French Kiss - Dec 2

We met up with Jollin and Claudia to check out the Quick and Dirty area's ice. Suprisingly enough, I had never been into this area because of scheduling conflicts in previous years. The weather was finally cooperating for ice as it had been cold all week long.


The walk into the climbs was a dream compared to our previous two weekends of ice climbing - only 15 minutes! We arrived at the base in no time. Brad and I headed to the left most side of the amphitheatre to climb French Kiss, while Jollin & Claudia stuck right on the main Quick & Dirty route. The climbs were very, very wet, In fact, at times it was like standing in the shower as everytime I looked up I got water in my eyes. My gloves were squishy soaked by the end of the route, and the rest of me was equally wet. The lead was fun and varied, although I dropped a tool ahlfway up and had to come down to retrieve it.

After I descended, we pulled the ropes so that Brad could lead the route. This was his most challenging lead on ice to date, and after a case of the Screaming Barfies he reached the top.

We never had a chance to switch routes with Jollin & Claudia, as everyone was wet and ready to go. Another day!

Wall Lake - Nov 16-17

Again , early season ice fever had taken hold. And for good reason too! We had scouted the climbs behind Wall Lake in Waterton on a ski tour last January. However, these climbs are threatened by a large avalanche slope so early season ascents are essential. As much as we hoped that our timing was good, the weather had not cooperated. Weeks of warm weather had created marginal conditions for ice climbing.

Brad, Jarred, and I left the car on Friday night with our ice climbing and overnight gear in our packs. We hoped to spend the weekend in the Wall Lake area exploring various smears. Mother Nature had other plans for us. Right from the get-go, things were troubled. As we walked down the now closed Akamina Parkway, it started to rain. The rain continued as we climbed the Akamina pass trail out of the National Park and into BC. This was not our only barrier, as violent winds earlier in the week had blown down many large trees over the trail. After hiking for 2 hours and hurdling 30-40 trees, we arrived on the shores of Wall Lake. We set up the tent and settled in for the night.

In the morning, we woke up and packed up our ice gear with high hopes. It didn't last long though - on our way over to the climbs we heard a loud noise that was unmistakeably the sound of an avalanche roaring over our climbing path. That sound, coupled with the likelihood of encountering unconsolidated mush ice encouraged us to turn around. We abandoned hopes of ice climbing and went back to pack up our tent and sleeping bags.

On our hike out, we ran into Scott and Willis. They continued on to the lake to have a look at the ice, but it wasn't long before they joined us at the Kilmorey for a beer. You can't win them all, eh?

Mount Blakiston

July 21, 2007

This weekend covered some of my few days off this summer. I came home from Cochrane to visit Brad, and we decided to head to Waterton for the day to scramble Mount Blakiston. It is the highest peak in Waterton National Park at 2932m.

We started the day a little later than usual, and were set back a little further when we stopped in Cardston. But hey, who can refuse ice cream at 10 am in July?

We hit the Lineham trailhead at around 11. After 45 minutes of hiking we came out of the trees and had our first look at the spectacular Lineham Falls. The falls are formed as water from the chain of 5 Lineham lakes spills over a cliff's edge. From our viewpoint you could see both the lakes and the falls- making for a spectacular view. After a bit of confusion with the guidebook we settled on the right route.

Immediately as you come out of the trees and see Lineham Falls, you must start heading up the scree slope and avalanche path to your right. And while it doesn't appear that this insignificant hill could be the highest peak in Waterton, the full magnitude of Blackiston is hidden at this point. The slope wasn't exactly fun to climb. Wallowing up the thick scree was more like walking on an uphill beach than it was hiking. It took alot of sweat and persistence to reach the top of this scree slope. At that point, we began to traverse the ridge to the left and towards the true summit. We soon arrived the the class 4 gully that guards the summit plateau. Brad took the lead on the neon-green lichen covered black rock. I followed close, and we arrived on the summit a few minutes later. Approximately 3.5 hours had passed since we'd left the car.

The views from the top were spectacular. In one direction you could look south and west over the mountains into the States and BC. Only 180 degrees away, beautiful panoramas out on to the Alberta prairies treated your eye. In classic Waterton style, it was very windy on the summit. We didn't stay for long, and soon set out along the ridgeline to complete the "Hawkin's Horseshoe". The route is a continuous ridgeline that links Mounts Blakiston, Hawkins, and Lineham in a horseshoe shape.

Along the way, we had to navigate a lot more scree. Along the way the scree and rock changed colours, from gold to burgundy to grey to pink. Soon enough, we tagged Mount Hawkins. By the time we got around to Mount Lineham, we decided that it was too late and we were too tired to go for the summit. Instead we descended down the Rowe Tamarack trail and hiked 6 kms along the valley floor back to the Akamina Parkway. After 2 more kms of hiking down the road, we arrived back at the car at 7. It was a long day, and we were hungry for some supper. We'll be back for the whole horseshoe, but next time it will probably be from the opposite direction and at an earlier hour :)

Left Gulley - Ice Climbing, Waterton

Packing the night before

On Jan 28, Brad and I headed back to Waterton to do some ice climbing. This was my first time out this year, and his first time period. We were both very excited as we had shiny new gear that needed to be put to use and the weather was awesome! Once again, we left early in the morning to get on the ice before the sun had a chance to get at it. Our objective was the Left Gulley, an easy WI2 ice route that rambles on for 5 pitches on the south side of Mt. Crandell. After arriving and gearing up, we started our approach. The boys had been in here a couple of weekends prior and told us that the approach was 1.5 hours, but after doing some comparisons with info gathered from the internet, we concluded that they were in the wrong gulley. Our approach was pretty straightforward, and after 45 minutes of snow slogging, we arrived at the base of the first pitch of ice.

After putting our harnesses on and racking up, we reviewed some basics (you can never be too careful on the first climb!). Soon after that I was on my way up the first pitch. The climbing was easy, and the ice was super mushy due to the +10 temps the week before. It was so beautiful out, that I was relieved to find a spot in the shade to belay in after 60m of climbing. Usually it's the opposite in the winter, as we pray for sunny rest spots! I set up an anchor, and Brad climbed up.

In between the pitches of ice there were long snow gulleys that we unroped for and continued up. We climbed through 3 easy roped pitches and a bunch of snow gulleys before reaching the final crux amphitheatre. This area had a solid curtain of WI3 ice that had seen more shelter from the sun. As a result it was in much better condition, and the ice screws I put in were much more solid, but I still had to dig to get to the good ice. Up until this point, I had run things out quite a bit because of a lack of solid ice. After pulling through a 10m vertical section, it was an easy low-angled ice and snow ramp to the trees. Here, I set up our last belay and Brad climbed up while I enjoyed the views south over the Waterton Lakes and into Montana. Because of the warm weather, the lakes were almost completely thawed, and the snow was dissappearing. This was quite a contrast to the weekend before!

On the crux pitch

Once Brad got to the top, we took some photos, packed our gear, and prepared for the descent. After 45 minutes of scrambling down some scree and rock bands we were back at the car (8 hrs, car to car). Another great day successfully and safely completed! Climbing the Left Gulley was tons of fun, and only got us more excited for the ice climbing to come later in the season!

Waterton Ski Touring

On Jan 21, Brad and I headed to Waterton for our first ski tour. The plan was to park along the Akamina Parkway, ski south towards Cameron Lake, then west up over the Akamina Pass into British Columbia. The weather was perfect, and it was a beautiful day to be outside skiing because of fresh snow in the area.

After an early morning departure and drive to Waterton, we geared up and left the car at around 10:00. The first bit of skiing was quite easy and flat, as it followed the unplowed road for several kilometres. We then turned onto the Akamina Pass trail and began a moderate climb for the next 2kms. At this point, the trail levelled off, and we hit the BC Border! From there we descended slightly for about a kilometre, before starting a 3km climb up to Wall Lake. For most of the way thus far we had followed fresh tracks, but once we turned towards Wall Lake we had to break trail through the fresh snow. The view from Wall Lake was awesome, with a ton of ice hanging off the headwall at the back of the lake. These routes form the "midnight" chain of routes (owing to the fact that they all have midnight in their names), and we'll definately be back to climb them someday! At Wall Lake, we stopped for lunch, which we ate with our skis on because the snow was so deep. At this point the weather started to turn a little nasty, and the wind picked up across the lake. This caused some of the trees we were standing under to make cracking and popping noises and we could see giant cracks in some of them. We were a little cold and sketched out, so we hightailed it out of there back down the trail.

A short time later, we arrived back at the trail junction, and instead of continuing back into Alberta, we turned off to head to Forum Lake. The ski up to Forum Lake is much steeper, and we had to switchback a fair amount to follow the trail up the hill. After about 2 km, we had gained Forum Ridge, and were supposed to be looking down on Forum Lake in a huge meadow. However, we had traversed too far right, following the trails of some other skiiers headed for telemark slopes. We started to bushwhack accross to the lake, but turned around because of the deteriorating weather situation (It had started to snow and get windier). After retracing our route for a bit, we were able to take the skins off our skis, and get in some great turns on the way down. The powder skiing through the trees was awesome!

In no time, we were back at the trail junction, and we skinned up to travel back across the pass into Alberta. Soon enough, we were able to take our skins off again and coast down the trail until hitting the Akamina Parkway. From there it was an easy ski back to the car. All in all, we were 6 hours car to car, skiied about 18kms, got some turns in, and visited (or came close to) 2 separate lakes. It was a highly successful day that we capped off with a beer and some seafood chowder at the Kilmorey Lodge. We'll be back for the ice climbing at Wall Lake, and have plans to sleep in a quinzee we found at the turnoff for Forum Lake.