Chantilly Falls

Another early season outing, late in the season. The weather here is still pretty mild, and with my week's skiing tally at two sessions already thanks to CADS, I headed to Evan Thomas Creek in K Country with Matthew and Jane. Jane had never climbed ice before. Jane had a close call on the approach, just like Ian the week before - slippery stuff, that ice....I need to start remembering what it's like to be climbing it for the first time again; after a while you forget that it's an alien feeling to balance on crampons on a 30-40 degree slope. After that little moment, we had a great time; the route is in odd, but good condition, and even better, we didn't get ambushed by cougars on the way out. A great day on all fronts.

More pictures here.

A late start to the season

Almost the end of January, and I've finally managed to get out climbing. I headed to the Junkyards in Canmore for a warm-up day with Ian Stewart, who I've biked and hiked with over the past few months. We had a great day out and I climbed a new line that I'd seen previously, up in the east of the Junkyards.
The ice was really fat, the air wasn't too cold (-10C maybe) and we saw Grant at the crag (Hi Grant!), so it was a pretty good day out, all in all. More pics here.

A spot of lunch in Jasper

With my wife a bit under the weather I didn't want to be away from home, but I had a commitment to meet a client in Jasper to kick off a project there. So I decided to drive the 900+ km round trip in a day, and keep everyone happy. I've driven the Icefields Parkway a few times, and cycled from Jasper to Banff last summer, but never driven it in winter before. Matt Forshaw joined me, as he wanted to spot a few climbing objectives on the Parkway. The trip went really well, although the whole day out was 16 hours, and I didn't sleep much the night before due to the cats deciding to play games on top of me all night. I posted a few pictures of the trip here.

Mainly urban skiing

I've not been updating this blog much so far over the winter. It's mainly due to a lack of trips to the hills. Through Mark (with whom I climbed Mt Rae) I got involved with CADS, the disabled ski association, so since early November I've been attending Thursday training sessions and helping out on Friday ski nights, at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary. It's done my skiing a lot of good; although I've had less trips to the mountains, I've had maybe a dozen trips to COP. Having to think about how to help someone less physically able to ski safely really improves your balance.

On the few trips to the mountains we've had so far this season, I've been getting a lot of skiing into a short time; last Sunday I descended 72 km and 9,700 m at Sunshine Village, with the majority being off-piste and gladed skiing. It's a far cry from a few years back, when I could barely ski at all. I wasn't planning on skiing much this season, but as usual, plans change. This is, after all, what they call 'adaptive skiing'!