Moonlight Buttress motivated me to try really really hard in a few different ways. I am proud of my efforts despite not sending the route during the week I visited Zion.

What a great hang!

Red-pointing is a relatively new aspiration of mine, as well as, 5.12 cracks. This trip opened my eyes up to what is possible. Although, I didn’t get ‘the tick’, I can see how determination and perseverance is rewarded. I am psyched at our willingness to return multiple times to the same location and despite the crowds, hot temperatures or general fatigue – give’er our best. Especially, on our last day there together, when Jasmin sent, I was inspired to try really really hard and that was super rewarding!

I can be a competitive bitch sometimes, and this hasn’t faired me very well in some past climbing relationships. Imagine that! So I am also very rewarded with using competitive energy positively to improve my performance, but also, being genuinely happy for my partner when they are kicking ass regardless of my success/failures.

the 5.11 traverse, pitch 3

I tried the crux pitch 3 times on our last day. Each time I got a little closer to success, but still NO MONEY. I have to ask myself if  I could of tried harder on previous days so there could of been more chance of success on this day? yep, probably. a good lesson.

I had a moment where my motivation to continue the rest of the route was low. Big selfish baby! Luckily, it was only a moment, and I was able to continue trying really really hard for the rest of the day. This brought more rewards, like sending as I got really tired. There was a lot of motivation in watching Jasmin send the rest of the day, despite fatigue.

The creek crossing to get to Moonlight, very refreshing at the end of the day

The other great thing about red-pointing is working through FEAR. Every day, every pitch, every move and gear placement, slowly became less scary, more secure and comfortable. Its a super cool progression to watch yourself become more relaxed in the same environment. Sandstone lures you in with its gentle texture, but even bomber cams can be sketchy, bolts too!

super fun, splitter finger cracks

Red-pointing is like ‘peeling an onion’. If you on-site a route, its super rewarding, but the depth of experience can be limited, the relationship with the route and yourself:  shallow. Unlike, throwing yourself multiple times at failure, you become well acquainted with its demons and when the light shines through success its brightness shines deeply into your life.

Cheezy words that ring true for me.

Now, I am drawn to the  cold weather activities in Canada… like dry toolin and ice chippin…..bring it.

jasmin, colin and evan on the morning school bus

I have a few days left in this climbing heaven. Most days we drop Benny at the Doggy Dude Ranch and head to the park gates. We load up on the bus with other tourists and go to crack climbing school. Jamin and I are focused on the very worthy, ‘Moonlight Buttress’, while Evan and Colin hit up the variety of classic sandstone multi-pitch routes.

top of pitch 6 on the big ledge

Our friend, Jesse Huey, left this great note for us on our first day on ‘the buttress’. His enthusiasm is very inspiring. I feel super lucky to get to know this route. Every pitch is worthy. Jasmin has sent the two pitches I am somewhat terrified of. (thank you Jasmin!) They involve fairly sustained 0.5 camalots, or ‘ring-locks’ and I have not mastered this technique. Although, I am learning how to: ‘tape for size’. ; )

clouds make for great temps

We smile a lot everyday here in this amazingly beautiful landscape. Every so often we look away from the cracks to see gi-normous condors or spec-tabulous fall colors on the trees.

colin, benny and jas

In the evening, we camp, “down by the river”. Sipping on 3.2% utah cold ones and keeping ourselves entertained in Evan and Jasmin’s truck camper.

In a couple days, I head back north to either slashing rain on the coast or manky ice climbing in the rockies, either will be great because I will get to see my loved ones.

Adrian, Ruth and Andy talkin shop

Good times at the AAC ICM this year. Less participants than last year made it easier to get to know the organizers, host climbers and other international climbers. Sonnie Trotter and I represented the Canadians, especially while telling jokes at the evening campfire.

so beautiful

I really enjoyed hanging in Indian Creek for a week. The surroundings are stunning! Kudos to Jim Donini for initiating this event and keeping it alive, Brittany Griffith pours endless energy into the logistics and quality of experience for the participants! Volunteers also give a ton to this event, a few that don’t climb, but ensure quality meals like Janet, Amy and Jules, as well as those who work as guides (Angela, Kitty and Andreas) and put up the rope for free!

We also participated in a service project digging and planting trees, reclaiming a natural area.

sonnie toiling away

indian creek

I hope to organize a similar event in Canada with ice climbing out of Canmore. Thanks to the Canadian Alpine Club for this fantastic experience!

On August 27&28th, Lilla and I finally made it up All Along the Watchtower on the west face of the North Howser Tower in the Bugaboos! We had a few days off together with good weather and so I made a last minute decision to fly to the Rockies to giv’er another go.

Day 1: running around Canmore doing last minute logistics, then driving to the Bugaboos, leaving the trailhead around 3ish, we re-collate our stuff and hike to East Creek via the Bugaboo Glacier and the Pigeon-Howser col. We are in bed after 10 pm under the lovely Minaret.

Day 2:  A few hours pass before the alarm clock rouses us, we groggily enjoy some coffee and homemade banana bread to get us going shortly after 3 am on the trail up to the Howser Bivy Boulder. Because we were saving time and weight, this approach involved us chopping steps in the moat (thanks to our guides training! ; ) )

the alpine start

the ice to approach the start of the route

I felt anxious about the glacier approach as we did our 5 rappels. Last time, this section had more snow than this time. I was the one without the crampons on this section last time and this time too, but this time the bullet-proof ice was even tricky for the person with the crampons. Its a couple hundred meters of hard glacier ice ranging from 20 to 35 degrees. We were slow with our rappelling and downclimbing and lost at least an extra hour here this time, which I would regret at the end of the day ; ).

Early morning granite goodness

trying to avoid the chim squeeze

The bottom half of the route went really smoothly. We knew where we were going. We lead the same ‘blocks’ as last time. Last time, I was short on sleep and had older rock shoes which really affected my experience. This time the rock was drier, I was full of energy and had some sweet new Katanas on  and I was loving the climbing.We tried to haul one of the harder 5.10 pitches, but the pack was so heavy and the rock not quite steep enough to make it an efficient means of upward progress. So mostly, the second carried the pack. This was  A  LOT of work.

There was no water on the route this late in the year, as we expected, so between us we had 5.5 L of water. For the record, I drank more than my share. It is a well known fact that Lilla is a camel and a much tougher climber than I. As with most things, she handled this gracefully.

the classic butt shot

Lilla lead the 1st pitch of the dihedral which had a 5.10 rating. As with most of the 5.10 on the route, I found it to be burly. I lead the rest of the dihedral in 60m pitches. I found the 5.11 climbing to be well-protected and FUN. Less burly then the 5.10 climbing, stemming and laybacking on great granite in the sun. Unfortunately, the setting sun. As I entered the 5.12 traverse pitch, it was obvious, due to dwindling daylight and increasing muscle fatigue, that french free and A1 were the methods of choice. Disappointing, due to the fact that the rock was dry and we had had so much success up to this point, but still endorphed by the amazing route and the fact that we were 70m from the top of the “tower” (the hard climbing).

Exhausted, Lilla took the hard job of aid climbing in the dark the final 70m to our ‘bivy ledge’. Due to fatigue and dehydration, this took a really long time. I struggled to stay awake at the hanging belays, despite being slowly tortured by my harness at my pelvis/femur joint. A heavy gri-gri seemed like a really good idea at this point.

3 am, brought us relief at the plush ledge and the familiar preparations of the ‘open-bivy’ that lie ahead. We welcomed a few hours of shut-eye. We did bring a super light sleeping bag and tarp, we sat on ropes and packs and spooned. The trade off of Lilla being the big spoon and I getting the outside of the ledge was unspoken.

the howsers shadow

Day 3:  Woken by sunrise and the hard cold surfaces we lay on, we slowly regained our momentum from the previous day. The shadow of the Howers on the surrounding valleys was an inspiration to us. We would not believe we made the ascent and the summit until much later. The sweetness of success takes awhile to reach the neurons. Perhaps, the drive to push through all obstacles needs to be so present, there is no room for savoring victory.

We didn’t know what the summit ridge and descent held for us. Our anxieties from being mountain guides who are always analyzing the worst case scenario and problem solving until we are home in our beds prevents us from enjoying the journey.

In retrospect, topping out on this route is so much easier than failing, rappelling and ‘going around’, especially under the threat of thunderstorms.

a spectacular venue

The summit ridge proved to be pretty straight-foward and mostly dry. The occasional snow patch provided an icy bite of desperately needed fluids. The descent, which we had done a year earlier, became familiar with each rappel. The excitement of rappelling over a 60m ’shrund was escalated with the find of icicles to wet our parched mouths. Just a few hours later we were sorting gear outside the Kain hut, where we were 48 hours before. I rushed down the hill to cold beer, salty chips and the anticipation of seeing my new boyfriend. Ahhhh, the good life.

What a great name for a route. AND its a super route, but in my very female opinion… its a bit sandbag at the grades.

Senja Palonen and I had a super day on this newer route that lives in the Dihedrals on the Chief between Millenium Falcon and Freeway. Every pitch is quality climbing and very sustained at the grades that are posted on the topo at www.quickdrawpublications.com.

Senja braving the last pitch of THE Gauntlet

We were both traumatized by the last pitch of run-out “5.8″ chim, and some thin traversing gear and moves to get there.

If you are not brave, definitely take the ‘chicken’ out 5.6 option. Otherwise, you can fully embrace the chimney and the 1 (thank-god) bolt that the first ascentionist reluctantly added.

Senja had some fantastic leads on the earlier 5.11 pitches and we both really enjoyed the quality of the climbing.

I recommend this route to the very solid 5.11 climber. Oh, and as far as I could tell you can get off this route with a 70m rope.

Hazel and I took a leisurely start to our day on the Northern Lights… which is comprised of 2 routes on the North Walls of the Chief: Alaska Highway and The Calling. Both super quality routes requiring some endurance and tenacity. We unconsciously left the headlamps behind. This could be viewed by some as a rookie maneuver… especially by a mountain guide, perhaps. BUT it was my day off and if I want to epic, I should be allowed to! Thankfully we have some fantastic friends that eased the pain of stumbling around in the dark, by hand delivering headlamps to us on the summit. Colin and Will are the BEST rescuers ever and should be bronzed as naked statues for this.

Sunset from near the top of the Chief

As the story goes, we could foresee our fate many hours before it happened. This anxiety may have lead us to deviate from the easiest way for the “walk-off” of the climb. We preferred the super sketch britsh hard-woman variation (thanks Hazelle!) Hazel not only found some extra-sketch climbing for us, but she also succeeded in nailing the easy exit to the summit in the dark.

In general, I have a ton to learn from watching Hazel Findlay lead and onsite hard trad routes. She is fantastic at keeping a cool head and moving quickly through difficult terrain.

I had a super day on Northern Lights and this progresses me further on the path to linking up lots of hard and easy pitches in a day!

Oh yeah, and I finally sent the crux on Alaska Highway. Although, I still have the goal of maintaining better headspace on this type of climbing… steep burly trad climbing.

Keen and optimistic

Lilla Molnar and I have been planning to climb All Along the Watchtower on the North Howser in the Bugaboos for the past couple summers…. We finally put together the time, training, logistics and (we thought) weather window!

Making the weather check via radio

We felt the stars were aligning when we finally got ourselves to East Creek Bivy and had to wait just one day for ‘bomber’ weather in order to do this climb. Its very committing once you rappel into the base of the route from the East Creek bivy, there is no easy way to reverse these rappels with the alternative being a very long and arduous hike out over the north shoulder of North Howser, or an extra leg by going the scenic route by juniper lake!

This video is of a very minor thundershower the day before our climb… That evening we got the Environment Canada stamp of approval (sunny side up egg) for the weather the following day. So we got up at midnight and embarked on our journey.

waiting out a 2 hour rain/thunderstorm

We arrived at the base of the route in good time, only to be welcomed by what we thought MUST be the END of the systems, so we sat at the base of the route for 2 hours waiting for the rain, thunder and lightening to stop. Then we started up the route. After about 5 pitches the weather around us was looking grim, with big cumulonimbus clouds forming all around, so we called for a weather update…. only to be told that Environment Canada had changed their forecast from sunny side up to  EXTREME WEATHER Warning for Thundershowers, in less than 12 hours. We climbed until the base of the headwall, where we came to terms with our situation. The disappointment was palapable, we couldn’t make sense of the fact that finishing this route was not a good idea with the given conditions. With hesitation and regret we started to descend the route, knowing that we were in for a VERY long day.

Great rock, shit weather

We rappelled in a torrent of water from the thunderstorm, had lightening crackling overhead as we crossed over loose talus fields for hours, climbed choss filled ledges, felt like a human Jenga stick in boulder fields, descended icy rocky gullies, literally crawled over glacier ice sans crampons, belayed in crevasses, got icy, slush filled shoes accross the Vowell glacier and  made it back to Applebee camp 30 hours after leaving our safe haven in East Creek.

disappointment, relief and exhaustion after a 30 hour epic

oh, hello

good times

Senja was generous today in sharing my first time on a Squamish classic…. Freeway. She let me figure my way up this super quality route, WOW. I am so impressed. I am surprised I haven’t been on it before now. Its such a good climb for a ‘rockies’ climber… very little jamming, although the few jams you get are very welcome.

stepping it up- the crux pitch

We took a leisurely pace and thoroughly enjoyed every pitch, although… near the end the sun came out and baked my feet which ballooned like bread loaves inside my climbing shoes. I was so hot and hungry near the end of the climb which just made me climb a bit faster.

Go Senja!

Highly recommended route especially for all those who do not love ‘the jam’. So grateful this route is ten minutes from the cold beer in my fridge. ; )

I am discovering cool things about living in Squamish such as visiting an organic farm just up the Squamish Valley. Here we can help out in trade of organic greens. Reminds me of the farms in Saskatchewan from my parents’ home town, my allergies haven’t changed much!, but its worth it.

the girls chatting and weeding

Lydia and a chicken

almost at the hand jams... i hope! photo by Paul Bride

Another fun day on Alaska Highway and the first 2 pitches of The Calling. A few heartbreakers for Jasmin and myself. Some “not quite” sendage moments, BUT mostly a great improvement from the last time I was on Alaska Highway. I felt stronger and only had one brief moment of grabbing a cam, yikes! bad girl.

My first time on The Calling. Its fanastic. I cannot wait to go back and learn how to jam the ‘greens’ a bit better, I had a scrappy exit flying off the start of the ‘reds’, frick! But I have a lot to learn about how to make that pitch feel like Jasmin makes it look when she cruises it.

I look forward to the full Northern Lights (AK Highway and the Calling) later in the season. I am so impressed with my friends who link up several classics like Freeway, Northern Lights and the Grand Wall in a day and I aspire to do half as much.