Canadian Rockies and the Bugaboos in August 2004

In the spring of 2004, Spencer Matthews and I started talking more seriously about taking a road trip up north to Canada.  We talked over the course of a couple months and set our sites for the first half of August, the ideal time of the year to be climbing in the Canadian Rockies.

And so Spencer drove from San Diego up here to Seattle.  After a day of planning, checking weather and grocery shopping, we decided to head to British Columbia's Glacier National Park.  Glacier is home to Mt. Sir Donald, who's NE ridge is listed in Steck and Roper's 50 classics.  I recall the drive as being about 6 hours from Seattle to Glacier where we picked up our climbing permits, packed our backpacks and made the quick hike up to our camp site for the night.  Here are a couple of pictures from that evening:

Early the next morning (around 6am), we woke up, had breakfast and headed off towards the saddle at which the ridge began.  We arrived at the saddle to find a group of four climbers gearing up to hit the ridge.  Spencer and I were a little bummed that we were behind two parties, especially when we saw that they were roping.  We were hoping to solo the whole thing, so we figured that we would eventually be able to pass them.  This proved true after one pitch.  From there on, Spencer and I were cruising on third, forth and very easy fifth class terrain.  Sir Donald is very worthy of its place on the 50 classics.  Mind you, I haven't been climbing for very long, and I haven't been to too many places, but this ridge climb had a consistency and a flow to it that made for a spectacular day of solo climbing. 

I was concerned about weight and moving quickly, so I decided not to bring my camera.  So the following pictures are from Spencer's digital camera.  The pictures are almost all shot by Spencer, except for the pictures of him, which I shot.

Spencer and I made the ascent in about 3.5 hours.  An older guy was up there soaking in the view.  The three of us descended together to help with the route finding.  Route finding wasn't much of an issue, as the park rangers had made color photos of the descent route that had big shiny rap bolts.  We had heard many stories of people being benighted on this route, and we were very thankful for an easy exit with ideal weather.

We packed back up, headed back for the car, and decided to shoot for Golden, BC to find well deserved pizza and beer.

We found an excellent pizza joint ??? that evening.  When we asked the manager there what people do for fun on a Monday evening, she said that it was "Fresh Meat Monday" at the local strip club.  Apparently they get a new stripper each month and the first Monday of the month is the unveiling...  While it was tempting to be a part of the local culture, we opted to find a low key bar for beer.  

Later that night, as Spencer and I were heading out of town, looking for flat spaces to camp, we were pulled over.  My mind went to another climbing web site I had visited a couple of years ago where a guy was getting back from an all day climb, was pulled over and asked if he was drinking as he swerved while looking for a campsite.  His answer was "No sir, I have been climbing".  Sure enough, the officer asked the standard question, and I replied (trying to suppress the smirk) as the other had: "no sir, we've been climbing".  They looked through the van, a tangled mess of ropes, packs and boots, told us that we looked as if we were asleep at the wheel (which is fair, we were looking from side to side, rather than straight down at the road), and suggested a spot we could camp. 

The next day we putzed around Golden and looked at the weather reports.  We headed off to Banff to investigate possible climbs.  As the day went on, we both became painfully sore from the prior day's exertions.  So between the weather and our need for recouperation time, we decided to head north to Jasper via the Columbia Icefield Parkway, while looking for a place to pull off and camp.  It was difficult, but we eventually found a pullout that hid the van and had a flat spot for our tent.  

We were still amazingly sore the next day, so we took our time driving along the Columbia Icefield Parkway, stopping to take a gander at Mt. Athabasca and a few other super scenic mountains.

We found a camp site in Jasper, and made preparations to get up early and hit Mt. Edith Cavell.  Again, I did not bring my camera, as we were soloing the East Ridge, and we knew we had a time line with thunderstorms predicted around 3pm.  Most of the following pictures were shot by Spencer, the exceptions being the photos of him:

Spencer and I soloed the route in great time.  We were up at the summit far earlier than I had expected, considering my experience on it the prior year.  The climbing wasn't as pleasant as Mt. Sir Donald.  We had been spoiled by that climb.  The climbing on Edith Cavell was generally rather chossy.  We had to be very careful all the time to not break off stuff on each other.  But it was a great day none the less.  The descent wasn't very pleasant either.  It was 95% scree.  Once we finished off the the descent proper, we still had to hoof all the way around the mountain (we did a carryover), back to the car.  We got caught in a torrential thunderstorm on the way back and were ridiculously soaked by the time we dove into the van.

We headed south on the Columbia Icefield Parkway to our secret nook for the night, and continued back south to Golden to do laundry, groceries and wait for Michael and Becca.  Becca is a girl that Spencer met in Moab.  She is a very accomplished rock climber and we were looking forward to hanging with someone who knew how to climb really hard (or at least harder than either of us).  Little did we know...

So we meet up with the two in Golden and go out for beer at the Omega (cool joint).  The next day is devoted to more errands to prep for heading into the wilderness.  Then we're off to Bugaboo Provincial Park.  The drive in pretty ugly.  Most cars could do it safely in August, as the dirt road was solid, albeit horribly rutted and there were huge rocks sticking out.  My father's wheel chair accessible van was an exception though.  It was very difficult to not scrape the bottom of the van, and we did in fact do damage to the undercarriage.  Something unique about the Bugaboos (among many) is that the local porcupine population has taken to dining on rubber - specifically the various hoses found underneath one's car!  So the good park's people have left hundreds of yards of chicken wire fencing and sizable sticks to enclose your car with.  Unfortunately, I neglected to take pictures of this.  So by 7pm, we were finally on the trail to the vaunted Bugaboos!

The approach was hard.  The fact that I was hauling roughly 100lbs made it really hard.  I was more wasted that night, by the time I reached the hut, than I've been in a long, long while.  Spencer and I set up camp in an illegal bivy near the hut that night around midnight.  Becca and Michael had continued past the hut towards the campground and bivied halfway there.

The next day we set up camp and Camp Applebe and then went to climb Lion's Way a relatively short, high star route.  The book description was so bad, we never found the start.  Turns out that we were right underneath.  So we quit, went back to camp, took some pictures and went to bed early to get an early start on the next morning.

Michael and I awoke at 5am the next morning to get after Snowpatch Spire.  Spencer and Becca woke up about half an hour later, yet caught up with us as we hit the technical part of the climbing.  I think I was the slow person in the group.  As we finally got going, we could hear Spencer and Becca bickering with each other about how to belay and other things.  There was a bad juju there, and I was glad that they eventually separated from us (they were moving considerably faster than Michael and I).

The Snowpatch Route on Snowpatch Spire is really awesome.  It was really nice climbing for all the ~15 pitches, never getting too demanding.  The route was a little less obvious that I had expected, so provided for a little sense of adventure.  Many of the middle pitches were easy enough to simul-climb, which is really fun.

And finally at the top!

The rap route and the return to camp:

Michael and I returned back to camp after 15 hours after having left.  We slept very well that night, and had a leisurely morning before getting going on our "rest day" scramble to Brenta Spire.  Even the scrambling in the Bugaboos is superb.  Lots of exposure, lots of great views, and lots of mileage!  Becca opted to stay at camp, and at this point we were beginning to feel like Becca wasn't a very good choice as a fourth to our party.  Indeed, that evening, she told Spencer that she didn't want to climb with him anymore.  I overheard her say to someone else at the camp that she hadn't come up with anyone, so I confronted her about her attitude.  When I indicated that she didn't need to climb with Spencer exclusively, that Michael and I were both competent and trustworthy climbers, she indicated that she wanted to climb with someone who was on par with her climbing abilities...  I've never experienced snobiness in the climbing community, so it was a shock that I was dealing with it in a remote, alpine wilderness.  Oh well, she really needed deodorant.

The next morning Michael and I were up and out of camp at 5:45am which proved to be a little too late.  We were on our way up with a number of other groups all heading for the same place.  It was hard not to feel competitive with them, jockeying to be ahead in the cue for what is reputedly one of the greatest rock climbing routes in North America.  Once we were finally at the base of the climbing, we had to wait for two parties to rope up and head out.  This route is super classic.  It was consistently some of the best alpine climbing I've ever had a chance to be on.  One of the pitches was the steepest 5.6 I've ever been on.

The adventure was only half over when we finally got to the summit.  From there, we had to traverse knife edge ridges and dicey exposure to find the descent route.  We were just getting to the couloir as the sun went down, so we still had some adventure getting down over the crevasses.  We got back at midnight, and all I could think about as we stumbled over snow, talus and scree was the brick of parmesan cheese waiting at camp.

Michael and I allowed ourselves to sleep in the next morning.  We were pretty hammered and knew that we couldn't climb anything, and we didn't have much more time before I needed to be back in Seattle to take care of some business, so Michael, Spencer and I packed up and mosied out (sans Becca).

Some more pictures from the way out of Snowpatch Spire:

On the drive out of the park, I noticed the van seemed to be behaving a little strangely.  Fortunately for us, it didn't die until we were in Radium Hot Springs.  We limped into a local garage and the mechanic begrudgingly took a look at it.  He diagnosed a sickly fuel pump.  He didn't have one, and being Friday, wouldn't be able to get it until Monday, so we were potentially stuck in Radium through the weekend.  He indicated that fuel pumps don't just keel over, but rather die a slow death, with heat aiding the process.  So he recommended that we travel at night and get up to Golden, a larger city that would most likely have the pump in stock.  So after hitching up to the hot springs and back, and after pizza, we tried our luck in the one and a half hour drive to Golden.  The next morning, we found a mechanic who had the part, and managed to install it in roughly three hours for a pretty reasonable price.  I love Canadians.