to be 11 pitches, but really is only about 5 if you skip stations and use your whole rope. We parked at the falls because the golf course road was closed for construction. This added a few minutes of walking, but the approach was still really quick and we were at the bottom of the route before we knew it.

Nice morning view of the Banff Springs Hotel

Northwest Territories

For the first time since I was probably about 9, I traveled to a new region of Canada! Despite living in Canada my whole life and living in 3 different provinces, I have only visited 5 provinces and had never been to any Territories. This March, I was able to tick one off the list thanks to a rural elective through school. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself! First I spent 2 weeks in northern Alberta, in a town called High Level. High Level is over 1000 km from Calgary (mostly north) and the entire drive was dead flat. I had been warned to watch for animals along the highway and there were signs everywhere warning drivers of deer and moose, but the only animal I saw was Khyber, my travel companion hedgehog. There wasn't much worth stopping to check out, but it was pretty cool to be driving through places that I had only ever heard of in high school geography like Peace River. The most exciting part was the intersection where the highway split into the Alaska Highway to the west and the Mackenzie Highway to the north, a pretty cool landmark in my mind and a place to return to for future adventures.

Heading due north on the Mackenzie Highway