Summer is here....for now anyway!

Spent the last couple of warm and sunny days climbing on one of my favorite peaks - Mt. Yamnuska. Also know as Mt. Laurie, the south face offers hundreds of rock climbs of varying difficulty, length, and quality....quality of rock that is. Some routes offer steep climbing on clean rock, and some need delicate climbing skills and a cool head to overcome poor rock and poor protection.

On Thurs we climbed "The Bowl" a 10c trad route located in the bowl area, and Friday we climbed "Jimmy and the Cruisers" an 11a trad route located in the same area.

We descended both routes by rapelling a modern bolted line called "Grey Scale", also located in the bowl area. I only use this option if there are no parties climbing below.
Photos by R.Berg

Mini Alpine Route

I finally lined up a day and a partner to check out a newly bolted/mixed route on Mt. Loder called "Doors of Perception". Now there has been discussion and debate on whether this route has been climbed before, but I'm not about to judge on the ethics of bolting or retrofitting a route. The bottom line is, the obvious natural line that this route takes prob has been climbed before(there was some old fixed pins along the way), but it prob has not seen much traffic, nor has it been recorded as far as I know. Now, with new bolts protecting the slabby sections and bolted anchors, more folks can get to enjoy this mini alpine route in relative safety. The climbing is in the M6 range and offers good gear where there are no bolts. The first 5 or so pitches can be climbed with boots and bare hands if the sun is out, and the upper pitches are better climbed in crampons and some good tool placements.

We unfortunately, got caught in last thursdays afternoon snow storm a pitch from the summit and had to hastily exit stage right on a snowy ledge that connects to the ridge - a good thing to know.

Sails for Seniors - WI6

Rob Smith and I deciced to go looking for some end of season ice. We drove up the Icefields Parkway but wasn't sure about the amounts of recent snowfall around Mt. Murchison. It's a good thing Murchison is on the east side of the parkway and lies in a rain shadow as west of us winter was still very much alive there.

We decide to have a look at a newly climbed route called "Sails for Seniors" (M6, WI6), located in a gully just up and left of the popular Balfour Wall. The approach is simple as it follows the Balfour Wall approach for 40min before contouring up to tree line then traversing up and left to the dry looking break in the cliffband above. 1.5 hours later we were standing below a short pitch of black ice dirtied from runoff rocks and dirt. This short pitch of WI3 led to a low angled snow slope, which led to the base of S for S. The climbed looked thin and fun from the base. 2 gorgeous pitches of thin ice climing with some excellent rock protection in a awesome setting made this one of the funnest climbs I have done this year! There is some interesting chimneying with blobs of good ice and some rotten WI6 ice on the second pitch to make it exciting. Both belays and most of the good gear was in rock. More info on www.gravsports-ice.com. FA J Mills and M Adolph