TrogdortheBurninator

Climb: The Least Ambitious Rockies Ice Trip Ever-Various Date of Climb: 1/1/2006 Trip Report: Sam had to do ten minutes of work on Tuesday afternoon, so we basically couldn't do anything until wednesday. We spent most of tuesday looking for cheap tickets to southern california and debating other trip options. I was basically deadset on Banff or J-Tree, but sam didnt want to buy plane tickets for j-tree. Sam hadnt ice climbed outside of big four, so she was pretty apprehensive about driving 12 hours just to get freaked out. We were itching to take a camping trip in our new van, so we figured if nothing else it would be a nice road trip. Temperatures were perfect for camping in the van and comfortable for climbing. We had no specific objectives except to introduce Sam to ice climbing in the most comfortable manner possible. We stopped in lake louise the first night because we were sick of driving. The next morning we go going at a very leisurely pace and headed to the canmore junkyard. The ice was fatter than anything I had ever climbed. We started on an easy WI 2 flow on the right of the main seep. We then climbed a fun 50m wi 2-3 Sam enjoyed it a lot! We went to dinner at the grizzly paw and enjoyed their fine food and good beer sampler. Afterwards we went looking for a campsite in canmore. While trying to find an open campground and supposedly appearing suspicous we were approached by a mounty. After managing to avoid a ticket for no proof of insurance, the mounty suggested we find a parking lot a keep a low profile. We found a spot and sat down to watch a movie. The next day we got off to another late start and after one wrong approach start made our way to grotto falls. The trail to grotto falls is super popular with hikers, and makes an interesting diversion in and of itself. The right side of grotto falls was super wet and it took a lot of convincing to get Sam to climb it. We decided to just go up to the first set of bolts so that Sam could TR instead of feeling pressured to follow. The starting pillar was pretty kicked out, but still fun. After Sam TRed and I took another lap, some nice canadians let me TR my first "real" mixed route. I got pumped as hell and fell once, overall thought it was an awesome route. I had no idea how fun mixed climbs could be. Friday night we drove back to Lake Louise to make some westward progress. Saturday morning we headed up to Louise falls, fully expecting to see hordes of other climbers. We arrived and were pleasently surprised to see only one other party on the route. We only intended to climb one pitch, and Sam still wasnt comfortable with falling ice, so we climbed a fun double stepped variation on the right side of the cliff. There was a rotten layer of ice making the climbing pretty challenging. This was drastically different from the awesome blue hero ice in the middle of the flow. This climb finally got sam to stop telling me how easy ice climbing was. After rapping from a v-thread i spent some time traversing the bottom of the falls which was pretty fun too. When we got back to the car we hit the road and and drove to revelstoke where we spent the new year sleeping in our van in a dark parking lot by the river. This morning we woke up and finished the drive back to seattle. And the best part of the trip was..... Sam really likes ice climbing a lot! Plus, now we both want to move to Canmore. BTW the rockies are really pretty in winter Approach Notes: Mostly easy driving except our windshield washer pump is broken so we had to use a spray bottle out the driver side window to clean the windshield

What makes you think she'll ever let you leave?

I wanted to edit in skiing and other climbing, but couldnt

It tested out some schultzys sausage today and everything seems to be in order in the really good food department.

So whats the solution? Park where the road gets shitty, then hitchhike?

Things are looking somewhat grim for Lillooet after christmas. I am considering maybe Hyalite or the Canadian Rockies instead. Going with my wife, and the most important thing is easy access to shortish easy climbs. Sounds like drive time is a push. In terms of user friendliness, which is better? Also, we have two options for getting/staying there, which do you recommend for each area? 1) Drive our Outback, stay at a motel 2) Drive our 2wd Conversion Van, sleep in van with heater. We just bought the van two weeks ago and havent used it yet. No idea if a 2wd van (we will buy chains) is suitable for the hyalite or Can Rockies roads. Is the subie even suitable for that matter? I've heard some stories about the hyalite roads. Thanks Jason

http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weather/14day/pages/CABC0172.htm this forecast shows cooling monday, then warming tuesday & wednesday, then cooling thursday and some more slight warming New Years weekend.

fwiwiwfiwif - If squid's Bionics are 3 years old, they should have the older secondary point design.

We worship our signed golden girls photo and ackonwledge no christmas can ever be truly happy since the show went off the air.

It has actually stayed near freezing in vantage all week. 33 right now. http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/traffic/weather/recentweatherdata.aspx?id=1987 Web cam still shows snow on the ground. Granted, the forecast predicts that whatever residual cold air still remains on the east side should dissipate by the weekend, then temps will probably crawl into the forties.

I have a pair that I got as replacements for my recalled Montrail Crampons. The montrails were the first vertical front point crampon I owned, so that is all I can compare to. With my boots, I do notice more fatiguing than with the montrail, but that may be more a function of boot stiffness than crampon stiffness. They supposedly fixed the short secondary points last year, however they are still pretty shallow compared to some other 'pons. I have used them twice now. They seem to penetrate pretty well and overall seem pretty good. I was worried they wouldnt be secure on my boots, but the seem to hold very solidly. I'd be interested to hear from somone with the first gen and second gen bionics to see how much they really improved the secondary point design.

Thanks Dru, Ill check those out in the book. Maybe we'll go to whistler on the way up and give things time to reform. We'll see.

I will. Right now it looks like the only bad days are thurs, mon, and tues. Forecast says cold again by wednesday. We would probably head up there tuesday afternoon. We also discussed Hyalite, but it sure is a long drive.

Anybody planning on heading to Lillooet after christmas. My wife and I are thinking about heading up there, then down to to whistler. She hasn't really ice climbed before (only TRing at big four). Also, She may want to take a rest day one of the days and I'd love to hook up with somebody else for something a little longer. She is kind of timid but really wants to try ice climbing. I was thinking marble Canyon would be fun for her. I have been looking through west coast ice for other options too. Ideally stuff thats ~30m or less long and can be TRed or TRed after being led. Short approaches are good too. How is the walk off for cherry ice? Sketchy walkoffs and such dont go over too well.

they just showed that video on CNN, complete with cable wit.

They also have montrail lotus women's for $33. How did you come across this?

Sweet deals, but limited sizes. I also saw Vasque Ice 9000s for cheap and some montrail stuff. Sportiva stuff was still pretty expensive.

ems.com has quark ergos for $179 each. Seems like a pretty decent price for these tools.

It looks like things will cool down again up north by friday or saturday. Based on past experience, what areas will stay in and which ones will suffer a horrible fate like this:

I are so suck. Helped friends move yesterday and went to a christmas party today. Went gokarting in tukwila though, and that was fun. Now the weather forecast sucks

Alpental falls is climbable through the step. The snow down low was kind of rotten/snowy on the surface low angle stuff. The upper step had some running water behind it, making things a little bit spicier. What might be the Alpental Strasse Pillar in the book was looking really fat from the road. The north facing stuff in general looked really good.

Bumpity bump

So come ice climb first, then go DT it up. If now one wants to climb ice, I may join you guys for dry tooling.

I am so confused

It seems that there is a ton of good ice conditions info on the board right now. It would be cool if there were some way to make a master thread sublisted by region and even specific climb.