[TR] Canmore, Alberta and Others - Various 2/16/2007

[catbirdseat]

Trip: Canmore, Alberta and Others - Various

 

Date: 2/16/2007

 

Trip Report:

Canmore Ice Climbing

Feb 16-19, 2007

 

Some time ago Weekend_Climberz (WC) contacted me to say he was interested in a trip up to Canmore for some ice climbing. He said he’d already had brian_m lined up. I told him I had a friend who lived in Canmore who had already had an outstanding invitation to visit him. I had met Petr Ondracek along with his son, Jan, and girlfriend Susan two years ago while climbing at Joshua Tree. Since then he and I had climbed Mt. Rainier on the Kautz earlier this year. He’s a great guy to hang with and a good climber. One of the guys he brought along on Rainer, Dano, was on the expedition to Denali in the 1980’s that put up the Czech Direct route. Petr even said he knows Will Gadd. If it weren’t for the fact that Will was out of town at a comp I’m sure he would have rope gunned for us.;-)

 

I contacted Petr by e-mail, and he sounded very enthusiastic to have us come to visit. He said he had plenty of room. When Trogdortheburninator contacted me about joining us, I couldn’t turn him down, since he offered the use of his comfortable Toyota Previa van for the drive. Petr said, “sure, four is not problem”.

 

I met Trogdor at his home in Lake City and we headed out at 6 pm to pick up WC. What is the one item that you absolutely cannot forget on a trip to Canada? One’s passport, of course. After picking up WC, we headed back to the U District meet Trog’s wife Sam who graciously brought him his passport. Then off to North Bend to pick up brian_m. Soon we were tooling down the road listening to Trogdor’s favorite tunes from his I-Pod.

 

It was interesting seeing Brian’s house because it closely resembled a mountaineering store with a better selection than REI, if not Pro Mountain Sports. After loading his stuff, the van was quite loaded but there was still room to see out the windows. Hitting the road we drove through the night via Spokane, Cour D’Alene, Sand Point and Radium, arriving at Halfner Creek shortly after dawn.

 

We were the first party at Halfner that week and the ice was in nice shape consequently. We picked a flow that was circa WI3 and started in. Trogdor and Brian paired up with each other and I with WC, since we were of similar experience level. I tried out my new Quark hammer that I used with my Shrike bent shaft adze (didn’t have the bread for two Quarks). I quickly found out that the Quark was vastly superior to the Shrike, which is really an alpine tool, even though I was more used to it.

 

We tried out an M5+ mixed climb to the left of our flow, Half a Gronk, and top roped it. I’d never tried dry tooling before on anything near this rating and it was challenging. I got about halfway up before I pumped out and asked to be lowered. The other guys all made quick work of it, and even had a go at a harder route to the left (M6+).

 

 

By midday there were four other parties in the gorge, even though this was just a Friday. I can only imagine what they place is like on the weekend!

 

Finishing up around mid afternoon, we headed into Canmore and did our grocery shopping before heading for Petr’s house. We called him on his cell only to find that he wouldn’t be in town for two more hours. No problem, we had our case of Kokanee and would wait his arrival on his driveway. In order to use up time, Trogdor decided not to use a map or ask for directions to Petr’s street, so we headed off into the great unknown. Due to his incredible sense of direction we failed to use up time and found the street in short order. The house had a pile of newspapers on the doorstep and we wondered if this could be his place, but it was. As it turned out he only uses it on the weekends, since he works in Calgary. As we sipped our Kokanees we wondered if Petr’s neighbors would report a green van with four suspicious characters to the local constable, but this never happened.

 

After dozing a while, still no Petr, and we were hungry so we drove back into town to find a Pub. This being a Friday night, all the seats were full and after waiting fruitlessly for half an hour, headed back to the house were we met Petr and Susan just pulling in. Brian helped Petr shovel the driveway, while the rest of us hauled gear into the house. And what a beautiful house it was built with huge timbers joined using wooden pegs in the Japanese style.

 

Susan and I cooked up a dinner of turkey burgers and salad while the others tinkered with gear and told stories by the fireplace. To bed early for the next day at Weeping Wall, which we deemed a good bet in a time of high avalanche danger.

 

We were the first ones at Weeping wall where Trog and Brian quickly jumped on the far left flow, Snivelling Gully. WC and I took the next easiest looking line we could to the right of that. I led up a short pitch of WI3 that was plenty hard for me. WC took the left trending ramp for the next pitch to the top of a rock buttress. We were hoping to follow the others up the gully on the left, but another party was following up on the left. That left us the choice of retreat or a pitch of WI4 minus above.

 

 

It was my turn to lead and with some trepidation and our meager rack of 10 screws, headed off. It went well at first but somehow I found myself getting into highly featured ice that was rotten in places and I was having trouble with my footwork on awkward bulges. I was making for what looked like a semi flat spot about 45 meters above our belay. Realizing that my screw supply was dwindling fast and wanting to hold two in reserve for the belay, I made a decision to run it out a bit before placing my last screw.

 

Working about 15 feet above my last screw, I was trying to pull up to a small ledge like feature where I hoped to stand to place another screw. I placed my tools too close together near the back of the feature and when I pulled the Shrike ripped and the Quark followed. I yelled “falling” and looked over my right shoulder to see where I was going to hit. The screw held and I came to a stop, upside down, with my back to the ice. I was completely uninjured! Not a freaking scratch! I looked down at WC to see he was bleeding from his chin. He’d been pulled off his feet and done a face plant, but damn if that guy didn’t save my a** one more time!

 

With great effort, I reached up and grabbed the rope to right myself. There was just barely enough rope for him to lower me until I was about ten meters to the right of the belay whereupon I used my tools to traverse back over to it.

 

We exchanged ends of the rope and WC climbed back up to my previous high point, taking the bottom three screws with him. As I was belaying I watched a Spaniard off to my right lead some steep ice that was something like WI4 to my untrained eye. I noticed he had a crap load of screws, and was placing one every body length. He was so slow I couldn’t imagine how he had the stamina to hang so long to his tools.

 

Once WC reached my high screw he reported that it was completely intact, with only a very small amount of cracking in the ice. He got a look at the ice above, and decided to rap down from a Vee Thread. We continued on down one more double rope rap to the ground and took a break for lunch.

 

I’d just broken the cardinal rule of ice climbing, which is to never fall. I decided I wasn’t going to lead any more for the rest of the weekend. I realized that I simply didn’t have the experience to judge the quality of the ice and difficulty of what I was getting into. If I had just built an anchor as soon as the little voice said, “you’re in over your head”, I’d never have fallen. Damn, I knew full well just how lucky I was. Most falls on ice result in injury.

 

WC and I finished the afternoon with WC doing a fine lead on the first pitch of Snivelling Gully, after which Trogdor and Brian arrived with tales of the exciting pitches above. One of them was so good they led it twice.

 

Back at the house we learned that Petr and Susan had done 40 km (!) on Nordic skis that day. Dinner that night was pork ribs prepared by Susan with potatoes and salad, washed down with more Kokanee. Life is good.

 

Sunday morning Petr joined us to climb The Professor. Our start was a little later than planned, but we were astonished to not see any cars at the trailhead. On the 7 km hike we saw a large heard of elk which showed little fear of us. I had a hard time keeping up with the four fleet footed hikers so I didn’t try. Good thing because I arrived at the base to find two Seattle climbers just starting up. One of them was spiderman. Small world.

 

 

No worries, we didn’t have very long to wait. The nice thing about Professors is that there are a series of pools separating the pitches, so that once a party clears one pitch, you are good to go. We had a system using two pairs of half-ropes whereby one would lead and two would follow. Each of them dragged a rope. One of them would belay the leader and one would belay the second pair of followers. In this way, we were able to stay right on the heels of the party in front of us.

 

The ice was just a tad picked out, but that worked in our favor, as this made WI4 feel like WI3. All by yours truly got in at least on pitch on lead. The climbing was super fun and the scenery was quite beautiful. We waited for spiderman and partner to rap off before we tackled the last pitch. WC led it solidly and set up a top rope. Petr lowered him but there was not enough rope so he tied him off and “walked” up WI 2 to a cave where there was a bolt anchor. The rest of us soloed up to the cave to take turns TR’ing the upper WI4 section.

 

Brian decided to make his go sportier by climbing up the extreme left under the roof of the cave and used rock for his left foot and ice for his right. Propelled upward by a mighty wind, and a green haze, he pulled his way over the lip.

 

Playing double rope leapfrog, we were down in a jiffy meeting Devon free soloing his way up. Devon asked about a down climb and Peter said there was one but that he hadn’t done it.

 

On the walk out my right foot was quite sore with a mile to go on the road when along came a pickup truck driven by a cute blond with Devon in the back. They motioned for me to hop in, which I was grateful to do. We picked up all the rest as we went along.

 

Our last day was to be a short one. Departing Petr’s house at 5 am, we drove west three hours to Gibraltar Wall near the logging town with the euphonious sounding name of Canal Flats. The logging road was in fine shape but the trucks were running, and if you happen to meet one at a blind curve it could be bad. We managed to avoid death by logging truck and arrived to find one car with Oregon plates at the pull out.

 

 

The hike up was icy and some put on crampons to get up through the trees. We found the ice a bit sun struck but still climbable. Just as WC was about to led out, up walked Rob from Missoula, WC’s partner from the Bugaboos the previous August. Small world.

 

The two Oregonians were heading up a ramp on the far right. Trogdor and Brian took the far left. WC and I took the middle, where WC led a left trending WI3 pitch with an exciting 6 ft vertical bulge at the top. With his height and gorilla index, he made it look easy.

 

WC and I took turns TR’ing from a bolt anchor, and I tried different combinations of tools and techniques. Trogdor and Brian came down having done all three pitches and reported that the last pitch was quite rotten and the screw placements had been quite dodgy.

 

Being tired, we were happy to get an early 1 pm start for home. We saw a wolf on the road. He was running at over 30 mph down the road before he finally sheared off into the woods. We would have loved to get his picture, but he was having none of that.

 

We hit snow and rain from the border through Spokane and the worn wiper blades didn’t help matters. Despite these problems we made good time and were home before midnight.

 

 

Gear Notes:

Brought snowshoes but never needed them

Edited February 21, 2007 by catbirdseat

[TrogdortheBurninator]

Here are some pictures

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/Jason.Killgore/RockiesIceClimbing

[rob]

Great TR, CBS, et. al. It sounds like a really, really good trip. I'd love to make that trip one day, maybe next year.

 

I'm glad you weren't hurt in your fall. Sounds like a pucker hucker! Way to go get it.

[dbb]

nice trip! things look fat up there

[Weekend_Climberz]

I'd love to make that trip one day, maybe next year.

 

After doing this drive three times since July, I'm finding that it is pretty reasonable as long as you have three or more people. Then you can break it up into shifts and as long as I don't have to drive from Seattle to Spokane, it's bearable. God I hate driving through Eastern WA, it reminds me of the old days of driving in Kansas

[brian_m]

Here are some selected pics from my camera:

 

Brian_m Tr'ing mixed line in Haffner

 

 

CBS leading WI3 ice in Haffner

 

 

Jason approaching anchors below the third pitch of Snivelling Gully, Weeping Wall.

 

 

Jason rapping from Snivelling Gully

 

 

Jason leading first pitch of Professor Falls

 

 

Jason and Petr following third pitch of Professors. They towed the ropes that the fourth and fifth climber would climb on while the next pitch was being lead... this process was very efficient and allowed us to keep up with a party of two climbing ahead of us.

 

 

Argggh matey... Scott, the pirate leading out on the final pitch of Professors

 

 

 

Canmore local, Petr, following up to the cave beside the final pitch of Professors.

 

 

Petr rapping off Professors

 

 

For more pics from the trip, check out:

http://picasaweb.google.com/brianmass/CanmoreIceFeb07

 

 

[catbirdseat]

In this picture, Petr is actually climbing and lowering Scott at the same time. So technically, he is belaying.

 

[MCash]

Looks fun, nice trip!

[G-spotter]

How far did you fall on WW Lefthand? Sounds like about a 40 footer?

[Weekend_Climberz]

I have a pic just before he fell that shows where he fell to. I estimated about 25-30 feet with rope stretch. So, that make a crevasse fall the only thing left he has to fall off/into. I'm not going onto a glacier with him until that happens

[NYC007]

Did you break up that last pitch on Prof. into 2? small corner for 5 people..

[TrogdortheBurninator]

Brian climbed up to take photos. Scott lead from the bottom, then we all just TR'd from the little cave corner. Plenty of room actually.

[catbirdseat]

Yes we broke that pitch up by soloing up the low angled first part to the cave. There was enough room for us to all stand in that corner. The only reason we broke it up like that was so we could top rope with the belay from below. We could have just done it like all the other pitches, but I think people wanted to be able to watch other people try variations, etc, and take pictures.

[tvashtarkatena]

Juicy pics. I'll have to put this one on the list.

[spiderman]

Excellent TR guys!!!

[Weekend_Climberz]

I'm ready for my closeup Mr. Deville

 

sZluvWY5kiM

[spiderman]

Was that last bit of mixed climbing on the last pitch of Professors?

[TrogdortheBurninator]

yes, starting from the cave on the left.

[Weekend_Climberz]

Just a tip for the video, it's best viewed with stereo surround sound with the volume cranked up to near maximum

[brian_m]

Nice video Scott! Way to immortalize our trip on the www. Now, that the warm ups are done... we can move onto those awesome FWA's... and some good "sh***g whipping"!

[Weekend_Climberz]

I think "Shlong Whipper" might fit the motif of the Mountaineer's Creek area. No offense CBS