Cline River Gallery Ice Climbing - David Thompson Highway

Cline River Gallery: "the approach is as difficult to describe as the climbs are to find," - Cyril Shokoples. Well, it would help if the description started you off in the right direction... We spent about an hour wandering around on a mossy hillside in search of ice before backtracking. Ignoring the directions from the Jo Josephson book that sent us left up a hill, the opposite way from the river and any sort of ice, we found a set of bootprints that we decided to follow. Shortly after we saw a party of climbers far below us who actually knew where they were going, which was lucky because I don't think we would have found the climbs otherwise, even though we were very close. We descended a steep hill and arrived at the climbs, making a mental note to not go back the way we had come. We returned the following day on the trail that we found on our hike out (read on for approach instructions).

Taking a nice mossy detour up the "hill to the left with a faint draw"

Cascade Falls Ice Climb WI 3

After a great time at the Night of Lies in Canmore on Friday night, we were psyched to get on some ice. The plan was to go cragging at Bear Spirit with Tiff and Kevin, but we had also tossed the idea of Cascade (WI 3) around so we pulled over to check it out on the way by. I was so excited and really wanted to climb it. This is such a prominent route that I check out every time I drive through Banff, but there have been so many times when conditions were not quite right with its southern exposure and overhead avalanche hazard. On Saturday however, there wasn't too much snow in the bowls above, it was cool and overcast without too much sun or snow in the forecast, and to top it all off, there was nobody on the route! Needless to say, we decided to go for it. 

Looking up at Cascade Falls from the airstrip

Bow Hut Remembrance Weekend

After our trip into the Bow Hut 3 years ago for Remembrance Day, I was pretty convinced it was never going to happen again. Last time, we had to hike in with our skis on our backs the entire way in and out from the hut along the summer trail. It really wasn't that fun. But, when Kyle saw Alex's post about heading back up there, it just seemed like the right thing to do (funny enough, we actually met Alex on the original Bow Hut trip as the result of a very similar facebook post). To our surprise, we were able to ski right across Bow Lake and ski all the way to the hut along the winter trail that follows the canyon. It made for a much more enjoyable approach.

Touring up the recently frozen canyon. The winter route is in

Grizzly Peak Shoulder Season Scramble

What do you do in the shoulder season? Go scrambling! Kyle and I invited ourselves along with Em, Trev and Owen for a great day out in the mountains. We met at the petro-can at the crack of 9:15 (significantly earlier than Emily's original plan of 10:30) and piled into the Subaru to hit the road. As we drove towards the mountains, they looked very snowy, and our original plan of trying the Middle Sister in Canmore seemed like a bad idea. Kyle frantically searched the scrambling book for something short and easy that we could do in the snow and still make it back to Calgary for Owen's plans at five. We settled on Grizzly Peak just before we hit the highway 40 turnoff (just in time). It is a 7km easy scramble just before the highway 40/Spray Lakes Road intersection. It has 900m of elevation gain and none of us had done it before. It ticked all the boxes.

View of Mt. Packenham and Mount Hood with lots of wind off the ridge

Fall Climbing and Hiking on the Coast

A few weeks ago, Kyle and I spent a week on the coast, hanging out with my family and our friends. We got to do a few days of climbing in Squamish, went for a hike up to Brew Lake with my family and went to a wedding. It was a great trip!

Kyle on Joe's Crack (5.9) at Pixie Corner

The Ultimate Everything - Upper Echelon Finish (16 pitches, 5.9)

The Ultimate Everything is a 10 pitch trad route on Echelon Wall that starts above the apron and makes its way to the top of the second summit of the Chief. Most pitches are in the 5.8 to 5.9 range with the final pitch being 5.10. Kyle was feeling really solid after a good season of climbing and a great warm up day at the crag, but wasn't very excited about leading the crux at the end of 17 pitches of climbing. To avoid that last 5.10 pitch, we opted to finish the route on the final two pitches of Upper Echelon, which go at 5.8.

Dotted red shows Ultimate Everything. We climbed St. Vitus Dance to the right of south gully then followed memorial crack up the apron

The Harrison Hut and Meager Creek Hot Springs

How much activity and how little sleep can one fit into a single weekend? I feel like I have tested this theory on a few occasions in the past and our trip to Meager Creek Hot Springs was no different.

The Harrison Hut

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.

The Annapurna Circuit - An Anniversary-Moon of Adventure

Follow Kyle's and my 13 day journey on the Annapurna Circuit in the Himalayas of Nepal. There were so many good photos to choose from but I managed to narrow it down to a couple dozen. This is a long one. Buckle up.

Swayambhun stupa in Kathmandu

Kathmandu Nepal

Kyle and I spent 3 nights in Kathmandu prior to starting our trek on the Annapurna Circuit. It was a hectic two days of sightseeing and shopping for the last few items we would need for the trek. We stayed in Thamel, the tourist district of Kathmandu. Everything in Thamel is walking distance and offers plenty to see and do, however it can be quite challenging to access the other parts of the city. Our hotel set us up with a driver so we wouldn't have to navigate the taxis and transit system on our first day in the country. It was expensive but well worth the cash as we were able to visit some of the major tourist attractions all in one day, and our driver would wait for as long as we needed.

Thamel: The Tourist District of Kathmandu. The place to go for souvenirs, international food and trekking equipment

Climbing Karst in Yangshuo China

Magical views of karst towers and rice paddies

China is a crazy place. It has crazy cities, landscapes and juxtapositions of modern and ancient. It is big, busy and a sensory overload. I landed in Shanghai with Brett and Alison after having done basically no planning for this trip. We spent our first two, very jet lagged days wandering the streets of Shanghai and eating dumplings for most meals. Still exhausted, we caught a quick flight to Guilin after meeting Jon and Heather in the airport on our second night. From there, we took a van to Yangshuo, arriving in the early morning. Fortunately our driver had waited for us despite the 2 hr delay. We checked into our disappointing accommodation but promptly went to bed. That was tomorrow's issue.

Two Weeks of Leisure in Penticton

Hours after writing the final exam of my University career, I jumped on a plane and flew to Kamloops to meet Kyle who had been cruising around the interior of BC for the two weeks prior. He met me at the airport and we made a B-line for Penticton where we would spend the next two weeks camped out in the front lawn of our generous hosts, the Stathers. Woody's family has an apple orchard on the Naramata Bench above Penticton and it was the perfect base camp for adventures!

The amazing view of the orchard from the Stather's porch

Fat Biking in Canmore (and other activities)

Back in March, Kyle and I got to spend 2 amazing weeks in Canmore with Andrew, who generously offered us a place to stay. The avalanche danger was high, and I was pretty busy with school, so ski touring and ice climbing were not particularly enticing. But, it was my birthday and I wanted to do something active. As an alternative to our usual sports, we rented fat bikes from the Canmore Nordic Centre and took them out for a couple of hours on the trails nearby. It was a blast! Being able to ride in the snow is pretty amazing. 

We were directed to go check out the Highline Trail by the guys at the rental shop. The ride around the reservoir and up the connector trail was fun and well packed down. The bikes gripped the hardpack and ice like crazy on the climb. When we turned onto Highline however, we were the first ones through. Breaking trail was not easy and we wallowed in the deep snow.

Trying to stay in Kyle's tracks to avoid coming to a complete stop

Elizabeth Parker Hut

Last year, Emily invited me to go ski at the Elizabeth Parker Hut. It sounded amazing but I had to bail because I was going to be in the NWT. When Kyle came back from EPH with stories of amazing new friends, crazy shenanigans and great skiing I knew I had to make it a priority this year. When the email for the trip arrived, I booked the weekend off immediately, many months in advance. This hugely successful weekend was orchestrated by Emily, but wouldn't have been nearly as fun if it hadn't been for all the enthusiastic participants (all connected to Emily and Trevor in some way) who traveled from far and wide to attend. 

Emily had booked the entire hut for our group of 20. Prior to departure, I thought I only knew 5 of the people on the trip but upon arriving in the parking lot, I was greeted by an old classmate from Handsworth who I hadn't seen in 9 years! The coincidences kept coming as I met Emily's other friends and realized that the trip was full of North Van folk, UBC grads and friends of friends. It was an amazing group of super nice people.

Shaun powers ahead with the keg

This House of Sky WI 3 (The Ghost Wilderness Area)

This weekend, we ventured into the Ghost to climb This House of Sky. The road conditions had significantly improved from posts I saw earlier in the week and we were able to get all the way to THOS in the North Ghost without any issues in Kyle's truck. The warm temperatures in the last few days had melted all the drifted snow, but the river in the valley was still frozen solid. It was smooth driving most of the way, but with more melting we may be seeing some ice shelves forming. One spot that might become an issue soon is the bridge at the start of the TA road. There is flooding across the road in that area and some nasty holes in the ice below the flowing water. It didn't cause us any problems but may be getting worse with time.

THOS is such a fun climb. It follows a narrow canyon for many short pitches of WI 2/WI 3 ice up to a large amphitheatre. From there, you can choose to continue upward for a few more pitches of more difficult ice. We were able to solo most of the ice in the canyon, although we put up a rope on some of the longer pitches. There are bolted stations at the top of all the pitches in the canyon, which makes it really easy to move quickly both on the ascent and the rappels. This was my second time on the route and it was even more fun this time around!

Brett on his way up the first ice flow on This House of Sky

The Valley of the Birds

Brett and I have been making plans to go the the Ghost together since we met 2.5 years ago. Finally we actually took some initiative to make it happen! We got off to a slow start. I had forgot the cooler of smokies and beer for after the climb so we had to stop in Cochrane for groceries on the way out of town. Unfortunately, the stores didn't open until 8 and we arrived at 7:45. This made it an obvious choice to stop for cinnamon buns at the Coffee Traders Cafe. Yum!

Fueling up with coffee and cinnamon buns before we head into the Ghost

Roger's Pass

I got some time off! Amidst a whirlwind trip back and forth across Canada, I had four days home and took advantage by heading up to Roger's Pass with Kyle and the trailer. There hadn't been any snow in a few weeks and conditions were pretty stable, which allowed us to go and do some exploring beyond the typical runs on Grizzly Shoulder and Teddy Bear Trees.

Greetings from Roger's Pass - the ultimate ski bum playground

 Day one was a bit of a wake up call for me. I hadn't been skiing in a few weeks and the legs were out of shape. I had also foolishly decided to bring my big heavy "slack country" skis in hopes of amazing powder on the way down, completely forgetting that I would be spending 95% of my time lugging them up the hill. This combined with a steep, icy skin track and not very grippy skins led to much sliding backwards and frustration. It got so bad that Kyle would pull me up every switchback just so he wouldn't have to watch me struggle to use my poles to prevent myself from losing all my forward progress. It was exhausting.

This fat Stellar's Jay followed us for over an hour hoping for a snack

 We made our way up to the top of Grizzly Shoulder and dropped into Roger's Run. Up until about 200m below the top, we hadn't seen any other skiers all day. It was nice to be out on a weekday. We managed to find the run, staying skiers right of the big rock gully and avoiding dense trees farther to the right. The snow was old but better than we had expected. It was nice to ski a new run, but I much preferred Puff Daddy which we skied last year. I struggled a bit because I was so tired from the tour up, so it was a good thing that we dropped right back down to the visitor centre where the trailer was parked. Some people get sucked skiers right and end up in the creek, but we picked our way through some dense trees to access the highway and were a short walk away from our home away from home after our day out.

The exit from Roger's Run was less than desirable

 The next morning, Matt and Charlie got an early start from Calgary and met us in the parking lot as we were finishing breakfast. We set out with a goal to ski Video Peak via Connaught Creek. The avi hazard had dropped again and people were getting after it. Over on Cheops a number of snowboarders were making there way down a sweet couloir. Others were making questionable choices by setting skin tracks straight up couloirs with significant overhead hazard, which actually got called out on avalanche.ca and by a few of the other skiers. Like I said, people were getting adventurous, for better or worse.

Pillow line that I was dying to hit. I must return

 The clouds moved in as the day went on. As we climbed up towards Video Peak on the ridge between 8812 Bowl and Hospital Bowl, we realized that we weren't going to be able to gain the peak without dropping down the back from Bruin's Pass and crossing a glacier. Next time we will have to approach from the climbers right if we want to ski the line straight from the top, or be more prepared with glacier gear. We made it to Bruin's Pass as it totally socked in. The aspect we had been hoping to ski down Hospital Bowl was wind-loaded so we opted to ski the lower angle 8812 Bowl instead. We dropped in and were soon below the clouds cleared with 1000 metres of mellow, untracked, boot-top pow to enjoy all the way down.

Stopping for lunch on the way up to Bruin's Pass

Matt ripping by

Kyle checks out our tracks as we drop back down to Connaught Creek

We celebrated a good day out with a beer in the parking lot before Matt and Charlie left for Golden, where they had the hostel booked. Kyle and I stayed in the pass and enjoyed the propane and generator heated trailer good life.

Matt's teddy bear sampling a refreshing brew after a hard day on the slopes

And the cutest couple award goes too...

 Our crew grew by two more on Thursday morning as Ken and Tyler joined Matt, Charlie, me and Kyle for a ski up Flat Creek to check out Fortitude Ridge. It involved a long, flat (shocking!) ski up the creek, before heading into the woods to gain the ridge. I was lagging, thanks to the bricks I was using on my feet. I wasn't too impressed with the snow at the lower elevations, but as we gained altitude, the snow got lighter, deeper and much more enticing. 

Flat creek access involves ducking under the railway and a lot of creek crossings!

 At the top of the ridge, I thought we were done. Boy, was I wrong. The first good line you reach actually tapers down to a narrow creek and ends up being more of a bushwhack than a fun ski lower down. Matt recommended continuing up the ridge for another few hundred metres to the second slide path. 

Matt and Charlie contemplate slide paths on the other side of the valley

The team making their way up Fortitude Ridge

It was worth the extra effort because it was a fantastic run 1200 m back to the valley, with well spaced trees. Because of the long approach, nobody else had made it out that way, and we got fresh tracks despite the last snowfall being over a week prior. Also, we never hit the crusty snow we had encountered on the way up and had light, fluffy snow all the way down!

Kyle gets stoked to drop in

Fresh pow and fresh tracks

A typical day in the life of Kyle - Brandon Epp

Back in the valley, it was a LONG ski back to the highway. It was just enough of a downhill that we didn't have to throw our skins on, but it was hard to carry any speed and we had to push along the flats with our poles. The skin track up zig-zagged back and forth over the creek crossing snow bridges. We saw an animal track that looked like it had been slip-sliding its way down the snow and creek and Kyle later identified the track as an otter! As our gaggle of skiers made our way down, many of the snow bridges started collapsing, leaving us with options like jumping over the creek, looking for creative alternative ways around, crossing logs, or falling in the creek (Kyle). It was best to be at the front of the group because by the time 4 people had crossed a snow bridge, there wasn't much snow left! 

Ken, our token telemarker. Free the heel, free the mind, man.

Charlie and I hit the road back to Calgary, leaving the boys to spend the weekend in the trailer and continue the exploration of Roger's Pass for 4 more days - lucky guys!

In the end, over my three days in Roger's, Kyle and I traveled about 40 km and 3500 m of elevation and I was dragging on my heavy setup the whole way up. After 6 seasons of touring on a frame style binding, I finally bit the bullet and bought a pin binding immediately upon returning home. I am seriously looking forward to a more enjoyable uptrack for those long days out.