Rocks of all sizes with Brad

Brad on the upper pitches of Mt. Louis.

Last week I had a great few days of climbing with Brad from Edmonton. This time we focused on rock routes of various sizes. To start out with we hiked in and made an ascent of the fantastic Gmoser route (III 5.8) on Mt. Louis. We did the climb in 16 pitches, including a few pitches of 5.7 and one thin pitch of 5.8 which Brad found difficult, but he styled it nonetheless. The skies were threatening all day but never actually released more than a few drops. A nice bonus was that we had the mountain completely to ourselves.

For our second day we went to Back of the Lake in Lake Louise and did a bunch of routes and worked on various skills. It was a rainy day but the overhangs kept a number of the routes dry. Of particular note was that Brad did his first gear lead and also managed to top-rope a 5.10.

Brad leading his first gear route on "Rain Dogs" at Lake Louise.

We were hoping to make an ascent of the East Ridge of Mt. Temple on our third day but the weather was poor and there was fresh snow up high. Instead we had a really fun day climbing the mega-classic North East Face of Ha Ling route above Canmore. I hadn't done this climb for a few years and was happy to be back on it's excellent rock.

On the final corner pitches of Ha Ling's NE Face route.

All in all it was a really fun three days and we managed to fit in 35 pitches of quality rock climbing!

J. Mills
CRAG Owner & Head Guide
http://www.cdnalpine.com/