And the winner is.....

Last Tuesday June 19 2007 was the annual ACC Calgary Section photo contest. Myself and Stacey cleaned the place up.

Left: Silver Skillet "Best Humour"

Middle: Francis Pearce Trophy "Best Flora"

Right: Hillbilly Bowl "Best Rock Climbing"
Far Right: New batch of Shiraz

Best Humour: Dressed to Impressed By Stacey

Best Flora: Pigeon Flower By Mathieu

Best Rockclimbing: Redpoint or Brownpoint by Mathieu

Stacey also got lots of Honorable mentions for Ice climbing and Rockclimbing pictures althought it should be noted that I was the subject in most of those photos.

Just hiking he said...

On June 15th we celebrated our 2 year anniversary by going at Yoho National Park in BC. We left Thursday night and stayed at a beautiful cabin at Cathedral mountain lodge just East of Field. The weather looked gloomy(rain, showers, rain) all weekend so we set our sights for some chill out time and maybe a bit of hiking. To say we "just hiked" would be an understatement.

Our cabin

Friday was all fine with a short hike into Sherbrooke lake. The trail climbs up from the road for 1.5 hours and the follows a beautifull alpine lake. We walked up in the rain and stopped for lunch under a big pine tree right on the lake shore. The sun actually made short appearance and Stacey took that opportunity to nap and I dipped into the scotch. We resumed our hike and were hoping to get into Niles Meadow which is just pass the lake. The weather had other plans. As soon as we got to the back of the lake a quick moving snow squall sent us running back to the car in full rain gear.

Stacey at Sherbrooke Lake seconds before the snow squall

The next day we (or I) set our sights for the Wapta Highline trail, the hiking guidebooks raved about this hike. The trail starts at Emerald Lake which is a beautiful turquoise alpine lake, then the trail goes up to Yoho Pass then stays high and crosses the base of Mount Wapta and Mount Field then crosses into Burgess Pass and finally goes down back to Emerald Lake. What makes this trail special is that it once you get to the base of Mount Wapta you are crossing into the Burgess Shale strata. Now for all you non geological folks out there, this "layer" of the Rocky mountains contains an incredible concentration of fossils. Most of the fossils are over 500 million years old

Burgess Shale Fossils (not my pictures)

Well we didn't see any fossils, the main reason is that we were waist deep in snow for most of the hike. I think me and Stacey now understand the meaning of "Post holing". The word or verb 'post holing' refers to the action of punching thru the snow and sinking up to your knee or waist. Lets just say, its a very tiresome way of covering 10km.

On the way up to Yoho Pass, before we hit the snow line.

Now you would think that we would of known better and turned around at the first sign of trouble however I don't listen to common sense or Stacey's wisdom. We got up to Yoho pass without any difficulty, we hit snow for the last 300 m and couldn't find the trail. We had lunch and I went wandering around and I found the sign post for the trail just 10 metres from the spot where we were having lunch. I decided to keep going and Stacey didn't like the prospect of walking on snow for 3 hours however she also didn't want me to go on by myself, so she decided to come along. I'll let her tell the rest of the story so stay tuned.....

ACC rock review

Last weekend we went to the Alpine Club of Canada Rock Review. Its basically just a social gathering of club members where we camp out in the Ghost and go climbing. We drove up on Friday night and were welcomed by 2 fellow members
[Us still sitting in truck] - Are the bugs bad?
[Them swinging their arms wildly in the arm]- They are awful don't even think of getting out of your truck without long sleave shirts, pants and a good shower of DEET.
So we set up our tent in a cloud of musquito.
The next day we headed up to STD wall. This climbing wall across the North Ghost River (The photos are in the post from June7).

This river crossing is at the center of an access issues for climbers at the moment. The government of Alberta has found a few bull trouts (a non native fish species) in the river and has basically banned any mothorizied vehicle crossing. I could talk about this for a while so lets just say we parked the truck and crossed the cold raging river by foot. We climbed a few routes and hung out with friends we haven't seen in a while. We forgot our rope in the truck and had to borrow a friends (See "Short Roping Technique" discussion below).
That evening we had a huge feast of burgers and veggies. A few kegs where also on hand to quench our thirst. Prizes where donated to the club and a draw was made to hand out every thing from ice screws, back packs and clothes. Me and Stacey cleaned up the place and made out with a new belay device, locking beaner and the grand prize a patagonia down vest.
The next day we went hiking up Black Rock mountain which is a nice hike to an old fire look out. (Summit in the background of the photo below). We hanged around the summit for 1/2 hour and then made a quick run for the trees since a thunderstorm was brewing overhead. We made it to the trees just in time and had a nice walk in the rain.

Overall a great weekend, with great people and the ghost held all sorts of surprises for us.

Short roping techniques

Mathieu - Hey can I borrow your Rope?
Ken - Sure, go right ahead but its not a 60m
Mathieu - What did he say?

.......... a few minutes later

Mathieu - Errr Brian, this isn't the 5.9
Brian - Oh it will be alright
Mathieu - Hmmmm.
Brian - it looks fine I think the anchor is just over that lip
Mathieu - OK then,
Brian - Excellent, your lead..
Mathieu - ......

......... 4 bolts later

Brian - I've found the topo
Mathieu - Just keep belaying, k, and don't tell me how hard/easy it is.
Brian - (Starts whistling)

.

....... 12 bolts later at the lip

Mathieu - (muttering to himself) shisty I'm out of draw. BRIAN, I've got one bolt left and the anchor is another 5 metre.

Brian - wow that's a long route

Mathieu - secure!! (build anchor) READY TO LOWER, Errr Brian can you tie in...

Brian - sure, you don't think you'll make it down??

Mathieu - We'll see

....... 3 bolts to the ground (10 m off the ground)

Brian - Well I guess this is it. How are you getting down?

Mathieu - Just start climbing and i'll 'assist' you.

Brian - Yes but I need to clean and rappel, I'll never have enough rope,

Mathieu - your turn to clean.

[We all made it back to camp that night, The End]

ACC Rock Review Photos

Traditional Ghost Bonfire

Stacey on STD wall, Ghost River in the background

Stacey half wayup STD wall, Black Rock Mountain in the background