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.

Sunshine Skiing - End of the Season

Headed out to Sunshine on Sunday, courtesy of Tristan and met up with Joe, Lou an their friend Chris who is visiting. For those of you that were in the city you'll know that it put down a few cm's on saturday afternoon and evening which made us quite optimistic for the snow conditions. While not being a true, baseless, deep powder day there was a good few inches with a fairly solid base beneath it which made for some lovely skiing in the morning. Later on we headed out of bound looking for some fresh turns which paid off we we got some lovely powder skiing on a slope up and above the Continental Chair bottom station.

Taken from the top of the 'Bye Bye Bowl', Mt Assiniboine is the shapely peak on the right.

After a hearty lunch of Yam fries and wings in Trappers we headed over to Goat's Eye for the afternoon with the intention to ski some of the chutes, unfortunately these were closed, but we manged to traverse from Cleavage almost up to them for some nice steep skiing and then some snug trees. We skied middle/lower canyon out that is certainly showing its age as there are three streams that have opened up which require little jumps to get across them!

So, probably the last day on planks for me this season, its certainly been a good one - better then my average of a week in Switzerland/France and the odd day in Scotland!

Photo courtesy of Joe.

Sunshine Spring Skiing

Friday was Bermuda shorts day at the university, simply an excuse the thousands of UofC students to drink a lot, not go to class all in the name of bringing the spring semester, and year to an end. I had a great day, I'm not going to go into exactly what I did but I hit all the big events; beer mile, couch races, pancake breakfast and the cage. The day itself made national news, which considering Canada is a big country I'm pretty impressed with, you can see CBC's report here - its worth a watch.

Saturday was spent recovering from Friday, a theme I imagine was common for most of the university's 24,000 undergrads. In the evening I headed over to Ian's for some beer, and pizza before we headed out skiing to Sunshine on the Sunday. Conditions are still fair at sunshine, snow cover is better than expecting although with the bring weather it is thinning in places, this is especially obvious on the higher scree slopes of Goat's Eye which being out of bounds are not maintained, most runs have a full covering though. The big issue at the moment in the temperature, by the afternoon the runs are getting pretty moist and slushy, and by the time its time to ski out you're dodging puddler - but I guess thats the sacrifice you make for being able to ski in a jumper with you sleeves rolled up!

Sunshine is open until May 23rd this year, although quite how many more days I'll get on planks, in resort or in the backcountry I don't know. If this was my last day I'll be happy, but if I get 1-2 more I'll hot 30 days this season which I'll be very happy with!

The next ten days are finals for me, so whether or not I get a post in I don't know.

Wasootch Cragging - To Bolt or not to Bolt?

Little bit to catch up on here, its been a busy weekend...

Last Thursday was the penultimate day of classes for this semester, my only class for the day was cancelled so I headed out with Kelsie from the city to meet Maria, Matt and Trent at Wasootch slabs down in Kananaksis.

Me leading the very run-out C16, 5.7.

I gave a bit of an overviews of Wasootch a few weeks ago when I was there with Joe and Frank so read that for the basic information. This time I took my rack along to do some of the trad routes listed in the guide - which itself is a little odd being entitled 'Sport Climbs in the Canadian Rockies' but actually containing a great number of the traditional routes, denoting this by placing the word gear by the grade! Anyhow if my memory serves correct we did 5 routes in the 5.6-5.8 range which in British standards is up to about HS/VS, not quite where I was at at the end of last summer but not bad for the first days proper climbing of the summer.

I'm British, and by nature a traditional climber. I probably led 100 gear routes before I actually went to a actual sport crag. Anybody that knows me will know I am advocate of clean climbing, not really because of the concept of keeping the crags clean but if your bolting stuff then your effectively, in my eyes anyhow bringing the mountain down to your level. I feel it also takes away some of the satisfaction I get from climbing a route, I enjoy placing the gear, setting up the stations dealing with problems - its fun. Now I have been sport climbing, I've done it in several venues across the UK and in Europe and out here in North America, and a lot of the time I have enjoyed it, and there are areas that deserve to be bolted due to the nature of the geology, or other reasons.

Wasootch in some respects is a good example of this, its compact and carboniferous in nature, meaning there isn't a huge amount of placements, its also composed of lots of very blank slabs which are separated by several smaller, steeper more featured buttresses which will take gear. The issue I have is that whoever bolted the area (I believe it was TABVAR) seems to have been lacking in a bit of common sense, there are lines which are easily protect-able by a set of chocks and perhaps the odd cam which are laced with bolts, in some places the bolting is so aggressive that theres less than a meter between bolts. Thankfully one or two of these lines have been left untouched but I wouldn't be surprised if they soon see some iron work.

One of the last routes we climbed was C16, a 5.7 route listed a trad in the guidebook which consisted of some pleasant climbing up a flake lying on top of slab before a mantle move to ledge, a further very run-out slab led up to below an overhang where an fun move, the crux over the overhang led you to the upper slab which was again run-out, finishing at a bolt anchor, around 40m in total. Now anybody with any sense could see from looking at the route that the second two slab sections were seriously run-out, being about 10m each, the topo however suggested there was a bolt in place immediately below the overhang and above it so I decided to give it a go. When I reached the bolts though I was a little hesitant to trust them, looking pretty old, brittle and very rusty. I managed to get a no1. cam under the roof to back it up and made the move, clipped the one above that was in a similar state and finished the runout slab above. I did the route, its was little bit scary, if I had slipped on the slabs I may have decked or a least gone a very long way but I didn't because the climbing was comfortably within my limits - other people might not of be so fortunate.

So my natural conclusion drawn from the selection of routes I climbed is that whoever is bolting these areas should be using a bit more common sense, the guide suggests that the area is used by both trad and sport climbers so bolt the routes (properly) like C16 which are run-out on gear and leave the ones (B slab area) that can be protected naturally alone. Simply bolt what needs bolting and don't what doesn't!

Loweing off, Wasootch Tower in the background.

I get the feeling that Wasootch is catering for gym climbing, latest five-ten shoe wearing, Prana dressed Chris Sharma want-to-bes that climb outside once or twice a year to justify to themselves that they are real climbers. Well perhaps thats a little harsh, and maybe I'm being a little bit elitist by suggesting that that why so many of the lines have been aggressively bolted and that the city-slicker should stick to their gyms, but this is just my opinion. Hopefully I don't come across as too pretentious here, after-all I am new to this area, and bolts are pretty commonplace across North America, so feel free to put me in my place! I just think its bit of a shame that what is a nice little venue has been tainted a little by bolts.

Photos courtesy of Maria.

Nakiska Skiing

Headed out to Nakiska yesterday with Ian, I've never skied there so its nice to be able to tick another resort before I leave. Its not on my season pass but thanks to Ian's friend Tara and here boyfriend Ryan we got free lift passes as Ryan works as a ski patroller there.

Its not a massive resort but is significantly bigger than Norquay where I was skiing the weekend before, but not quite up to scale with Sunshine or Louise. The big advantage here though is that (excluding COP) its Calgary's closest resort, only 45 minutes from the city. The terrain for the most part is pretty easy, a few green-runs and then mostly blues and black all with European, wide open piste feel to them. Theres a few blacks that wind there way through glades for some moderately snug tree skiing and one double black which is quite possibly the easiest double black in the world - nothing compared to chutes or steep face runs at Sunshine or Louise. But for a leisurely day from the city its worth a visit.

Snow conditions were pretty good on the groomers in the morning, however by mid afternoon, some of the pistes were getting pretty scraped and ice. We skied one lap down the piste the ski racers had been doing in the morning to discover it was like ice-rink tipped to 35 degrees!

I skied with Ian for most of the day just burning down run after run as we were both feeling quite fit, I didn't have my altimeter set but we must of clocked up quite a bit of vertical! I also bumped into Lou and Jane who were out from Calgary as well, while Joe was off doing his triathlon so caught up with them at lunch. Theres a video below I took of Ian coming down one of the runs, he catches at edge but somehow manages to hold it together:



After skiing we headed back to the city to stick some furniture on the front lawn at Ian's for people to come an take, and then barbecued some steaks and drank some beers in the yard for the authentic 'redneck' night.

Calgary Mountain Film Festival

After a weekend of climbing and skiing last weekend and a fairly hectic penultimate week of term this week of handing in assignments and wrapping other things off I decided to take today off from anything too adventurous and chill out, lying in to well past lunch. Well thats my excuse for not having a partner to go climbing with! Anyhow heading out to Nakiska with Ian and some friends of his tomorrow to rip it up, more new territory to explore.

To the meat of this post though - an e-mail dropped in to my inbox a few weeks ago from Spirit West, one of the premier outdoor retails in the city which has developed a bit of a community around it (for you Brits think Needlesports or old Rock n' Run and you won't be far off) advertising the Calgary Mountain Film Festival; which is part of the bigger event known as the city's 'Outdoor Festival'. I hadn't heard of it before, which isn't surprising considering this is only the second year its run and with perhaps, the most famous mountain film festival in the world preceding it by a few months in Banff just an hour away. Anyhow I did some reading and it looks like they've got a really good line up of films and of speaks, I'm particularly keen to see Will Gadd talk about his ascent of Hunlen over in BC and see the film. There are 4 separate evenings for the films, but the best value seems to be to buy a weeks pass of $39. I've got finals that week but I'm going to try and make as many of the films as possible as its only a few stations away on the C-train in Kensington. So if your in the city next week (April 19-25th) make sure to get down, its looks good. To whet your appetite theres a trailer for the Banff Mountain Film Festival below, which included many of the films that will be being screened next week.

Junkyards & Norquay

Just a quick note here.


Last weekend (Sunday 28th) I headed out to the Junkyards with Dena & Ian for a fairly chilled afternoon, we threw a top rope up and climbed some of the steeper lines on the curtain before doing Scottish Gully, all fairly standard stuff. With regards to conditions theres are some big shear cracks forming in the ice on the main falls, I counted 4/5 with about 6ft in between them, I don't think theres any immediate danger but its certainly showing that its late in the season. The curtain is also thinning, and theres a big hole at the bottom. The itself isn't too bad to climb on, theres a granular layer thats sitting on top of the proper stuff thats formed as a result of the freeze cycles, this in combination with the ice below actually gives quite easy placements, it goes without saying that the steeper (WI4) lines are all really hooked out. If your after leading stuff I'd be wearing as due to the quality of the ice I was wearing about placing screws, and if you do place some, especially for top-roping make sure you bury them with some snow/ice. It was over 10 degrees when we were out there in bright sunshine and screws were certainly falling victim to melting out.

On a side note we hired some gear from a place in Canmore as we were a bit short, including a pair of Black Diamond Cobras - absolutely amazing tools, probably the best I've climbed on (yes, better than the Nomics I think!).


Yesterday (Sunday 4th) I was out skiing, as the other resorts were going to be busy due tot he easter weekend we decided to check out Norquay. Its a small resort, only 5 chairs all with a mixture of runs coming off them but it was satisfying for the day, if I spent several days there in a row I would certainly get bored, its no Sunshine or Louise but considering there were probably only 50 other people there all day (Sunshine would of been in the 1000s) it made some pleasant skiing, being able to just burn down runs with nobody else on them.

When i get chance I'll try and ass some photos to this. I reckon I maybe have next weekend left for winter stuff if the weather keeps going the way it is and then I'll be packing the skis and axes up until next season.

Scottish Winter Climbing

Climbing in Scotland, and in the other parts of the UK in winter has to be pretty unique. Having spent my formative years climbing in wet, cold wind blasted corries in the Cairngorms or the faces of Ben Nevis spending the year here climbing beautiful fat water ice in lovely cold dry conditions has been quite the contrast, a good one though. The routes are still challenging here, but theres not quite as much suffering involved which allows you to concentrate more on the climbing, perhaps allowing you to push yourself a little harder.

Anyhow trying to explain this contrast to locals has proven challenging, many have the view that the UK mountains, well our mere hills, are tame compared to the rest of the world and in some respects they probably are, but in others they are most certainly not. I found this video below and I think it gives a good picture of what the British winter climbing scene is like, and its not like its bias either - coming from a group of continentals! Make sure to watch it on full screen.



Obviously the grades these guys are knocking out are far harder than the average British climber, myself included climb and they do make some of them look pretty easy! But I'm a firm believer (perhaps because I don't in the grand scheme of things climb that hard) that climbing isn't about the grade, its about the process.

Arc'teryx Gamma SK Pant - Review

As the winter season draw to a close I thought I'd offer some thoughts on some of the kit I've been using this season, starting with the Arc'teryx Gamma SK Pant. Arc'teryx's blurb for the pants on their website is as follows:

"These super durable softshell ski pants are designed for high-output touring days, combining superior mobility and breathability with cold/dry weather protection. The Burly double weave textile is extremely tough, comfortable next to the skin, and stretches with movement. Perfect for skiing or alpine climbing, these lightweight pants feature articulated patterning and built-in stretch powder cuffs."

I'd had my heart set on a new pair of ski pants for this season, something that would handle both backcountry and touring stuff as well as days at the resorts. Below is a basic summary of features and qualities I was looking for:

• Breathable - skinning up hill is hard work, especially in the spring sun!
• Water-resistant - it generally doesn't actually rain in most of the environments I use these so they don't need to be waterproof as such but a degree of water resistance to shrug of snow is needed.
• Wind-proofing - to keep the wind chill at bay.
• Hard-wearing - I don't want these pants to wear out after one season, so the material in general needs to be fairly tough, and some protective material of sorts on the cuffs.
• Braces - I like braces, especially on ski pants.
• Big cuffs - either with or without a zipper but big enough to get over ski boots.
• Look cool - for being down with the kids on the corduroy!
  

So taking these into account I began to trawl the web for possibilities, and narrowed it down to the Patagonia Backcountry Guide Pant and the aforementioned Arc'teryx ones, both which ticked most of the boxes. I tried both pairs on in Monodsports in Banff and in the end settled on the Gamma's.

I bought the Gamma's in a medium, I probably could of got away with a small, and if I was buying them for alpine climbing I certainly would of gone for a smaller size but for skiing I wanted to be able to get a good few layers under them in the depths of Canadian winter as well as avoiding that stereotypical 'tight pants' European skier look! They come with a pair of braces that are quite low profile but still do the job, I like this as sometimes when you've got a pair or two of braces on, and a transceiver and a camera on a strap you've got so many straps on your upper body it feels like you should be in some sort of S&M movie! The cuffs are wide enough to fit snugly over ski boots and keep the snow out, but are easy enough to pull up to adjust buckles when switching from walk to ski or cranking up for a particular challenging line.

The pants are not insulted, theres no fleece or synthetic lining to add warmth but I liked that. I find when touring all I need to wear under them is a pair of thin thermals, on warmer days I go for a pair of Mountain Hardwear Alpha Dry Tights and on cooler days, a pair of Arc'teryx Rho LTW merino wool pants. For piste skiing I wear the same but add a pair of powerstrech pants in between the layers, which has so far kept me comfortable down to about 20 below. The climate is while being very cold at time, pretty dry here, I've never felt damp in the pants despite their lack of waterproof membrane. The closest I think I've come is when sitting on chair lifts when snow has begun to melt a little on my thigh which are pretty warm from just burning down a run - this is easily brushed off though as it beads instantly thanks to the DWR treating of the pants, which is still going strong after over 25 days of heavy use.

Wearing the Gamma SK's while touring on the Colombia Icefields.

Like I said above, I've used the pants for over 25 days now, for all of my backcountry and resort skiing and they still look as good as new. Theres one small knick from an errant ski edge on the cuffs, on the softshell fabric rather than the hard wearing patches. One other feature I particular liked and i've found useful in the backcountry is two cargo pockets on either side which are handy for a map or other things you want quick access to.

At $200 there not reasonable but not exactly expensive for a Arc'teryx item. A lot of people criticize Arc'teryx gear for being over priced, and a year a go I would of agreed however I bought a few items of their gear while over here and I have to say its some of the best I've used. Sure its expensive, but is does the job and it lasts. Simply put you get what you pay for.

So in conclusion, if your looking for a pair of pants for all you ski exploits, then take a look at these, they haven't let me down yet.

Just a quick addition here, I've just seen that the pants have also been reviewed over on the Alpine Guides Blog, check it out to see their views as well.