Mt. Joffre Solo summer ' 04

I finally got to the summit of my first Rocky Mountain in the summer of ' 04. After the four previous attempts it felt good to bag it and solo at that. I had tried in winter solo, spring solo and with a friend and then got it in summer solo. I learned a lot about the snow pack in the Rockies and that was as good as a summit on every trip.

It's a ways back there.... looks can be and are deceiving. I just kept going and going and going and it never seamed to get closer.
Loved being here by myself, the weather was perfect and I felt great !

Well my first Rocky Mountain summit picture ! I spent about 2 hours up here just eating and hanging out. I really didn't want to leave but did make my way all the way out to the truck the same day. It took me 29 hours car to car with a bivi at Aster Lake.

The Canmore 500

Chris, Steve and I set off for Canmore for the weekend, fun. We started with a summit of Chinamens Hat and then off to the bar. Much fun had by all.

The boys making the way up in less than perfect conditions but still good times.

Steve almost there.

Chris coming up on the summit.

A look over the edge...

Summit with Steve on the right.

The next day we went climbin at Grassi Lakes. I lead a 5.8, slowly, in wet boots. The rock wasn't to warm either and it made for some cold hands.

Finishing up on some top rope fun.

The next morning we got a good look at the summit of the day before last. And were off.

The Twins Attempt 07/04/07

Mark, Ahnah in the backgound behind and between us and I off to climb The Twins... So we thought.


The North Bowl of Andromeda.
Ahanh pulling sled with ease on the flat tongue of the Athabasca glacier.

Ahnah slept at the foot of the tent, as usual.

She also stole Chris and Lisa's sausage, little thief.
A few parties of ACC'ers passed by in the morning. We were less motivated than these folks.
Morning Chris.

Dude's
Goose.

Avy's started pouring off Little Snow Dome just as we were getting on our way. The camp was far from danger.

Ahanh wanting to get going..?
More Avy's... This is a good sequence of two Avy's.

WoW !
Ahnah did very well on the flats and slight inclines but she had problems with the steeper parts. Many with the switch backs sharp turns.

Snow Dome's Ice Cliff you passed on route to the head wall that leads to the Columbia Ice field proper.

Don't hang out here.





Clear of the Ice Cliff we stopped for a moment. You can see the switch backs that make up the trail up the Head Wall. I turned back at the bottom of the first turn you can see. The dog was over packed, My boots were not very good for skiing, I was in plastic mountaineering boots, and they gave me a large blister for the first time. Never skied in them before. I was frustrated with my lack of fore site, I had not planned the trip as well as I could have. The dog was working to hard for my liking and over all I was just not in a great space to make any contribution to the "team" in my funk. A learning experience for sure.

This is Ahnah passing under the Ice Cliff after me, about 5 minutes before this happened....

You can see her in the fore ground on the path. The little black dot.

It was a large chunk of ice with the avy lasting for a bit and cleared the path we were just on. You can see that Ahnah is almost to where I was standing by the time it started to clear.

The rest was straight forward so no pic's but I had to haul both the sled and my bag up the last hill to the Snow Coach parking lot and it had no snow on it ! Sucked! Over all a learning experience for me.