A wild one

Nick celebrating finishing the crux of the route - just getting to its start

We finally managed to get on a route we'd been hopping to do all trip (infact it had been at the top of Nick's list for his last 4 trips to Canada). Riptide WI6-7 is rated as one of the finest ice routes in the world in the latest guidebook but there is one not so small problem - the approach. No tracks, thick wood, a river crossing, hanging seracs, an avalanche bowl and snow which at times was head height bottomless mush. Still 5 and a half hours later we made it to the base.

Mummy!

After that the route went fine. Waves of spindrift, the echoing sounds of avalanches around the cirque and a long long way above Icefields Parkway made for quite a serious alpine feel. In the end the climbing itself was quite a bit more reasonable than the hype. A fine experience.

Nick about to knock a 30 lb column of ice on the photographers head

Classic Ice and classic mistake

The end of last week we were looking for a more mellow day so made the long drive (2 1/2 hours there) to the classic Curtain Call. Both of us had wanted to climb this for ages having seen some amazing shots of its 2 long pitches of cauliflower ice. We weren't dissapointed with the second pillar (Nick leading it in the shot above) being particularly sculptural. On the way back we got some views of Mount Andromeda and came face to face with a small group of Big Horn Sheep.
This weekend temperatures jumped from winter to spring and we really should have stayed in Canmore drinking Lattes at the Summit Cafe. We've been pretty keen to get into the mountains so made the typical mistake of being over optimistic. We camped beneath the superb line of Silver Lining 700m WI6...
Started early...this is Nick (below) on the first (one of the cruxes) pitch...
...and then met an avalanche at the top of pitch 2 which finally persuaded as on the Latte option.