From Summits To Surf - A Year In Review

So, another year has come to an end. Sure it's almost April and 2010 started nearly 3 months ago. But for me, the end of March marks the end of one year, and the start of another - my Scrambling and Mountaineering year. You see, my first ever successful summit occurred on the date March 28th, sure there were a few haphazard attempts before that day. A very erroneous Mt. Baldy winter attempt and an unprepared and late day summer Nigel Peak attempt come to mind, both thwarted by severe inclement weather and lack of necessary gear). Amateur mistakes really. I guess practice makes perfect.

So as the '09-'10 year came to an end this past weekend, I found myself staring at 24 summits and 19 mountains, all ranging from easy 7900' to demanding 11400' that took all will power to continue. I also came to the realization that m '10-'11 year will come no where near that total. Several things make this difficult: much of my free time lately has been taken up by my training for the Texas Water Safari, many co-climbers are in the midst of exams or waiting for avalanche conditions to abate, and the fact that the Bow River open. I've decided to put away the crampons, ice axe, climbing helmet, rope and dedicate the next few months of my life to canoeing. But before we get to there, I would like to look back a bit on The Year of The Orogeny.

For me, I think '09-'10 will always be known as the Year of the Orogeny. It was this year I decided to venture out of the realm of scrambling and enter the realm of mountaineering. Taking a Snow and Ice long weekend course at Yamnuska Climbing School with some good friends (and partner for the SDKC and Texas Water Safari) opened a whole new world for me. I never thought that I would be standing on top of a technical mountain, using ice screws, belaying people, being tied in with a rope and crossing crevasses. This is stuff of the IMAX, of Vertical Limit (which is a horrible movie btw) and extreme sports. But here I was, August 3rd 2009 standing at the summit of my first technical mountain, Mt. Athabasca. A mountain that pretty much fought us most the way. Being very enthusiastic, we asked (bugged might be the other word) our guide to see if we could go up a route called the Silverhorn as opposed to the novice North Glacier ascent. Now to put it in perspective, every route up Athabasca involves a glacier crossing which puts it in the realm of mountaineering, but the North Glacier Route is no more of a moderate scramble once you cross the glacier. Having done Mt. Temple and Nigel Peak the two previous weeks and spending two days with in depth training, we were all wanting a little more...technical. A little more is what we got.

The day started with a extraordinary mountain storm. What should have been a 1 A.M start ended up being delayed til 4 A.M. During the approach we were with another group of about 10-15 that were heading for the Glacier Route. Before diverging from them, due to a miscalculation in rope slack, I ended up falling into a crevasse and having to climb out (thankfully it was a smaller one only 15' - 20' deep). As we continued and split from the other group (we exchanged "good lucks") we began post-holing. Eventually we were standing at the base of the Silverhorn. The Silverhorn is a 400m high 50º ice slope which involves a technical crossing of a bergschrund and being susceptible to serac fall and as put by an experience mountaineering friend "a very ambitious route for first-timers".

Save you a description of the ensuing 4 hours of climbing, anchoring, belaying and having your life literally depending on a rope and two screws in the ice...rinse and repeat, we finally, exhausted and wondering how much further, crested the Silverhorn and headed along the summit ridge to the true summit. Ten minutes later, there we were, on the 20th highest peak in the Canadian Rockies and second 11'00oer in as many weeks. So excited/tired were we that no one thought to take a summit photo...believe it or not, we do not have a summit photo of us on our first technical ascent. I decided to stand on the summit a little longer than my team, looking over the Columbia Icefield with no sound but the light wind and my breathing, I decided that I was going to go for all fifty-one 11'00ers in the Canadian Rockies. A lofty goal for someone who has just started mountaineering, but a goal none the less. If I make it, I succeed in a very difficult , if I don't, I will get to visit some of the most beautiful and rugged places on the world while trying. In fact, such a hard goal is this, that only seven people have done it to date, each one taking several years to do so, many took decades. After that I joined two groups. The University of Calgary Outdoor Adventurers and the Calgary Scrambling and Mountaineering Club, both of which I am now an event organizer.

During the next few months with both groups, I scrambled such mountains as:

1. Midnight Peak
2. Mt. Allen
3. Vermilion Peak
4. Snow Peak
5. Middle Sister

The vast majority being winter ascents in varying conditions. From blizzard caused white-out Midnight Peak with a summit temperature of -42ºC to a solar-warming caused class II avalanche on Snow Peak I had the opportunity to experience the mountains in ways that very few people have. And it is my goal to help share those experiences with you all via this blog, as well as answer questions that people may have.

So it's understandable that it is with a bit of a heavy heart that I put my mountaineering gear away as the conditions improve. But alas, it is only temporary as this year I have at least 2 more 11'oooers on the list....Mt. Willingdon and Mt. Joffre, both with epic approaches. Stay tuned for a video of my 19 mountains and 24 summits of '09-'10, I will compose one in the not to distant future.

And stay tuned for Team Chinook and the Texas Water Safari...updates are about to come streaming in as we transition from Summits to Surf.