Just finished up three days of climbing with a couple of great guests from New Jersey. We based out of the Icefields & had to deal with some "interesting" weather & conditions but managed to get a bunch of great climbing in regardless!
On Tuesday we found ourselves starting up Mt. Athabasca by headlamp and were soon on the glacier. We were hoping to do the Silverhorn but there was a minimal overnight freeze so we opted for the slightly faster North Glacier route in order to try and beat the daytime warming. It ended up being good conditions and we enjoyed the route!
On the summit ridge of Athabasca.
After a more leisurely start on Wednesday, we headed into a nice rock climbing area on the David Thompson Highway which I developed a number of years ago. They had never rock climbed before, but after a couple of initial shaky climbs, they quickly got the hang of it and climbed well all day. Even when it started raining they were keen to keep on climbing, so we did!
Rock climbing on Hwy 11.
Lots of bears in the valley bottoms these days!
For our final day, we woke up to heavy rain so had to change our plans unfortunately. However, we were still wanting to get up in the Alpine so we made an ascent of Boundary Peak in rather wild conditions. We took the route that goes up the glacier to the Boundary/Athabasca col and then followed the ridge to the top on snow covered rock. Despite not being able to see much, it was still fun to be up high in full-on conditions, and we all enjoyed the climb. Hopefully they can make it back in the future for an ascent of our original goal, Mt. Andromeda!
On the summit of Boundary Peak in a blizzard!
J. Mills
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