Climb: Mt Babel-East Face

Date of Climb: 8/8/2005

Trip Report:
My buddy Donald moved up to Canmore last winter, so I figured it would be a good time to finally get up there in the Summer. I’ve been to the area countless times to ice climb, but never to climb in the summer. I made the 10 hr drive and arrived at his place with no idea what we would climb. I packed just about all the climbing gear I own to cover sport, alpine rock, alpine ice or whatever else I might be getting in to.

Don suggested that we sport climb at Lake Louise the first day to warm up and then maybe tackle something bigger. He had been thinking that he wanted to get up the east face of Babel. It’s written up as Twights climb in 50 Favorite Climbs. Twight blazed up it in 12 hrs car to car. It’s given a 5.11a/d(??) rating on the second to last pitch out of 15 total. I said if it’s the D instead of the A I might have problems freeing it, but I could French free it if need be. Twight describes it as in places reminding him of the Verdon Gorge as far a quality limestone. Quality rock in the Rockies? We’ve gotta see. We figured it would take us longer than Twight, but the book states the climb is typically done in a day, so let’s do it.

We arrived at the trailhead at 4am at Moraine lake. The approach is mellow for the first 45 minutes and then its up a steep scree slope for well over 1000’. It’s not fun going, but we make it to the base of the face at 6am. We solo up the initial 3 pitches of low 5th class to a ledge. The rock is crap quartzite, but we’re ready for the “Verdon” limestone that awaits us up high. I take the lead for what’s supposed to be a 5.8 pitch after consulting our vague topo. The climbing starts easy then get’s hard fast. The rock is still crap. I get on a face with cracks running through it that looks easy, but the cracks are flaring and dirty when I get on it. Now I’m on 5.10 hard dirty face and sketched completely out. Bomber nut, move 5 feet and then take a flyer. It turned into about a 20’ fall after rope stretch on the 8.2 floss. I go at it again and pull through this time. I continue up and the rock is really getting worse. I get to a band of completely rotten rock that I have no intention of trying. I tell Don I’m coming down and there’s no way I’m doing this line. I set up a rappel leaving a Alien and a nut and get back to the belay. Look again at the topo. Maybe we see the line around the corner?? Don takes the lead as I’m fried from my adventure. He finds a ancient pin beside a completely rotten crack…at least we’re on route!

Don takes the crack and is cursing the poor rock quality. I’m just happy we’re back on route after losing 1 ½ hrs on my little adventure. I follow Don and climb the 8" crack stuffed with rubble to grab on to. At least there was no pro to clean. I lead a easy 5th ramp and try not to trundle Don too bad with bowling balls. Don's up. Topo say's 5.10 hard face climbing around a chimney, then enter the 6" rotton crack above chimney. We find no doable face climbing! Totally unprotectable rotton face is all we see. Don says he's going to attempt the chimney around the corner. He thrutches and kicks up. Gets through and see's nothing that looks good after much searching. He then downclimbs said chimney and comes back to belay. We look around more. Nothing. Don goes back up and reclimbs chimney and keeps continuing up bad rock and makes barely adequate belay. I follow the heinous chimney with pack. Climbing is probably only 5.10b, but it's loose and scary with 800' of air between your legs. The pack added some thrill as well. Another wasted 2-3 hrs on that pitch alone! Now we're thinking there's no way we're going to finish this thing today. There's no way to back off of the route either, so we're in for the long haul.

I go up another pitch and find another ancient pin...back on route! 1 more pitch leads to the large sandy ledge that bisects the whole face. We figure we can make it to the 1st ascent party's bivy ledge by dark. Another 4 pitches of up to 5.10d takes us up to "3 meter ledge". It's 9:30pm and we're burned out. We had maybe 50' of solid rock the whole day. We love Twight... Only 4 more pitches left, and they're the crux.

We spent the night on the 3 meter long x almost 1 meter wide ledge. I got to know Don a lot better than I wanted to. We spooned, hugged, jumped up and down and basically did all we could to stay warm in our very minimal selection of clothes. At least I had rain pants and a light shell. Don had no rain pants and he crawled into the small alpine pack as best he could. By morning we had 1 liter of water and 2 cliff bars each. I took off at 7am and did another rotten wandering pitch that was 50+ meters long. Now we're at the crux and Don's up. Twight say's that the offwidth is hard, but just when you need it tiny holds show up inside for finger locks. We can't see the pitch from the belay, so Don takes off into the great unknown. "Holy shit!!!" is all I hear. He free's for awhile, then goes to full on aid. The 2 ropes make the aiding fairly easy for the leader. Don's screaming really bad words around the corner. Rocks are falling around the corner. I'm dreading around the corner. An hour later Don gets to the top of his 3 meter pitch. I take off with prusiks ready. "Holy Shit"!!! The offwidth starts 5 inches wide and goes to a 12" squeeze. It's overhanging, flaring, rotten and slants to the right. I tell Don to fix the rope and I jug the whole thing without even trying to free it. As I pull gear out large blocks travel down for 1000' before hitting anything. Shit! Don's wasted.

Last 2 pitches are stellar solid rock at 5.10d that are fun and exciting. Finally, solid rock...thanks Twight! We summit at 2pm and are ready for beer. Descent involved 4 rappels down a huge drainage. We get off the last rappel and walk for about a minute when we hear a rumble and head for cover. A huge rockfall comes from the top down the drainage. The second rappel station is completely obliterated. Now we're ready for whiskey. Miles of side-hilling shale scree fields leads to the final descent beside the Tower of Babel to the car at 7pm. Close to Twights time, right?? Water never tasted so good.

A great adventure when looking back. Don was an excellent partner to have on this climb as we had all we could handle and we kept it together fairly well.

Gear Notes:
Full rack up to #5 cam...we used it all. Include some pitons.

Should have had a tarp for bivy possibility. Bailing from this climb would be VERY serious. Better be ready to commit to it all.

Approach Notes:
Easy to Consolation lakes, then a grind up scree.

Would include pictures if I knew how...oh well.

upload them to the gallery, with appropriate captions. I will help you insert them into your TR if desired.

Wow. Good TR. I'll make sure that one never gets near my "to do" list.

If you want good rock, why the fuck would you climb in the Rockies? Ever?

Twight is such a masochist

sounds like a good fun adventure!

the rockies have good rock in some places: Edith Cavell comes to mind.

The only difference between Rockies quartzite and Rockies limestone is that on quartzite, the rockfalls are bigger.

Might as well bump this back into the light of day. I happened to stumble onto it and found it a great read . .. c'mon post the pictures!

I was intrigued by that chapter of Fifty Favorite Climbs. Nice to read another take on it.

50 fav. climbs made it sound great, this makes it sound more "exciting"

Ahhh, the memories. You know how after a while a heinous climb didn't seem so bad and maybe it wasn't so desperate and maybe you were just being a pussy and if you just would have stayed on route you wouldn't have had to bivy and now with more experience you wouldn't have been so gripped and that rock wasn't that bad and the approach was fun and the descent was really just a few easy rappells and a long walk out and I could have gone a lot longer without water and....??

Nah, you'll never catch me on the East face of Babel again. Now I just wonder which was worse, the going up or going down. I remember belaying from a mud cave(you heard me, a mud cave that's even on the topo, yes a cave of loose rock held together with mud that when I left it looked like I had been mud wrestling with Bambi down at the strip club)thinking why would anybody climb a route with a mud cave on the topo??

Let me know if you want the beta on the route. I remember it vividly

After all of that though, I wouldn't trade the adventure for anything.

I'll see if I can dig up the pictures of that trip and post.