A long day in the hills

Well the first month of summer programming is coming to a close out here at COE and it has been amazing!!!  July started with a visit from some of my oldest friends (most of them Ive known since kindergarten) for canada day!  Its always nice to see them even though my life has gone a different direction from most of them it always feels like no time has passed when I see them again.  I treated them to a day of canyoneering and brett even mustered the energy to spend the evening climbing at a local crag.  Thanks guys for the good night and day!!!  The fire cooked bacon and beer laser temperature gauge will definitely stick in my mind!

The boys hanging around the campfire cooking breakfast

Grayson canyoneering!

Week one was spent camped out in the nearby mountains at an area called beavertail.  We spent the week hiking, rock climbing, caving and even canyoneering!  The week was great and the weather couldnt be beaten! Week two was spent camped out along the David Thompson corridor teaching a rock climbing course.  My participants were great and everyone was lead climbing by the end of the week!

I got back from the rock climbing course only to find out the schedule had changed and I was faced with four days off to fill!  Luckily an old staff had been working at COE for the week and had his eyes set on an objective along the corridor that I also had on my wish list for the summer.  So after a quick packing job I was in bed with an alarm set for a 2 am alpine start.  We drove through the dark the next morning towards one of the most impressive looking mountains in the area.  The shoulder route on Mount Abraham is an alpine rock route following the skyline of the mountain.  The route is an alpine rock route that goes at 5.8 III and is very loose and quite run out for the most part, but the climbing was great and really keeps you on your toes.  With our mountaineering boots on, half ropes and a small rack we headed up the approach ridge until just as the sun rose we hit the first pitch of climbing.  We started off unroped up the first easy chimney pitch and at about 5am on a cold windy exposed ridge I roped up for what was supposed to be the crux pitch of 5.8.  The rock was cold and the gear was marginal but protected the crux move which was really fun hand jam with delicate feet over an exposed drop, despite being very cold and loosing the feeling in my hands really quick I finished the rest of the pitch and brought my partner Justin up.  After a few more moderate pitches we unroped for we made it onto the large bench feature that we thought would make a great place to camp if only there was a fresh spring coming out of the ground.  Through some 4th class terrain we reached the next five pitches which were extremely run out that worked your head more than your muscles!  I climbed one of the most loose terrifying run-out pitches I have ever climbed eventually reaching a single piton with a big open book chimney looming above me.  After looking at the topo and about an hour of discussion me and justin realized we were off route.  But looking above at the chimney it would go, if not with some difficulty, so justin climbed up to join me at the belay and after racking up he headed up what ended up definitely being just as hard or harder than the pitch I had climbed earlier in the day.  After some congrats on the tough pitch I headed off on another run out loose pitch of climbing to the base of the last pitch of technical rock climbing.  Justin took the last lead and as I pulled out on to the loose blocky summit ridge I was treated to a view of the long walk we had ahead of ourselves to reach the summit and more importantly the ridge we would have to walk along to get to the descent couloir.  After what seemed like forever we reached the descent couloir and could see the long long long walk we had left to the road and our car...did I say long?  After endless scree and snow skiing we walked along an endless creek that treated us to some incredibly beautiful water falls although it was hard to appreciate with our fading energy.  After 1 60m rappel over a particularly large waterfall we finally made it to the truck in the dark and after a double take at my watch I calculated that we had been on the move for almost exactly 21 hours!!!  It was a long day and after some water and a beer we were in bed fast asleep by 1 am.  We both agreed that it was a great route and someday we may be inclined to do it again but certainly not for awhile!

Early morning sunrise from the shoulder of Mount Abraham

Unroped climbing on easy terrain

Scrambling through some easier terrain

The upper face of Abraham

Looking back at the top of the first step

Justin leading through some run out loose rock

More moderate loose terrain

Looking back at the lake

Justing coming up to the belay

Justin cleaning one of the sketchier pitches

Justin leading what ended up being the hardest pitch of the day 

Moving past the crux on a great chimney feature

Justin starting up the final difficult pitch

Looking back at the route from the top

Looking to the east with windy point ridge in the background and COE even further in the distance

Justin contemplating the route

Great view of abraham lake...need a wider angle lens

Endless scree trudging on the way down

Our descent couloir in the background

A cool looking waterfall on the way down

Well after a cragging day at one of my favourite climbing areas around nordegg and a quick hitch hike home to visit the family I was packed and out the door again heading up to Lake of Falls, one of the areas I had hike to earlier this year (see past posts for photos) with a group of youth to meet up with a group that was already in, spend a day climbing then two days hiking out.  Lake of falls is definitely one of my favourite areas in the the David Thompson corridor and maybe in all of the rockies!  It was really great to head in there again for a couple of days.  Though we had rain every day and the temperature was cold it was a great few days and good thing as I am heading out monday for 5 days to do a similar circuit to lake of falls!

Well the summer has been going great but I must catch up on some sleep well I have a warm bed to sleep in!  Enjoy the photos!

Fire under the roof campsite at beaverdam

Campfire on Abraham lake

Storming the castle

Last weekend me and two of my co workers headed down to the Bow Valley with several objectives in mind.  I met up with a friend and old school mate to climb some bigger objectives while my co workers had their eyes set on Grassi lakes!  We all started out climbing the afternoon at Grassi until we fled in terror as the weather turned bad and we got rained on...until we got back to our car and the clouds parted and the sun shone down hard!  After a big dinner my co workers headed to banff and I stayed in Canmore hitting the sack early (around 7pm)  with my alarm set for 4am.  Our plan was the climb Red shirt on mount Yamnuska, a classic route on Yam that has difficult route finding and is known to be hard for its grade, and to top it all off it has a string of accidents and even deaths that haunt it!  I had climbed it before but this time I was going to be leading the hard pitches so I fell asleep with the image of the topographic map and guidebook description running through my mind!  Well we woke up to rain and nasty looking clouds hanging over the mountain and decided to take the day off and relax and ready ourselves for the next days objective that was a bit bigger and with good weather promised we once again had an early night in order to rise early!  Our objective was a route up a distinctive tower on Castle mountain which you see every time you drive between Banff and Lake Louise.  Our objective was an alpine rock route called Eisenhower Tower and depending on how you climb the massive headwall the difficulty sits anywhere between 5.4-5.7  with no topo to really direct you on which part of the rock is which!  We ended up climbing the more difficult side and definitely climbed through some sections a littler harder then 5.4!  The day started a little bit off plan when good ol Tim Hortons wasnt yet serving breakfast!  We collected ourselves drank our coffee and started up the climb.  The approach is about 2 hours traveling at a good pace on good trail.  you then gain the first bench on the mountain through a gully with easy 3rd class scrambling.  The route then cross scree slopes on the bench to a small hump of rock below the headwall which involves some technical short roping and one short pitch of climbing.  We moved through this fairly fast and then attacked the headwall deciding on climbing the rock on the right side of a big scree bowl (still full of snow at the moment!).  The left side is the easier climbing and the original route climbed by one of original swiss guides back in 1926.  The right side has more continuous and slightly harder climbing!  We lost count of the pitches but i would estimate we did the headwall in at least 10 pitches and finally we pulled onto the summit plateau which was full of snow!  After taking a look around at the scenery we started down the original route rappelling and downclimbing until we were eventually back down on the ground.  The trail back to the truck seemed to go on forever and when the trail finally levelled out and we spotted the truck we started running and didnt stop until we were cheersing warm pilsner beers in celebration!  All in all it was a great day and I would highly recommend the route keeping in mind that it is definitely a big alpine route and is demanding despite the easy grade!

Here are the pictures and thanks to Tyson for the day and the photos of me!

Tyson at the car

ME getting my stoke on

tyson moving out into some exposed terrain

tyson taking in the view

Me taking in the view

Tyson working the gully up to the first plateau

Our objective coming in to view

Short roping through the dragons back

Me starting up the first bit of climbing

Me at the belay

Climbing a pitch beside the snow bowl

At a lazy belay

Fifth class terrain

tyson at the summit

View from the top...name those peaks

Pulling the ropes on rappel

Endless climbing

summit snow field 

Will work for food.

Well its almost been a month since I was running around the US without a care in the world, but alas the time had to come when I would have to face the music and get a job...nobody said it had to be a real job though!!!!   I am now hanging out in the hidden gem of a town known as Nordegg.  If you head west of Red Deer until you start to see mountains closing in around you there is a secret land known as the David Thompson Corridor.  The small community of Nordegg is the base camp for all sorts of mountain adventures from easy day hikes on well established trails to beautiful waterfalls, to full on alpine mixed ice and rock routes that can contend with classic alpine objectives in the more well known parks of Banff and Jasper.  For those wanting something in between there are a number of well established sport and traditional climbing venues both single pitch and multi pitch!  The best part though in my opinion are the endless unexplored valleys and rock walls waiting for those looking for something fresh and new!  I landed a job at the local guiding company and the organization responsible for a majority of the development in the area, C.O.E. (the centre for outdoor education).

But before I get too far ahead of myself I should mention a very important event that happened in between the US and my arrival in the Nordegg area.  If you look back to my first post on this blog you will remember that the theme Im trying to blog about is to follow me through my journey to become a mountain guide.  Well, in the last week of may I took my first step towards this career.  I took my first ACMG (www.acmg.ca) exam (the Top Rope Climbing Instructor certification), and passed with flying colours!  While this doesnt allow me to guide rock climbing it does allow me to take beginners out climbing in a top rope setting!

Well this allowed me to get a job at COE for the summer where I have, and will continue taking people (mostly youth) out climbing hiking and rafting during our summer youth camps!  So far my summer has been amazing out at COE (www.coe.ca) doing rafting and climbing trips with school groups.  Next month we will start having groups coming out for different summer programs where participants will be participating in activities such as climbing, rafting, kayaking, caving, hiking and mountaineering.  Im really stoked to combine my past experience of working at a summer camp for youth with my love of outdoor adventure sports!

Meanwhile in to prepare for our summer activities me and my co workers have been out scouting hiking routes and climbing at some of the locations we will be using this summer and while the prep work has been incredibly hard work...I find it hard to call the hiking trips we have been up to work...Anyways I have let my blog updates get a bit backlogged so I will keep descriptions of each trip brief so that this post isnt so text heavy...instead I will fill it with wonderful pictures!

So I will quickly list some things ive been up to and then post pictures from said trips!

Climbing: At various single pitch crags as well as multi pitch routes in the area.

Hiking: From day hikes to overnighters and even a three day hike deep into a beautiful lake to develop a climbing area our guests will use while hiking through the area.

Caving: My first real experience crawling squeezing and chimneying deep into the hills surrounding nordegg...definitely a unique experience.

Rafting: We have done guided trips as well as a staff trip down the saskatchewan river!



My favourite trips so far have definitely been our hike into lake of falls, one of the most beautiful areas I have ever hiked to.  I highly recommend that everyone out there that likes hiking climbing or even caving gets out here...come by COE and pick up a climbing guidebook to contribute to our local bolt fund and support route development in the area.  Also if any of you older youth are interested in a trip COE can certainly cater to your needs as well!  Hope to see you all soon, now for the pictures!!!

Trailhead into martin creek area

My co worker Ian looking out towards nordegg

Ridge walking in the Nordegg area

Ian doing some route finding

Robin having a hot lunch on the summit of Martin peak

Having dinner on the beach of Abraham lake with my oldest friend Mike while he was out to visit

Mount abraham in the clouds

Alpine creek crossings

Preparing for a back country hot dog roast at lake of falls

Lightweight camp set up so we could save our weight allowance for bolts and drill

Huge potential for amazing quartzite route here...only its a 10 hour hike in...

Dinner is served

Ian climbing a snow feild

Pulling the cornice

Alpine scenery in the David Thompson corridor

Remote rappel route

Hiking across a frozen lake in rappel pass

Ian letting me get a head start on the next section

Pocket glacier crossing

One of the three passes we climbed

Hiking back to our car through an old controlled burn site

Coe's staff room...

Entrance to a cave in the Nordegg area

Robin climbing through a wide hallway in the cave

Washing our clothing after caving

Preparing our raft at the saskatchewan river crossing

Coe staff on a rafting mission

Me with the Guide stick while rafting

My crew not working very hard

Robin hiking up the ridge from Kootney planes on a lovely bluebird day

Me hiking up the ridge

Ian and lisa almost at the summit of our first peak that day

Robin doing some blocky scrambling with landslide lake in the background

Ian preparing our favourite summit hot lunch of ichi ban

Im stoic

Representing Hot Drink...the best in backcountry drinks