Rogers Pass Dec 27-30 2008

Well the avalanche report was in the Christmas spirit with lots of red on the board. So we had to play it safe but with 70cm of new snow it was a bit of a challenge to find safe steep skiing. If the slope was under 25degrees you could not even ski.

Skiing the cheops on the first day after the big snow fall we skinned up to the top of the ridge and skied back down the ridge to what we thought to be the Hourglass gully. We got some great turns at the top but then it turned into a mega bushwhack all the way down to Connaught creek where we got a few more good turns. The funny thing about our tour brings me to my next little rant.

Up Track and follower.

We woke up the next morning to find a little note posted in the info center that the up track going up Cheops went to the wrong spot and was way to high on the ridge, and the people that followed us up and used it did not have much success with the end result not retuning to the info center until after dark by head lamp. Well the lesson to be told here is you have to still have to use your own brain and make decisions for your self. We did not put in a wrong up track for your objective we put the track exactly were we wanted it and skied the line that we had in mind.

One more little up track note that got me going. I broke a trail up NRC gully yesterday and I had 50cm of ski pen. I chose this line up to make it safe and to not put an up track in the middle of the ski line. I made it 2/3 up the slope and some guys caught up to us. They offered to break trail for awhile and instead they just traversed across the whole slope and found the old up track in the middle of the run. I don't under stand why people are so lazy and won't do anything on there own. Well I am making a stand. I will not be lazy when it comes to up tracking.

Dec 9 2008 Louise Falls

Climb Lake Louise Falls today with Josh and Jeff B. It was a busy day up at the falls there were 5 groups that climb it today. We were third in line and we still waited 2hrs at the base of the third pitch. The pillar was a little harder than I expected due to the chandelier ice but still great climbing.

Dec 3 2008 Copper Mt

Well a short and cold day out climbing I am glad this climb had lots of walking and not much climbing involved. The descriptions said a 500m grade 3 but it turned out to only have two short pitches of ice. O'well if was perfect for the day and I needed to get a little bush wacking under my bet for the season.

Ranger Creek Dec 1 2008

Well another warm day in the valley but we racked up our gear and went out in the mountains. We were are the parking lot at 8:30am it was well above zero. We hiked in and broke a good sweat in the heat. While climbing a storm rolled in a brought wet snow in to the climbs and rain down on the spray road. Ya don't plan on skiing up in spray any time soon.!
A long story short we climbed Lone Ranger & R&D. The second pitch of Lone Ranger was much harder than grade 3 the gear was harder to find than it should be but that set us up for R&D and that felt much easier.

Just another day having fun in the sun!

Skating in Banff Nov. 31 2008

WOW the skating was awesome! You went from normal ice to perfectly clear ice. You can see the bottom of the lake chase the fish very cool