"Wild Climbs in the Rocky Mountains" show in Calgary this Wednesday

Dave Cheesmond was the driving force behind most of the hard new alpine routes done in the Rockies in the 80's. He was fond of saying that if you could climb here, you could climb anywhere. You can quibble about the details ("What about high altitude?"), but not the gist of his pithy phrase. Compared to Alaska or the Himalaya, the Rockies, with their crumbling rock and modest height, are not the sexiest mountain range around. But it's likely easier to get up a big peak in Alaska, with its perfect snowpack and granite, or in the Himalaya, with porters carrying your stuff to basecamp (and sometimes higher), than to fight your way up a remote north face in the Rockies. This coming Wednesday, at the Mappy Hour YYC, I'll tell some stories from our own mountain backyard, and try to convince you that if you want adventure, there's really no need to go anywhere else. I hope to see you there.

Eamonn Walsh gains the summit ridge of Mt. Alberta on his way to making the first winter ascent of the peak. Why go anywhere else?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A slice of the unknown

Image
I step from a luxurious belay ledge onto a steep, prickly slab. The slab is undercut just beneath my feet: a rock dropped from here might hit the distant orange spot of my pack at the base of the wall. I clip a bolt. Wait, what, a bolt? By this point Alik and I expected to be traveling across untouched rock. Five years earlier Alik, Ian and Nino climbed three pitches of the line we're attempting, but we've already passed their highpoint. It seemed unlikely that anyone else should've wandered up to this obscure face, overshadowed by the bigger, better known north faces of Ha Ling Peak to the north and Mount Lawrence Grassi to the south. And yet a bolted anchor four pitches up makes it clear we're not the first people up here. The slings on the anchor suggest the mystery climbers rappelled off, but then the bolt I've just clipped hints they might also have finished the route. We don't know. I shuffle further left, stuff a cam under an overlap, and turn my attentio
Read more

Give 'Im Enough Rope

Image
January 2016. The Scottish International Winter Meet. Perhaps just to make the international visitors appreciate the fickle nature of Scottish winter climbing, the first few days of the gathering were either too warm, too rainy or both. Rather than take our gear for a walk in the wet, windy hills, we went drytooling in the guts of Newtyle Quarry and rock climbing on the shores of the North Sea. Then a morning dawned with clear skies and below-freezing temperatures. A thousand and one teams drove up the road to the Aviemore ski area and stomped across half-frozen bogs to to the Northern Corries.  A thick layer of hoar frost grew on the walls of Coire an Lochain. As I understood the quirky ethics of Scottish winter climbing, this was considered a good thing. Coming from the cold, dry Canadian Rockies, I was more used to waiting after a storm until wind and gravity had cleared the rock of snow, but hey, when in Rome, do as the locals do. My introduction to Scottish mixed climbing was The
Read more

The Hand of God

Image
1982. On April 2, Argentine forces invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands (aka Las Malvinas), and the next day South Georgia, British islands that Argentina considered its rightful territory. Just three days later, Britain dispatched an expeditionary force to take back what had been a British colony for over a century. In the end, British aircraft carriers and Harrier jets prevailed, and after nearly a thousand people died, the islands returned to British control. History doesn't record if the king penguins and elephant seals inhabiting South Georgia were consulted about which country they'd like to live in. Given how humans have treated other species from time immemorial, it seems unlikely. *** 1986. On June 22, Argentina and England were playing in the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup in Mexico City. The match was still goalless when, a few minutes into the second half, Diego Maradona leapt for the ball that had been cleared towards the English goalie. However, instead
Read more