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[TR] Andromeda - Shooting Gallery 3/23/2008


esugi

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Trip: CA Rockies - Shooting Gallery

 

Date: 3/23/2008

 

Trip Report:

Made a quick trip to CA Rockies this past weekend. Met up with David (Avitripp) who was up there few days before me gettin' some ice :fahq: (He ended up getting off of his couch long enough to run up Carlsberg and Louise :cool:).

 

I wanted to do some alpine so I talked David into checking out Shooting Gallery on Andromeda. Forecast was for overcast and temps well below freezing.

 

We left Canmore at 4:30am and got to Columbia Icefields at 6:30am. Very cold and windy! We were not sure what we would encounter on route so we had assortment of cams, nuts, screws, pins.

 

Got to the base of the route in 2 hours. We slogged up the lower portion of the couloir...still hoping we would find some alpine ice conditions further up. It was not meant to be. Except for the crux ice pitch (which was thin and rotten), the entire route was snow slogging. Up higher, we encountered sugar snow over slabby rock. Snowed the entire time we were on route and spindrift was constant. Wish I had my goggles.

 

Approach. Route is the obvious couloir in the middle

Approach.jpg

 

Dude, are we having fun yet?

self_portrait.jpg

 

Slogging up lower portion of the couloir

up_the_lower_couloir.jpg

 

Spindrift!

spindrift_city.jpg

 

David thinking it over at the crux ice pitch. Very thin and marginal ice.

crux_pitch1.jpg

 

David styling and having fun while I was freezing my ass off at the belay...how is this fair?

crux_pitch2.jpg

 

It was fun overall just to get out but I would recommend you wait till late spring or early summer before attempting this route. Too much snow!

 

Good training for my Ruth trip in few weeks though....

 

Dane went up this route couple weeks (?) before us...you have any pics to share?

 

Gear Notes:

We took the whole house but only ended up using (2) stubbys, (2) 13cm screws, ONE nut...

 

(2) 60m rope for full length rappel

(2) tools each

 

Approach Notes:

No floatation devices necessary.

Edited by esugi
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Descent was down the way we came up. Lots of snow and not being too familiar with the terrain, rapping down the route seemed to be the safest choice. Lots of rap stations already on route.

 

 

Edited by esugi
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cool! i am super pumped that you guys posted this. i am opening the icefield info centre in less than a week and needed some recent conditions. you actually got pretty decent ice on the crux as you actually got to place some screws, too bad about the upper couloir as it is some great low angle ice climbing.

 

the a-strain will be in from now until mid june, then it is best to stay off until mid to late august depending on the season.

Edited by trainwreck
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