sayjay Posted July 8, 2003 Share Posted July 8, 2003 ...subtitle: "next time I'll have a powerbar for breakfast and get my ass on the climb early!" Was lucky enough to be sent up to Banff for a week-long meeting end of June. A couple of collegues at the meeting are also climbers so we decided to take advantage of the situation and hit a peak. These guys are way old-school -- one of 'em started climbing in the mid 1950's. Super uber-cool. The plan was originally to do Athabasca, but it was cold and precipitating (lots 'o new snow) the whole week of the meeting, so instead we decided on Mt. Louis, a scant 6km outside of Banff. Read Sean Dougherty's description, as well as a writeup in a really old guide book. Sounded like a nice day trip --- 1.5 hr approach, then mostly mid-5th plus a few sections of 5.6-5.8. Hard to tell from the book how long the climb was, so I went to a climbing store in town for more beta...but all I found was a sporto climber who made it clear within about 30 seconds that he had "no problem with bolts in the wilderness, no siree, bolts are aokay with me, there're there I'll clip em, yup, no problem here with bolts!" doh. Made a point of letting me know he'd spent time with Royal Robbins, but hadn't ever been up Louis, which is supposed to be one of the classic alpine climbs in the area, and only a stone's throw from his front door. ? Anyhow, let's just say there wasn't much useful information to be found there... I'll start off by saying that we made the mistake of taking the casualness of the guidebook's language a bit too to heart... The vote was to grab breakfast at the hotel, then head out, which meant a 7:30 departure, which became about an 8:30 takeoff from the trailhead after sorting gear and various other farting about... Discovered on the hike in that one of my partners has a fake knee from an accident in the 1960s when he speared himself with an iceaxe, so the approach was a bit slower than anticipated. But way cool anyhow, hearing lots of stories about climbing way back when men were men and they just tied hemp around their waists and climbed, and stuff. Got to the base of the climb and found a party of two ahead of us. Somehow they kept *looking* like they were about to head up, but took awhile getting around to it, so we didn't even get on the bloody thing until 11:00. Which had me a bit worried, but not terribly. After all, we could see that it was about 3-4 pitches up the 5.7-5.8 dihedral described in the book, and from the approach that looked to be about half way up the mtn. And we knew there was nothing over 5.6 after that. No problem! Had about 5 great pitches of climbing, including the way-cool dihedral... ...then realized we'd gone too far up a gulley and had to get left. Turns out the description and the picture in the guide book don't quite jive with one another. The other party was confused too...Heard the woman banging in pins (!) and yelling down to her partner "Where am I supposed to GO???". His very helpful response: "Hey, just find your own adventure, man!" (nice! just what you wanna hear when you're all sketched out on lead!). Still not sure where we were supposed to go, but I think the description is more accurate than the line on Dougherty's picture. After traversing left.... ...we realized it was getting to be evening and we had one fuck of a long way to go. (I'd forgotten how *slow* climbing can be with three people -- oops!). Had the option at this point of bailing down an ugly descent route, or heading up and having to reach the summit before descending. Decided on the latter, as we had 2 space blankets, we knew the forecast was good and we were just having too much flipping fun to go down. So up a bunch more pitches, thinking we might at least make the summit before dark, but no. Ended up wrapping into a gulley at about 10:30, setting gear in the dark, and hunkering down for 7 hrs til the sky was light enough to climb at 5:30. It was definitely shivery, and we made the grim discovery that my buddies had left their liter of water at the base of the climb, so all we had was what was left in my Camelback (<1/2 liter at that point), but the sky was gorgeous and it wasn't all bad to watch the stars spin across the sky. Reached the summit plateau in one more long pitch and saw the "5.6" summit block pitch (which we renamed "5.6 MY ASS", perhaps due to lack of sleep, food and water...). Funky pitch, as you spend most of it to the right of the prominent crack to the right of the chimney. Lemme just say at this point that limestone is wierd freakin shit. I fully expected to be jamming my way up this thing, but instead was doing funky face moves with okay-but-not-great pro. All in all, a fantastic trip, just about 6 more pitches than we'd expected! We figure it took at least 15 full+ rope length pitches (we simul'd after the leader ran outta rope and still didn't have a good anchor probably for 5 of those pitches). Our view of the mountain from the west side after descending made it obvious that the top of the 5.8 pitch was only about 1/4 of the way up, not 1/2 way up as it looks like from the approach. Descent is not so difficult if you read the guidebook carefully. 6 full rope length rappels, followed by ~45min of descent down talus. Final bit of beta: If you can, bring 60m ropes! Double 50m ropes are a-okay for the rappel, but we kept finding good anchor points to be ~10m out of reach on the ascent. Great views from this peak! Here's to my two partners, Will and John, for a great trip. Hope I'm climbing as well as them in 20 years! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fern Posted July 8, 2003 Share Posted July 8, 2003 cool, good job . Which route was this? doesn't sound or look like the Kain route. Mt. Louis is a big mountain and a fun adventure for sure! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sayjay Posted July 8, 2003 Author Share Posted July 8, 2003 Sorry, should have mentioned that: Gmoser route. To the left of the Kain route... I'd definitely do the Gmoser rather than Kain. The dihedral pitch is a blast! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
layton Posted July 8, 2003 Share Posted July 8, 2003 Thanks for sharing the photos, I've always wanted to do that route. The guidebook should come with a free bag o' sand though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Attitude Posted July 8, 2003 Share Posted July 8, 2003 Trip Report of the Month Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne Posted July 8, 2003 Share Posted July 8, 2003 Great work Say! looking at the Homage rt? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sayjay Posted July 8, 2003 Author Share Posted July 8, 2003 Homage route = ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dru Posted July 9, 2003 Share Posted July 9, 2003 Homage to the Spider, "the world's hardest 5.8" on the east buttress of Louis. nice one sayjay BTW. as for the other party banging in pins: how come you guys DIDNT have pins in the Rockies? the ironmongery is your best gear there! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sayjay Posted July 9, 2003 Author Share Posted July 9, 2003 Homage to the Spider, "the world's hardest 5.8" on the east buttress of Louis. right, right of course. actually i looked at this one so i should have known... as for the other party banging in pins: how come you guys DIDNT have pins in the Rockies? the ironmongery is your best gear there! "if you bring pins...you will bang pins" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alex Posted July 9, 2003 Share Posted July 9, 2003 sayjay said: Awesome. I was looking at that too, and at Kain and Homage. They all look great. Rockies Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
j_b Posted July 9, 2003 Share Posted July 9, 2003 mt. louis is great. nice looking corner sayjay. Dru said: as for the other party banging in pins: how come you guys DIDNT have pins in the Rockies? the ironmongery is your best gear there! that's for sure. i barely trust most cams in limestone and i downright do not trust small cams. have you ever had the experience of repeatedly yanking out cams when testing them ..... mt. louis limestone opened my eyes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayne Posted July 7, 2011 Share Posted July 7, 2011 Whatever happened to SayJay? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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