Morning Glory

Petra's Birthday Present:
A nice load of fresh powder!!!

Back on track!!! A few years after discovering Canadas Rockclimbs my skis heading into the white of the Canadian Selkirk Mountains. 

The Durrand Glacier Chalet, built by Ruedi Beglinger, founder of Selkirk Mountain Experience, will be Petra's and my home for 7 weeks. 

If we don't ski, we shovel...

The area has everything from alpine terrain with glaciers to perfect treeruns. 

Good Morning Durrand Glacier

Leaving for Mt. Tumbledown

South face Tumbledown

No helicopters, no snowmobiles, just walking...

...skiing...

... and seeing beautiful things.

Central Oregon is mostly flat. It's nice to have the sun not covered by mountains. Here we visited a graveyard close the highway.

Evening atmosphere.

Cruising south on the roads to the next climbing destination. SMITH ROCK!

The lower gorge in smith rock. A perfect place to climb trad on basalt and escape from the crowded main walls. There we met local climbers who invited us to climb with them in Trout Creek on the weekend. 

And that's Trout Creek. Basalt columns build the perfect place to test your crack climbing skills. Catelin climbs the beautiful 25m long stemming box called "Space between". A decent calf pump is guaranteed.

Folks hanging out at Trout Creek.

A climber in the perfect hand crack "Gold Rush" during the last daylight. Rack up with golden nr.2 camalots. That's where the name comes from.

We had some troubles at the border but finally they let us starting to conquer the united states.

The roads are long and the gas is cheap. 

Our first stop for climbing is Leavenworth, a crazy bavarian style town. But when you visit the valleys around you can let the city live behind you and dive deep into wild nature. Icicle Creek!

René jamming his way up in the 1960 Fred Beckey statement to Leavenworth. OUTER SPACE! And myself climbing a fingercrack.

Going into OUTER SPACE!

The canadian way of river crossing. Trying not to fall of.

Leavenworth's backyard!

The bouldering is not bad there too. Trevor cruising his V7 project in the forestlands.

The ferrie is for free, because it's part of the highway system.

An older picture, but I definetly arrived in the rockie mountains.

The drive from Bowden to Jasper with the abraham lake.

I met René in Jasper, we know each other from squamish. We celebrate the climbers parking lot live and our outdoor kitchen skills are ready for a new cooking show on tv.

Here we go...

There are a lot of beautiful places in the rockies. The first picture is probably in every tourists camera. Not the second one. Left you can see the famous Lake Louise, right the view from the top of Sentinel.

The sentinel is this nice quartzite tower in this beautiful scenery.

Climbing is the only way to get up there. We were surprised by the rock, which changed it's color every four meter and can also look like hard ice cream.

I'm a little bit scared about heights...

Hanging out on top...

On the way back... Wotsch e muni choufe?

Moraine Lake, Lake Louise.

We climbed the raptor route on the mount rundle. We were caught in the rain during the third pitch. But the rough limestone allows climbing also in the rain, so we could finish the route. 

Mount Yamnuska in a kind of morning ambience. We climbed the Kahl of the dawn, to the right of the obvious pillar in the middle of the mountain. It was a challenging line on bolts and traditional gear.

Peyto Lake. Unfortunately you can't see the hundred asian tourists behind me.

I could spend four awesome days at a farm close to Bowden, AB. The swiss/canadian family Raduner lives there and I enjoyed to see how the life is there.
Pick up trucks and horse trailers at the cancer ride, which was a perfect opportunity to feel the cowboy groove in alberta. Thank you for your spontaneous hospitality!

It wouldn't be a serious canada trip without the try to be a lumberman!

Calgary downtown seems to be: the city with the highest density of brown buildings...

...a very business orientated city...

...the home of many trucks...

The way to get there was not that easy. 50 km of bumpy logging road with obstacles.

And then you have to protect your car with the fence. Otherwise the porcupines will show up and they would go for your rubber.

The first breathtaking view to the bugaboo glacier.

The weather can change very quickly up there.

Postcard views from the Kain Hut. Sadly no double rainbow.

Snowpatch Spire

Camping at the Applebee Campground at 2400 meters above sea level.

Small elias in front of the Bugaboo Spire. And Snowpatch Spire again.

Me leading a quality 5.9 on the Mc Tech Arete. Posing with Harry on the top of Crescent Spire in front of the Bugaboo Spire. The next day we planned to climb the NE-Ridge of the Bugaboo Spire. Unfortunately Harry pulled a fridge-sized block which was loose. The block rolled over his foot and we had to rappel in alpine chossy terrain. It was a long walk down for him with his swollen blue foot. Luckily the x-ray at the hospital couldn't find any broken bones.

Summarized: Harrys rigth foot vs. huge rock = 1:0