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.

Wasootch Slabs

Second day out climbing with Joe & Frank on Saturday and with the relatively tropical forecast and still a little tired from our day on the ice previously we decided to head to the Wasootch Slabs in K-country for some early season rock climbing, about 40 minutes from my apartment in the NW.

Frank leading Orange Arete, 5.8.

Like most of the front ranges of the Rockies in Alberta the rock in carboniferous in nature, that which makes up the slabs is limestone, its south facing so even on cool days in gets the sun and the rock warms in the afternoon. The climbing is mostly sport but there are a handful of traditional routes, originally there would of been more but it appears that the locals have got a little more aggressive in their bolting of lines that could be done clean. Anyhow, theres enough for either type of climber to go out for a day.

Looking out to the Kananakis Valley, below G slab.

We were some of the first people there in the morning but by the afternoon there were probably upwards of 20 people, so its popular crag! We climbed quite a few single pitch routes, keeping things easy in the 5.6-5.9 range including a devious route that managed to get 60m of 5.6/7 climbing over 3 pitches. Its a lovely venues, especially for beginners or for some early season practice. I imagine the seasoned sport climber or anybody pushing the grades could find it a little limiting but I could certainly spend a few days or evening there.

I was using the 'Sport Climbs in the Canadian Rockies' guide by John Martin and Jon James. I do find it great the face you can be ice-climbing one day, rock climbing the next and skiing the day after out here!

Upper Evan Thomas Creek - Slurpee

Friday (19th March) I headed out with Joe and Frank to Evan Thomas Creek in Kananakis country, about 45mins from Calgary. I've climbed in the lower Evan Thomas Creek before which is home to some classic and popular routes but I'd never ventured any deeper.

We walked up in the morning, passing a swiss guide and his client who made some remarks at the car park about the size of our sacks and obviously coulden't live up to them! After about 45 minutes you pass Chantilly Falls on the left which I did earlier in the year, and then after another 15 the Moonlight/Snowline area which is looking pretty thin at the moment. 400m or so past this we came across Combo Falls which had been on our list of potential objectives, but at WI2 and relatively short it looked a little bit easy. This is the last route in the most recent guide.

Unpacking gear in the upper creek, Rehab Wall behind.

To get to the upper creek from combo you can follow the creek base as the creek bends to the left and approaches a waterfall, bounded by two impassable cliffs on either side, the falls itself were frozen and looked climbable being a short pitch of WI2/3 however the plunge pool below was not and none of us fancied going for a swim - this might be possible in the depths of a cold winter. We scouted for a way up the rock ledges to the left of the falls but to no avail, the rock is also very loose and fissile her. The best option we found was to back track about 100m from the falls before climbing a shallow gully on skiers left, and then bushwacking through forest for around 150m of heigh until you gain the ridge crest, then carry on traversing above cliffs on the other side of the waterfall until the gradient lessens and you can get down to the creek, now above the falls. From the falls this takes around 45minutes - so all in all to get in your looking at around 2 hours, but I imagine under fresh snow this could take a hell of a lot longer.

We wondered around the creek for a while to scope out some of the routes, we had a little bit of beta but not much so decided to go for what looked like a nice WI3 pillar style route just to the right of Rehab Wall, the mixed climbing area. It consisted of an approach pitch of no more than WI2- which we soloed, followed by the crux of the climbing, a 20m freestanding vertical pillar with some very chandeliery ice. Above this was was another pitch of around WI3 which lead to the top.

Me leading the WI4+ crux pitch of Slurpee.

I lead the steep pillar with Frank holding my ropes and Joe taking photos. Good screws were a rarity, especially in the bottom half, the fact that I managed to thread a collection of columns about half a meter deep into the pillar highlights this I think. All was going well until about a third of the way up I pulled up on a poor hook, the axe pulled through the ice as I made the move, both my feet blew and the next thing I new I was hanging a few meters further down the route looking up at my other tool still planted up on the route. Frank checked I was ok, and I did likewise as I brought down quite a bit of ice. The screw that held me had a screamer on it and I ripped about a 1/3 of it, I do wonder if I'd had a static sling on it instead if it would of pulled. Anyhow I lowered down and retrieved one of Frank's tools and then carried on back up, climbing a little more carefully until I got to the better ice above, finally pulling myself over the top quite relieved. I brought Frank an Joe up who both agreed it was a pretty scary pitch before Frank led up the final easier pitch, we both followed and then got off in two abseils.

A little research after showed the route to be Slurpee WI4+, albeit in pretty tricky conditions because of the ice, one of the hardest things I've led here.

Black Prince

I headed out to Black Prince, a popular backcountry ski area down in Kananaskis with Trevor yesterday. We had fantastic weather with great if perhaps a touch warm.

Black Prince is located off Highway 40, about 50 minutes from Calgary, and a maybe 35-40 from Canmore. The slopes that are usually skied sit below the mountains from which they take their name, a winter ascent on skis isn't listed in the ski guide and I don't know if its in the Alpine routes guide, but it would make a good objective especially for the summer. You skin straight out of the car park crossing the basin towards the slopes, following the river. Once you reach the slopes their are few options, we followed the hiking trail which had a nice skin track from a party before us up and then broke out onto the ridge through the gradually thinning trees until we reached the tree-line. This is about 5km and 4-500m of ascent In good snow stability conditions you could continue further up the ridge to get a longer descent but due to the warm temperatures and high category we choose to stick to the relative safety of the trees.

Snug trees on the descent of Black Prince.

The descent is lovely at the top with fairly open glades where you can get some nice wide turns with the slope probably sitting about 25-30 degrees. The snow was a lot better than we expected (I was pretty worried driving through the upper Kananaskis valley as it has lost most of its snow), I sank to my thighs a few times when I stepped of my skis - not glorious fresh champagne powder but good enough for us. The guidebook dosen't give much information as to the distribution of the trees across the drainage and I think we got sucked into following some other people's ski tracks and ended up skiing some pretty tight trees towards the bottom. Eventually the slope will spit you out at the river, depending on where this happens you might be able to get a clean run onto the trail and back down to the car park, unfortunately we were a bit to far to skier's right for this so had a done skins for a quick ascent over the ridge before the final down.

Again I was using Chic Scott's 'Alpine Ski Tours: Summits & Icefields in the Canadian Rockies' which I found to be a good aid.

Back to Trevor's in the evening for some beer, steaks on the BBQ and the chance to get a fresh coat of wax on my skis for free!