The End of All Things.

My time here at the University of Calgary is done, I sat my final exam last night, and I move out of my accommodation in the next few days. Its gone quickly, it doesn't seem more than a few weeks since I arrived in August 2009. Its been one of the best years of my life, I made a whole host of new friends, seen a lot of new places, grown as a person and perhaps most importantly, and with most relevance to this site done a hell of a lot of mountaineering.

The city of Calgary, with the Rocky Mountains behind - my home and playground for the last 8 months.

I've just done a rough total of the days I've had out doing stuff in the mountains since I arrived and was quite surprised, I've done roughly 50 whole days give or take a few. I've been here 242 days, of which 32 weeks has been university term time. I'll save you the maths but basically every 2 out of 3 days I've been free I've been out playing which I'm pretty happy with! Considering I've also done a bit of touristy stuff and managed to get reasonable grades.

I've done more skiing than anything else, both in the backcountry and at resorts and as a result I'm a much better skier now then when I arrived which was my primary aim for the year. Close behind skiing I've spent a lot of time on the ice, before December I'd never climbed continental style ice before but since my first outings to the Junkyards I've progressed a bit and am now happy with the grade I'm leading, hopefully some of it will transfer over and I'll be knocking out some harder routes in Scotland next year. The downside to this is that skiing and climbing aren't the best things to get you fit, so I'm probably not in as good a shape cardiovascular vise now as I was last summer, but you win some you loose some, and a season in the Alps this summer will make up for that.

So, what now? My flight home isn't for a month (those of you from WLS reading, be at the Mowbreck beer festival, its the day I get home) so I've got a little time to play...

After taking advantage of all the stuff in the Rockies thats been on my doorstep for the last 8 months I've decided a change of scenery is in order so I'm packing up, and along with my good friend Dena driving south over the border into the states on Sunday for a month long roadtrip of climbing and sightseeing. On the ticklist for climbing are Red Rocks, Yosemite and Squamish (on the way home) and we'll be passing through the likes of Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Vancouver. I'm excited.

Yosemite Valley.

Therefore the site may become little stagnant for the next month, but I'll have plenty of time to pen some good reports on what I've done on the flight home.