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

Black Rock Mountain - Hiking in the Ghost

Distance: 10 km round trip

Elevation Gain: 900m

Difficulty: moderate hike/easy scramble

-some scree and loose rock on the steeper bits above the treeline and near the summit

For Mother's Day, Kyle wanted to plan an adventure. We took his family into the Ghost to show them a different part of the Rockies and to hike Black Rock Mountain. It was warm and sunny when we left Calgary and had been unseasonable warm all week. The adventure began before we reached the turn off to the Ghost when we saw a fox along the side of the road. The day was off to a good start already. There were plenty of people camping out above the big hill, but as we descended into the river valley, it wasn't as busy as we were expecting. We drove north for a few km, following the riverbed to a small orange diamond marker with a 37 on it. There were about 8 cars already there so we knew we were at the trailhead, and where everybody was! It was an uneventful drive, with no water to cross at all. We walked across the dry river bed to the northern shore where a steep trail rose up onto the bank. Half of the old trail sign was there marking the way, as the start of the trail had been washed away by the flood. Once we were on the bank however, the trail was wide and well traveled. We had no problems finding our way.

Lots of sunshine on Phantom Crag