Summer in Western Canada

Keeping with the plan, Teresa and I spent the entire month of July in Western Canada. It certainly was nice to escape the Fresno heat for a while! I spent the first 2 weeks of July in Powell River. The weather was cool and delightful. For the first week, Teresa and I enjoyed hikes in the rainforest with dogs, cragging at Higgyland and I went for a few excellent trail runs.

My favorite run was up to Confederation Lake, about 10 miles round trip with ~2500' of elevation gain. So much fun!

Waterfall on the way to Confederation Lake

Confederation Lake Hut

Confederation Lake.

After the first week, Susan flew in from the Bay to join us and have the full Powell River experience. We had a great time climbing at the local crags including Higgyland and Lois Lake.  I quite liked Lois Lake, really fun crack climbs!

The crag was easy to find!

Sue taking on the classic finger crack "Tit for Tat"

Sport climbing in Higgyland

Sue and I also spent a few days climbing in the wonder Eldred valley. What a special place. We mostly climbed on Psyche slab, but I had a chance to check out some of the newly developed sport climbing wall at the 'Younger, stronger, fitter" wall. That place is going to be world class once it's all cleaned up. Such wonderful climbing. I'm excited to head back there maybe next summer.

 

West Main Wall - 3000' of granite

Sue is having fun, I think

Sue follows on the hardest 10+ slab I have ever led. Where are the holds?

Eldred valley approach. A few bushes here and there

Elrdred River

After Sue flew back home, I packed up the Subaru and drove out to Calgary to pick up Jeff for a couple of weeks of climbing in the Bugaboos and around Banff National Park. First up was 5 days in the Bugaboos. I had booked the Conrad Kain hut for our stay, and was very excited to be back (my 3rd time in the Bugaboos). The weather forecast was PERFECT and conditions were ideal, still lots of snow on the glaciers and the BS col, but the rock was all clear and the not a single day of rain.

Jeff is ready for 5 days in the Bugaboos

We trudged up the approach trail to the hut, loaded down with heavy packs

Views on the approach trail

Ladders on the approach trail

Conrad Kain hut - our home for 5 days

Unfortunately Jeff wasn't feeling so great on the hike up. I'm not sure if he was just a bit out of shape, or altitude, or his new heart medication. He never really recovered in the Bugaboos, which is too bad. But we made the most of it, and he hada great time once we were doing things with shorter approaches in the Banff area. Still, I think for a guy who is 65 years old and had not climbed since the pandemic he did pretty well!

On our first outing we headed up Eastpost Spire, a classic moderate scramble with great views.

Jeff on Eastpost Spire

You can't beat the views

On day 2 we climbed Lion's way, an easy climb with great views a few excellent pitches.

Lion's way climbs up left of this formation

Jeff nears the summit ridge

Although both climbs were quite good Jeff was still feeling pretty tired and wrecked. The next couple of days he relaxed while I wandered on some solo adventures including a solo of Brenta Spire and the Kain route on Bugaboo Spire. Both were excellent days out for me

Brenta Spire

Can't complain about the summit views!

With Jeff feeling pretty crappy and not really recovering we packed it up and headed out of the Bugs. I had a feeling that a quiet nice night sleep in our AirBnB in Golden, some good food and a few days of relaxed sport climbing would bring his stoke back out. 

With a bit of research we found some five star sport climbing inbetween Radium and Golden. Super fun stuff on vertical, featured dolomite. I also had the chance to meet David Jones, well known climber and guidebook author. We had a nice chat, what a friendly guy!

Sport climbing!

 Jeff's spirits were back-up a bit after a couple days of relaxation, beer drinking and sport climbing! So we headed up to Rogers pass to give Mt. Uto a shot. We made an early start and hiked up to col.

Jeff crosses a snowfield

Morning shadow of Mr. Sir Donald

We got to the col and Jeff wasn't really felling it, so I went ahead a solo'd Mt. Uto's ridge. It was a bit scary, but ended up being pretty easy, mostly low 5th class and was pretty quick, only about 90 min to the summit and back to Jeff

Mt. Uto's spectacular ridge

Hanging out below the Uto-Donald col

After Rogers pass, we made our way to Lake Louise and spend a few days climbing super fun long 5.7 multi-pitch routes in the Banff area. Good times!

Mt. Cory - Home to many great multipitch routes

Jeff

Wonderful views

Sport climbing in Sunshine

Banff golf course, Tunnel Mountain and Cascade mountain

14 pitch 5.7 sport climb!

North ridge of Mt. Rundle

A great trip and summer! I blew my rotator cuff climbing in Shuteye already, so now I will suffer in pain for a few weeks and dream of adventures to come