Rocky Mountains 4 - climbing trip

From the music festival in Salom Arm, I took a bus to Revelstoke to meet up with some school friends of Nicole's from Nelson. She headed back to Kelowna for work, and I had arranged to join these guys on a rock climbing road trip they were doing in the Rockies. As it turns out, the logistics worked pretty well (I could meet them half way to where we were headed) and we had an amazing week ahead!

First stop was near a bridge just south of Revelstoke. Just a warm up, afternoon climb...

Evan and Robin half way up. Highway just behind us!

Looking back at where we had climbed from the road. River running below, and great little fern jungle in between. 

That night, after having dinner in Revel, we headed to Golden to stay on a friends couch. That is, I got the couch and the boys slept on the floor! Not knowing me yet, they were chivalrous!

Our destination for the next few days was Lake Louise. I know - I was only there a few weeks earlier!! But they had the trip already planned, and who was I to pass up on a chance for some good climbing! Plus the seasons had shifted, so it was going to be a different experience. As it turned out that neither of the otherwise well-travelled boys had been to the Rockies before! So I was the lake Louise expert.

Day one climbing at the 'back of the lake' - fortunately a place I didn't see up close last time. The odd photo below I stole off the guys cameras, so don't credit me for every shot! 

Just below where we were climbing is the main trail around the lake. One that gets trampld by thousands of tourists daily!! So it was quite a laugh bung so expose to non-climbers. Many people (in fact nearly all of them - if they noticed we were there) stopped to take photos and watch. And a few were always asking questions, and one even said "wow, I've never met real life rock climbers before!". I don't think they realised that we were all just very amateur normal people with a hobby like tennis!! In saying that, along side us three were some very very skilled climbers that week!

That evening we couldn't get a spot in the local camp ground, so went for a drive to a really pretty, and much quieter campsite near castle mountain, which was probably my favourite of all th mountaisn to stare at! (Not that you could see it from the campground). Really liked it there!

Back at the lake next day. Super lucky, for the trail, being so popular and going right to the base of the climbs, only takes about 40 mins and would probably make the climbs the easiest to access ever!! Actually really nice when carrying all the climbing gear (and food and wate retc) to have such an easy walk in everyday, especially seeing as we have to repeat it daily!

Me!

We had been weather dodging all week.... It started to creep in today though!

Evan lead up a really tricky but amazing climb today:

I followed but didn't get all the way! Only to just below where he is in the above pic. On our way out that evening, we literally had the rain on our heels, getting to the other side of the lake just in time for deep cloud cover and rain! Today we had transferred to the local campsite. 

The next day it was raining and we needed a rest day, so decided to visit the nearby Lake Moraine instead, which is far far far less busy than Louise, and in our opinions, more stunning, in its own way.

We wanted to do a good hike. So naturally (and after talking to a few locals) decided on that tower you see below on the left - the Tower of Babel. But first we had a few obstacles to overcome! First - how to pass the 'do not enter this area with less than four people due to risk of bear attacks' sign ith only three of us, second - how do we acces the route, third - would it be way too dangerous to do in the rain, fourth - are we allowed up there at all?!!

It's ok. We resolved all issues.

And got started on the trek. 

The path led up through the passage in between the mountain on the left and the one next to it (if you can imagine a steep valley between those two seen above). This was a Gerry long, very very very steep slope of extremely loose rocks. The whole way!!! So each step you took, caused a rock slide and your foot almost returned to its starting position. So it was difficult, and quite dangerous. Had to be careful not to cause any rocks to fall to far below. There wasn't much risk of causing mass rock slide, but has to be careful not to injure each other with a rock falling behind and gathering momentum. (The boys pushed a few rocks down from the top - against my wishes - it was epic and petrifying how fast and loud they fell. Especially because the top was really narrow and like a funnel. See below)

Pretty epic in the rain!

And then we reached the top of the dangerous bit! For these views.

Lake on he otherside 

As well as that which we just came from

Amazing flat expanse on top, lots to check out and places to play!

Someone had been up and made a 'lounge room out of rocks!!! Here is the TV!

And the lounge suite

That's where we had just been!

We decided that it would be too dangerous to go back down the way we came (I was quite nervous), so instead to cut across the next mountain and go down another steep slope,,but one with much smaller rocks that was really really wide, so we could zig zag but also spread right out, so that each person walking had no impact one the others. In the photo 6 above this and the one where you first saw the Tower of Babel, you can see the route that we took down. The long sloppy loose rock thing!!

View from the top of the descent....

Evan found a little lookout on the way down

And Robin found a pretty tree stump on the way...

This is the boys sitting waiting for me to catch up. It was amazing to watch how fast they ran down the rock wall!! Literally ran. I took much more cautious steps. I got a flow going, kinda like roller skating, but  not that fast!

Oh yup, there it is again from below. Up on the left and down on the right...

Chipmunks :)

At the bottom it was getting cold and more storm was rolling in. The boys were brave and took a quick dip in the ocean, but we soon returned to camp to rest with a few games of cards...

One nice edition to this trip has been enjoying the boys cooking skills! Healthy amazing breakfast full of how, sprouted buckwheat seeds and all, and three way efforts on lunch and dinner has proved a nice booster for the trip. A change from all the bought meals I had been having...

Back to the lake the next day!

That afternoon, we said our final goodbye to Lake Louise and headed south to the adventure based town of Canmore. Here are some views form the Rocky Mountain highway on the way there...

It seems that Canmore is probably a place that would look BEAUTIFUL, surrounded by tall mountains and stunning cliffs. Unforntunatley for us, cloud and rain hit it from us, almost completely!! The glimpses we did get were cruel - you could see the stunning-ness, but only just!

It was cold as well. Luckily though, we were back out of tents and in with more of the boys friends. We stayed in a house where two girls lived, Maddi and Claire. Claire sounded Aussie, but it turns out that she hasn't lived there since quite young, just maintained the accent. I loved these girls. Maddi is a guide who does hiking and ski trips for troubled teenagers and Claire works with her dog in a company that teaches better interfaces between humans and bears! I'm sure both work descriptions I just gave were in correct and misleading, but you get the point - cool outdoorsy chicks. Maddi also climbs a lot, and Claire, for basically the entire three days we were there, preserves things. It was peach season, so she was making peach sorbet, peach salsa, peach BBQ sauce, vanilla peach jam, salter caramel peach jam, normal peach jam and so on!!! These girls had the best home, made preserve collection and tea selection that I've ever seen!

After arriving and warming up and shopping, the boys cooked jammed packed, absolutely amazing quesadillas for everyone, which we followed with peach sorbet and maple walnut icecream!

That night we played paper scissors rock for who gets the couch. I won. Of course (I NEVER loose that game), so much to the busy disappointment, fair is fair and I was in with the couch again. And they had the hard floor....

Next day. More rain. Not possible to climb, and not fun to hike. So while the girls went off to work, we headed into town for some retail therapy!! Op shop and outdoors store style! That took up hours, as you can imagine (they had a second hand outdoors gear store!!!), and after we met with the girls again and hit up the local indoor rock climbing gym. It was busy due to the rain, but we all got a good climb done in the end. And then a dip in the pool which was in the same centre!

The boys had arranged dinner with some other friends that night. I was going to join, but bailed last minute, preferring a night in with the girls who I was getting to know! So that was nice :)

I won paper scissors AGAIN tonight!!

The next day we had an EPIC session of waffles, created by our hosts. Suuuuper light and fluffy with homemade jams, homemade chocolate sauce, blue berries, peaches, maple syrup and so on....

Then we headed off for a local climbing haunt - Cougar Canyon. Had a great few hours down there getting up some dicey, long routes that were still a bit wet!

From Cougar Canyon, we made our way back to the girls place to pack and then hit the road again, leaving Canmore for Revelstoke again (via Golden to pick up a pillow left at the place we stayed at last time!!!).

Arriving in revel quite tired and hungry, we scoffed down some local Indian food and headed to another friends house - Megan. She was more than hospitable and had a beautiful house that she owned. We spent a few hours sitting up talking all sorts and then hit the hay. I was lucky and got the couch again, but only because I thought the boys deserved the actual real life beds that were on offer here! 

The next day Megan and her cousin joined us at a local crag. The climbing was really fun, and pretty easy for a change! But by now (8th day climbing straight) my fingers had had it, the skin was so raw, it just hurt to much, so I happily climbed the easy routes, but gave up on the hard one, unable to hold on! Good end to a great week climbing :)

The boys headed off home from here, but my bus wasn't for a few more hours, so Megan and I went for a 'float' in the local river. This consists of lazing in a blow up lilo on the water for hours not doing much else. And with the beautiful weather (really hot again! Change from the mountains) what a great way to finish the week. We got out of the water, though, and within minutes the rain started! Quick fish taco and on the bus back to Kelowna.