Raphael Slawinski

As soon as I got back from Alaska I headed out on the rocks. Three weeks on a glacier does not do much for finger strength, and I wanted to be ready when summer hit. I need not have hurried. July was cold and wet, with a deep snowpack lingering up high. I suppose walking around in the rain and trying to keep my digits warm, be it in Echo Canyon or in the Bugaboos, made me appreciate real summer when it did finally arrive. I was not always big on the Bugs. In the four or five hours it takes to drive from Calgary to the trailhead one passes so many fine objectives it is easy to get sidetracked. But as years passed and I ticked off routes on Yam, Windtower and Temple, I found myself increasingly looking for adventure among those granite spires. This summer alone I have already made the short but steep approach four times, and I might not be done yet. Two very different routes have been the highlights of my Bugs season thus far: one shorter but more technical, the other longer but, w...

Common Knowledge? More rest days followed. More bad weather, too, though not as bad as forecast. Had our trip ended right now, we would not have been unhappy. However, we would not have completely satisfied, either. The Cassin gave us a great day out on a beautiful big-mountain route, it pushed us physically as few ascents ever had, but it did not push us as climbers. Now I love days like the one on the Cassin, when I get to run up miles of easy ground. But once in a while I also need to get on routes where my reality is reduced to the circle of vertical ice and rock within reach of my tools and crampons, routes that keep me oscillating between desperation and elation, all within the span of a single move. We thought about having a go at the Denali Diamond, which after all had been our original objective. The lower, technical part of the route looked great; however, slogging up the upper Cassin for a second time did not appeal. Between that and simply wanting to see another aspect of...