Snow

          Whenever I arrive back in Nordegg it takes me a few days to get back on mountain time...I of course don't mean like mountain standard time, no, I mean a slowed-down-forgot-to-change-the-batteries-on-my-watch.  So instead of watching the clock, I wake up when the sunlight trickles in my window, my day starts when I've had 3 cups of coffee and a bowl of cereal and life starts once I've had a good snuggle with each of the dogs.  Living starts when I'm hanging off of a couple small aluminium ice screws and a day is not complete without feeling like I've put myself in an uncomfortable situation that scares me a little bit.  My day starts to feel like its ended once the sun sets over the mountains and no day is complete without seeing something like this!

           The thing that really drives life out in the mountains however, is snow!  This past week my plans changed completely almost every day due to one huge dump!  Back on monday when it started dumping the fluffy white stuff I woke up with enough of it to justify ploughing even though it was still coming down...by the time i had finished with our LONG driveway and 3 parking lots it had snowed enough to do it all over again!  So the next morning I did it all over again, my plan had been to get a large portion of my papers written but hey, thats how things go out here!!!   This massive dump (about 1 foot in 24 hours!) also changed something else that would ultimately decide how the rest of my week went....this was the avalanche hazard of course!  A friend was planning on coming down wednesday with intentions to climb a route called "mixed master" that has been on my mind all winter but only recently have I been able to get over my fear of it and decide to have a go at it!  The snow changed everything!  Though this route is not below any significant avalanche slopes, enough snow can pile up on it to ruin your day if it were to come loose!  Justin decided to stay in golden and ski and though a little bit disappointed that this last chance to climb the route for the season disappeared overnight, in my mind I knew it was for the better and I settled back into writing papers.  

    

          Saturday morning I woke up in good time and loaded up the ice climbing gear and headed out to the cline river to meet up with Robyn and her friend Steph for a day of plastic ice and mixed climbing!  We had a great day running laps up the mixed line at the cline river gallery and enjoying warm enough temperatures that someone a little crazier then myself might consider climbing in the buff!!!  There was a big group of UofA students there and we had fun sharing ropes with them and even got one of the girls, that was enjoying her first day of ice climbing, up the mixed line!  After everyones forearms became essentially useless we headed back to the centre for dinner and a brew!  Upon our arrival Cheri greeted us with an emergency!  One of the other staff members at COE who does relief work for the hostel down the highway forgot her computer cord.  There is a new set of programming happening out at COE and Darci was working on this so without power for her computer Cheri was afraid that the website that was supposed to launch the next day wouldn't happen.  So we packed up dinner and the wrong computer cord and headed out to rampart creek hostel to save the day!  We had a nice visit out at what is probably the coolest hostel in canada!  We spent the next day at an ice climb called SARS on Ice but shut it down early as Robyn and Steph had to get back to Banff that night and I was heading to Edmonton with Elyse!

Anyways, enjoy some pictures of the ice!  And check out the new programming at COE here!!!

http://life.coe.ca/

From every negative you can find a positive

If you talk to someone who knows me well they will probably say im a climber first off, everything else second.  Well in that case my frostbitten toes spelled doom for me.  Ice season was winding down to a close in kamloops and without any more ski courses I pulled the pin and headed back to Nordegg to see if I could help out around the lodge and maybe squeeze in some ice despite my broken toes.

After an epic drive from kamloops to golden that lasted a brutal 9 hours and four major accidents we settled in a friends house for the night before finishing the drive to Nordegg.  My co worker Robyn had been hanging out in golden for the past two days to drive me and a fellow classmate out to Nordegg for a little gathering of ice climbers over the weekend.  Well to my dismay it was alot colder back in the rockies and I feared for my toes.  Our first day we headed to a favourite stomping ground of mine called wet willy's.  It was alot bigger than when I had last climbed it in January and I opted to lead straight of the couch after a month of minimal climbing.  The brittle ice and featureless nature of the ice made for stiffer climbing then usual but I was impressed that I still had it in me (I guess the swimming paid off!)!  And as for my toes?  Well things seemed to be working out down there and I was able to keep them warm all day!

The next day we woke up early and after several delays began hiking up into a deep canyon to check out a couple climbs tucked deep between Mount Elliot and Mount Ernest Ross.  The approach starts with a pleasant walk up a creek and we were lucky that there was a buff trail leading all the way.  Once you reach the opening of the canyon its helmets and crampons on!  We climbed a few short easy ice steps as we worked our way deeper and deeper into the canyon with massive 100m high walls on either side.  There has been some talk of the potential for great sport climbing and after walking in I can see what all the fuss is about, this canyon would compare to any other sport climbing area in the rockies!  After a couple hours a huge wall of ice came into view.  Lovely parting gifts (the name of the climb), though not steep had some really cool features and I was excited to start climbing, any climbing is good climbing in my mind!  We hiked a little further where the canyon pinches off leaving a six foot wide strip of ice leading deep into the upper reaches of the canyon called End of the Line.  This piece of ice was really aesthetic but having a group of six we decided to set up a top rope on the first pitch of this climb and leave the upper pitches for another day!  We split up and I helped Robyn rack up for lovely parting gifts while another fellow by the name of Grier started leading end of the line.  While everyone was getting started on the ice I started running laps on a steep snow slope to keep my toes warm, after a few laps Justin (you may remember him from a past blog post about mount abraham) came by and asked if I wanted to have a look what was above the snow gully I was climbing.  We started climbing up and found a small little chunk of ice.  I quickly started up but after one of my pick holes started spurting water i decided it was too wet and climbed back down.  We headed up a snow gully until we got out of the canyon and got a view of the lesser seen sides of Mount Elliot and Mount Ernest Ross.  Me and Justin talked about potential climbs we might want to do this summer and then headed back down to see how Robyns lead was going.

Well the ice was extremely brittle and after losing all feeling in her hands Robyn decided to bail and wait for a warmer day.  I decided my feet were feeling warm and I should take advantage of that and climb some ICE!!!  I took the rest of the rack and started climbing.  The ice was extremely brittle and after having huge chunks of ice pop off all the way up I put in an anchor and lowered down.  Everyone took turns top roping the two climbs we had up and I had to put some lovin' back into my feet.  Everyone was starting to get cold and Justing Kat and Andy had to head back to golden that afternoon so after everyone took one more burn and I climbed through the back of the curtain on Lovely Parting Gifts we started walking back down the beautiful canyon.

Now im settling back to living at COE and writing my final papers for school.  I hope to get a bit more ice climbing in this season and am looking towards the summer and my rock climbing season which should start at the end of march if everything goes well!  For the time here are the photos from our day going up Peskett canyon!  The days are getting longer and the ice is fat!!! Come visit me for some climbing!

heres the photos:

getting all geared up

me leading lovely parting gifts

more me!

descending the snow couloir

Grier lowering off of End of the Line

Lovely parting gifts

Climbing up the approach canyon

Kat climbing a short step

Grier starting the lead

Some TR action

Mixed climbing anyone?

On the way out

Back at the car on a clear cool David Thompson day!

Pepper getting ready for a long car ride home to Golden

Dogs, climber, gear and snow...what else is there!

The ups and downs of mountain life.

I have not been entirely faithful to my blog as of late.  I suppose a few things led to this though none of them are necessarily valid excuses.  I will explain.

Since my last post in chronological order:

-1 month of school

Well I really didn't get out climbing at all during this month.  I had three intense courses and the best I was able to manage was swimming during the week.  I suppose this is the sacrifice one has to make in order to better oneself!  I had an accounting course, a business course and a marketing class.  Although most people would probably find these courses easy, I have difficulty with math so accounting was a lot of work to get through.  I also have a hard time sitting in a classroom listening to a teacher lecture which frustrates me as this is an outdoor themed program yet they don't take the majority of the students learning styles into account when they give us classroom courses.  I really feel that the TRU adventure studies department has a great opportunity to make their classroom courses geared towards their students and teach to the learning styles of their students, however, perhaps out of laziness, we just sit and listen to people lecture which I'm sure most of the class only is able to absorb about 30% of what is said.  Oh well I suppose that's how the university system works!!!


-1 and a half months in Nordegg

I left early December, Nordegg bound, but ended up stuck in the food court of Banff for a week which wasn't great but wasn't bad as it gave me an opportunity to sit and finish my final projects for my classes.  Finally, however, I was able to find a ride out to Nordegg!  I spent the rest of the month and half of January working around COE, visiting my family and of course....ICE CLIMBING!!!!!!!  Though I wasn't able to get as many days out as I would have like to have (This is an impossible goal to achieve, there are never enough days!) I got a tonne of climbing in and climbed some really amazing routes!  The worst thing about it however was that my camera battery died on the 3rd day out so I was not able to snap many photos!! (I apologize)  I also tried to get some ski touring in but technical difficulties sent us home for some more ice!

On my last 2 days in Nordegg I had the opportunity do do 2 days of ice climbing practicum work under guide Brent Peters.  We had a great group and two great days despite -25 weather....The downside is that I suffered full depth frost bite on both my big toes...


-Another half month of classroom

Well its was back to school after an amazing time in Nordegg.  This time around we have SAR management, a certification course for becoming a Search and Rescue manager.  Its quite interesting but not necessarily relevant to what I want to do in my future.  We did an instructional skills workshop which is also a certification course and was really great!  We learned valuable teaching skills which everyone seemed to appreciate and get a lot out of.  Our final class is legal liabilities which is interesting and a bit frightening...lesson number 1...don't get out of bed!  Classes finish in about 2 weeks and then...FREEDOM!!!  I only have two more field courses and then I'm done university!!!

-A failed ski trip

Last Saturday I left on a helicopter deep into the backcountry near Blue River, BC for a week of ski touring!  Unfortunately my frostbite bit me hard on the first morning and the guides decided to evacuate me...It was pretty tough to swallow as I was really looking forward to this course and we were camped out in an absolutely gorgeous area.  But I've been back in Kamloops coming up with a plan for my spring climbing season!  I saw a doctor and she said my toes were healing up fine and and I just need to be aware of re freezing them.  Despite my toes I did manage to get out for a short ice climb yesterday at the local ice location and I may go for a little climb today as well...Mostly I've just been swimming to keep my body busy!

-Recovery time

Well we shall see how quickly my toes heal.  I may head back to the Rockies next month to get some late season ice in...Only on warm days!  And then at the end of march I will be heading down to Penticton and then back to Kamloops for my final 2 rope rescue courses!  Well here are the few photos I managed to get from the last little while!  I will try to make the next few months a little more exciting!

PHOTOS!!!!!

Ice climbing at the junkyards near Canmore

Again at the junkyards

View from the dining room window at COE

Wet willies on a busy day

Me rapping in

Nasty black toes!

Me and Gaddi on our heli flight in

The infamous Chris Miller riding shotgun

Reese and Mio in powder paradise!

Second flight coming in!

All our gear landed

The final crew of TRU students landing

Heli taking off

View from the cook tent in the evening

Scott fooling around on some thin hollow ice...sans rope!

More fun climbing

Scott topping out

The classic scott look

And some more

Hey forgot a few photos...

Charles high on elbe peak

Looking up the ridge of elbe peak

Exposed scrambling

Looking down the face

Rappelling after backing off the route

The skyline was our intended route...backed off due to insufficient gear

The excoelis peaks from left to right...Normandy, Ardennes (with stan waters hidden behind) Rhine and Elbe.  Attempted to climb elbe with charles, scrambled Normandy Ardennes and Stan waters with Ian

Two days later me and Ian Scrambled three of the excoelis peaks

Ian looking stylish on top or Ardennes

Summit of ardennes

Down scrambling Ardennes

Nearing the summit of Normandy

Stan waters from the summit of Normandy

Avoiding snowy ledges by descending a bit

Back on top of the Stan Waters ridge...best scrambling ive ever done

Amazing scrambling on stan waters

Descending at the end of the day

Charles at the start of Alberta's only Via Ferrata

We did...

Charles on the Ferratta

Ladies and gents, this is what heaven looks like

Charles

Me taking the lead mid route

Working the crux

Victory

Me and Charles after a great afternoon on the ferrata

Looking back down the ferrata towards Abraham lake