Whiteman's & Redman's are two of the best climbs in the Kananaskis area, and I always enjoy heading into climb them. Chris joined me for the day and was keen to get on some steep ice & mixed terrain!
The day starts with an hour long ski down a closed road, and we were treated to a beautiful sunrise along the way. After the ski, we entered the canyon where a couple short bits of ice and some skirting around waterholes brought us to the routes.
We started with Whiteman Falls, and found it to be in excellent shape with good plastic ice and easy climbing for the grade. The first pitch had some very cool climbing on ice mushrooms, and the second pitch was more sustained steep ice. We were up and down the climb in no time, so we turned our attention to the harder Redman Soars (5.10 mixed or M5+).
Redmans is a sweet mixed route with about 55m of sustained drytooling & thin ice climbing. The crux sections involve torquing the picks in thin cracks and hooking some small edges. Chris hadn't climbed much of this type of terrain before, but didn't seem to have any trouble getting up it.
After slogging back down the road we arrived at the car tired but psyched with the day!
J. Mills
The day starts with an hour long ski down a closed road, and we were treated to a beautiful sunrise along the way. After the ski, we entered the canyon where a couple short bits of ice and some skirting around waterholes brought us to the routes.
Skiing down the road at dawn.
Rappelling back down Whiteman Falls.
Chris climbing through the slot on the 2nd pitch of Redmans.
After slogging back down the road we arrived at the car tired but psyched with the day!
J. Mills
one of the best days of my season!
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