Ice climbing again?? Shocking!

The two weeks since my Tdot visit have been a flurry of activity. Work is proving to be amazing, I'm loving what I do and I love my coworkers even more...

All week I spend working hard (I actually find myself looking forward to going into work). However, its the weekends that I love the most, I giv'er hard during the week knowing that I will be rewarded by SIC climbing in the mountains come Saturday morning.

Friday our office shut down at 2:30 - we had a gift exchange thing at our favorite bar... followed by copious amounts of drinking all graciously paid for by the boss-man (thanks Dave!). I ended up leaving there around 7, I had a party I was invited to at 8 so I figured I could pass out for a wee bit... hahaha - next thing I know its 10:30 (ooops looks like I missed the party). My coworker Julie called me and convinced me to join her at a bar downtown... it doesn't take much to get me out to the bar these days. Boozin with Julie was rad - its funny how you see someone at work and then you see em out in non-work functions and they are SO different. I see Julie and I having alot of fun working together.

Anyways - next thing I know its 2am and I had to wake up at 5:30AM to go ice climbing with Grant so I bowed out and wished Jules a rockin night.

BZZZZZZ BZZZZZZ - damn waking up at 5:30 sucked... I met Grant in the cold darkness and off we went to Kananaskis (the closest mountains to Calgary). After some putz-ing around we decided to do Kidd Falls (WI 4) a tremendous alpine ice climb. For those of you that don't know an alpine ice climb is one that usually requires a LONG hike uphill in snow to get to.








Leaving the car I glanced down at my watch it read -14 degrees, which was chilly but really not so bad - I was happy to have my down jacket in my pack.

After 2 hours of hiking up the mountain we arrived at the base of the climb. Something was weird though - it was warm - bloody warm. I stripped layer after layer, next thing I know I was topless!! Topless high up on a mountain looking at a rad 250-foot piece of ice towering above us!


I led up the first long pitch, the sun had softened up the ice, it was so easy to get my tools into the ice - however placing protection proved to be a challenge. I had to chop away so much sunbaked ice to place my screws - basically we use these 17cm hollow screws as our protection... had I fallen, in theory the screws should of stopped me, the reality was the ice was so damn soft that most of my screws would of pulled if I had fallen... I felt solid though throughout the entire climb. I found myself in a trance-like mood... focusing on all that had to be done without really worrying too much about the dangerous part.



120 feet later I arrived at a rad ledge where I clipped into some bolts and screamed a big wooohooo! This was probably my most enjoyable day of ice climbing yet. I quickly took my shirt off once again and brought Grant up. This is where things went from warm and beach-like to freaking cold.



The sun dipped behind the mountain and the temp went from topless to damn cold – of course all the nice warm clothes we brought with us was down on the ground and we still had another 100+ feet of climbing to go - Brrrrrrrr. I sent Grant off to lead this pitch, by the time I joined him at the top both the ropes were frozen solid, in fact everything that was wet before (which was pretty much everything) had now turned to a ice cube. I rappelled down the frozen ropes and once on the ground ran for my thermos full of piping hot tea…

We hiked down the mountain – getting lost in the process, a few hours later we ended up at the car – tired, cold but happy as hell.

Hoppin to the 416

The last couple of weeks have been super-rad for me, I started workin and even got sent to Toronto for a week of partying, climbing, training and maybe some more partying.

It all started with a 'Surprise' party at Rob's house. I learned a few important lessons that night;

1) Regardless of how cool my new cowboy shirt looks - one should always avoid buying clothes that are made from 100% Acetate. I swear it felt like I was wearing plastic... but damn did it look pimp!

2) Grown men (and some women) really enjoy climbing all over each other playing stupid games when too much alcohol is consumed.



3) Regardless of how rad Calgary is - there is nothing that can beat being home surrounded by the best friends in the world!


I guess I learned another thing too - Bryden should never be left alone while drunk... he ends up talkin to himself... poor guy.