Spring Change

Spring is a time for being busy; watching change and getting things done. That is exactly how I have found myself in the last few weeks: busy watching change.  Since last blogging I have been on an interpretive guides’ course and passed the final IGA exam. Technically if I had a visa I could work as a ‘guide’ in any national park in Canada.  I say ‘guide’ as this means different things to different people; anyone doing any sort of guiding in a national park has to have passed an IGA assessment, but it doesn’t mean you’re qualified to take groups out on alpine climbing expeditions or anything exciting like that.  It means that I know a bit about the history, geology and eco-regions of the national parks and the flora and fauna found within them. Enough to make a simple hike along the many trails a touch more interesting for your average city slicker who is daunted by the prospect of seeing a deer in the wild or confused about the migration of the Native Peoples from the sub-continent of India.

The Back Country

The IGA course was a minor diversion from the main activity of the last few weeks.  Skiing and learning how to ski and survive ‘safely’ in complex, back country, avalanche terrain. Something I evidently achieved. Using ski touring [or back country skiing] as a vehicle to learn winter camping and navigation skills, powder and glacial skiing and for the practical elements of the Canadian Avalanche Associations, Avalanche Safety Training [AST] levels 1 & 2.  Yeah, more qualifications to add to the list.

Heavy bags and rest

So what did I learn?  Ski touring, with all of your camping equipment, is hard work. On average we managed about 7km a day [something I’d run in about 30 minutes]; and those 7ks were gruelling, head down, hot sweaty, silent kilometres. With just day equipment, the skiing wasn’t quite so punishing but we only skied downhill for about 15 minutes, taking 6 or 7 hours to do the uphill. This just doesn’t seem quite worth it; not enough bang for your buck. Yes skiing through untouched light fluffy powder is quite delightful, and climbing to the top of a mountain peak is always a fun achievement, but combing the two just doesn’t seem to work for me. And it’s definitely not worth it when you have to carry a tent, stove, food, avalanche gear etc. However there is something quite magical about the process of skiing up a hillside and not sliding backwards with every step you take. Curiously skiing up hill and along flats is still called walking even though you are skiing. This lead to me being a touch confused and making the first few hours of my first tour even more hard work as my my boots were in ski mode not walk mode; to me I was skiing not walking.  

 

Happy to be on a summit and not skiing up any more

Digging a storage hole

 A very heavy bag and dehydration seem to be my most memorable points about winter camping.  At the campsite one is perpetually melting and boiling snow, for either cooking or drinking water.  Everything you need to camp is heavier than in the summer, in order to keep you warmer and or drier; which are both much appreciated.  This leads me to conclude they build mountain huts and lodges for a reason [on several occasions we camped within a kilometre of such structures of happiness].  On the plus side you can make the camp site very comfortable, digging benches and tables out of the snow to make group kitchens, sleeping on the soft snow under the tent and being able to dig nice storage areas in the tent’s vestibules. Also as it gets dark quite early, there is not much to do apart from boil snow, it’s cold at night and it’s cold until mid morning, you get to spend a long time in the mostly comfortable tent. In fact I didn’t really have anything against winter camping, apart from the means of getting to the campsite.  

You can't wild camp in a national park, so we pitched our tent about 2m from this sign

Simple camp kitchen

On our first trip my tent buddies and I awoke to find that some small night creature had stolen all of our food, leaving one tea bag and a portion of lentil curry. Another important lesson about wild camping learnt the hard way.

Before my second ski touring/camping trip in a bid to reduce weight I removed everything from my bag that I didn’t use on the first.  This helped, but I couldn’t help but feel that I had left some important things behind. For example my first aid kit became 3 blister patches. 

Nice Trail

Whilst I complained [internally of course: I am British] about the camping and my heavy back pack, the actual skiing was quite good fun. I enjoyed being at the front and breaking trail through the several inches on of untouched snow, and skiing down a climbed peak was pretty amazing.  Skiing through reasonably thick trees is pretty scary, but certainly focuses the mind and makes a good change. One of my favourite moments was emerging on to a groomed piste at Sunshine Village, having just finished a 3 day back country tour.  Although this served as a reminder that there is a good reason ski lifts were invented.

I was also lucky enough to get a second lap, both up and down of one peak due to the fact one of the group fell and twisted her knee.  We had split in to two groups, for once I was in the advanced group. My group had reached the bottom of the mountain when our guide got a radio message saying we had to go back up.  He shot up at a super fast speed, I took a much more leisurely 40 minutes, draining the last of my energy going back up a peak I thought I was finished with. The group the casualty was with had made it about 100 meters from where they started.  I arrived back at the top just in time to see the casevac helicopter land with perfect precision right next to the casualty. Seeing the amazing flying and the speed at which the rescue happened filled me with confidence about being in the mountains.

Too Much Snow

Having slogged our way along 8kms and up 700m of vertical gain to set up camp for our next trip, it started to snow quite heavily. Over the next 24 hrs we were graced with about 90cm of snow.  Yeah the amazing mythical powder I came to Canada in search of!!!  Turns out you can have too much snow; the avalanche risk reached extreme. As we were on our AST 2 course we could figure this out for ourselves and understand the implications of type and amount of snow.  So we spent a day in our tents, only emerging to dig the tent out to stop it from collapsing or to boil more snow. On the third day our only option was to cut the trip short and ski out as the avalanche risk was only going to increase even though it had stopped snowing. 90cm of snow is too heavy to ski in, you can barely turn and woe betide you if you are foolish enough to stop as getting going again is quite a problem.  On the way down walk/ski mode on my boots also caught me out again; leaving my boots in walk mode whilst skiing down, causing me to topple backwards several times.To be honest I was quite glad this trip was cut short as I picked up a touch of man flu before setting off, meaning I was delirious for most of the ski out and spent the two nights and day, alternating between boiling and shivering in my sleeping bag, whilst coughing up copious amounts of brown goo.

Hiding from the snow

A More Advanced Kitchen

In between my last ski touring trip and the adventure medicine course which starts this weekend I have managed to squeeze in my 50^th day of piste skiing in Canada.  Quite a milestone for a never-ever skier such as myself.  Although it felt a little bit wrong to be skiing in 22˚C bright sunshine; more bikini than salopettes.

I have enjoyed watching the mountains, and the view from my window change; the snow is almost gone from the peaks and treeline is getting greener and more abundant, and somehow the sky framing it all is bluer than before. Living in the mountains is truly beautiful.

I have learnt that any change in conditions, particularly sudden change, is bad for increasing avalanche risk.  But I also learnt that avalanches are really important for creating food sources for the sleepy bears that are waking up in the spring sunshine. So a bit like life some change is good and some is bad.

Up to no good

Sometimes it is possible to not see the changes that creep along day by day, until you step back and look at the bigger picture.  It has only just hit me how much my daughter has changed in the four months that we have been in Canada. You can now have a full conversation with her, whereas before she only had a few words. Her long arms can reach any table top and most shelves, leaving nowhere safe to leave glasses, phones, and scissors. When we first arrived the furniture seemed to dwarf her.  But most significantly of all she is finally turning in to a little person, all be it a slightly manipulative, mischievous and naughty one. Someone it is almost fun to spend time with. A very significant change for me.

And lastly my thoughts about the future are changing. I never really came to Canada with some great plan to implement, more to just see what turned up. I thought I liked the idea of being a mountain guide, now I’m not so sure: some things are best kept as hobbies. Maybe my life back home wasn’t as bad as I thought.  Certainly something for me to think about in my last two months here; although I’ll probably change my thoughts on that several more times before going home.

As for my course, well it’s finally time to say good bye to winter pursuits, and make the change to rock climbing in the sun.  All via a 10 day ‘adventure medicine course’; with another exam and two big manuals to read.  Isn’t change fun?

Ice Ice baby....

So having said bye bye to skiing, what have I been up to?  Messing about on ice, that’s what. 

Balfour Falls - Typical of what we climbed

The mountain skills semester began at a fast pace; heading straight out to learn the basics of moving on ice on day 1, and progressing to a 7 day expedition in order to learn all about ice climbing.

Half the group after a days climb at 2 O'clock Falls

Along with the eleven other students and two guides, I headed out to the Athabasca Ice Fields in the Jasper National Park.  The students on this course are more of a diverse collection than they were during my ski instructors’ course. This time I am not the oldest; there is a 60 year old Norwegian [although he has already climbed Everest], there are three people from Japan, another Brit and six Canadians, with ages ranging from 19 through to mid 30’s.  From a medical point of view the group is well catered for as it contains a doctor and two emergency medical technicians. The other Brit, Occy, is a 19 year from Jersey, to whom I have taken a shine. I find him very amusing: he loves the military and has possibly read more Andy McNab’s and Chris Ryan’s than I have. I see in him a reflection of myself at that age. He did state that we call Cantaloupe melons, orange melons in England, and he only discovered what WC stood for when one of the guides announced that that is where I was, as opposed to being at the dinner table. Hence the source of some of my amusement.

After spending a week with the group in the confined enclosure of an isolated mountain lodge, Occy and I were left wondering who would be the first to flash in a fit of rage. Something which is bound to happen at some point. Poor personal hygiene, snoring, bad light discipline, laziness during group chores will all act as fuel to a fire sparked by fatigue.  In some ways I look forward to this happening.

Whilst the hut might have been isolated and basic: no electricity, no communications, two 6 man rooms and a hole in the ground for the WC, the food provided by Yamnuska [the company running the programme] is amazing. They run a world class expedition food company alongside the guiding company. All of our meals are perfectly balanced from a nutrition point of view and cooked/dehydrated in house. They also provide us with daily snack packs – I have now eaten so many Cliff power bars that I feel like a pro extreme athlete with sponsorship.

Back to the main topic of Ice climbing, which is basically climbing frozen waterfalls using an ice axe in each hand and with crampons strapped to your feet.  I quickly progressed from learning how to walk on ice in crampons and how to use the axes to climbing near vertical frozen waterfalls.

As it turns out I am not a natural ice climber; it takes a degree of coordination of all four limbs that I seem to be lacking.  When combined with a vice lack grip on the axes, making my arms burnout within metres, and an inability to effectively swing the ice axe with my left arm [due to previous shoulder surgery, at least that is my excuse] I quickly felt my morale sinking as I struggled to climb efficiently.  In the words of one instructor I was, “inventing my own style of climbing”.  Never-the-less I gave it my all and struggled through.  

Me Climbing

The whole experience was pretty amazing, even if I didn’t excel. We had great weather: a very sunny and warm -2 to +10 ˚C, more preferential to the average temps of below -15˚C that we should have been experiencing. This reduced the ‘quality’ of the ice, we often found ourselves climbing on a mixture of snow and ice that was melting and reverting back to its waterfall state.  The warm weather was a contributing factor to the number of avalanches we observed and heard; each serving as a reminder of the dangers of being in the mountains. 

 

An Avalanche - Honest

I built this anchor after leading a pitch

As well as learning the basics of anchor building, ice screw placement, vertical movement patterns, rope work, multi pitch and lead climbing, the highlight of the trip was a guided multi pitch climb with one instructor taking two students on a day’s expedition. Along with two other trios of climbers I headed out at 0430 to scale a route on Marcherson falls, one of the Canadian Rockies classic routes. We were destined for ‘Polar Circus’ allegedly world famous and one of the top climbs in N America, however during our kit preparations the night before we discovered that someone had broke in to the trailer and stolen our avalanche rescue beacons. Without these we couldn’t proceed in to such high risk avalanche terrain – something I can’t say I was too upset by.

I fell going over the third ridge.

To get to the staging area we had a 2hr hike at pace and in the dark; racing the sun to avoid its melting affects. The guide then lead me to a height of about 120 meters over four pitches of quite complex climbing, all graded between WI 3+ and 4 [the scale only goes up to 7].  This sounds like a task that should have been reasonably easily accomplished and a fun day out.  Which I am sure it would have been had I not chosen to fall on the last pitch resulting in me throwing one axe 20 metres to the ledge below and leaving one stuck in the ice 5 metres above.  Luckily my five days of training kicked in [actually a mixture of terror and brute strength] and I managed to scale the 5 meters back to my axe with my bare hands and continued the climb.  The guide lowered one of his axes, which I clipped to my belt choosing to finish the climb with just the one; something which very much surprised and amused the guide as I crested the ridge from where he was belaying.

Marcherson falls

Steep Ice

A snow bollard, I abseiled from this!

A Happy staging area.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The walk home.

Physically drained after about 3 hours of climbing, I had a long wait at the top whilst my partner followed me up.  Needless to say no one took the piss at all when my ordeal was finally over, and I was safe at the staging area.  This climb was an amazing experience, but one that I hope not to repeat in the too near future.  Throughout the whole trip, but on this climb in particular, the guides were amazing. Great instructors, excellent climbers and not fazed by my general incompetence.

As well as ice climbing I gave mixed climbing or dry tooling a go; this is basically where you climb rock whilst wearing your crampons and still using ice axes.  I found this much more agreeable as I was free to use my limbs as I saw fit, not being forced to follow some rigid movement patterns that I couldn’t master.  I would almost go as far as to say I really enjoyed the mixed climbing, which seemed to go against the general consensus of the group.

A Guide showing us how mixed climbing is done.

Bullshit Canyon - Bolted mixed climbs

To celebrate the end of our week of epic adventures, and partly due to a change in hostels, a few of us decided to go out for a few beers. However we were thwarted in our quest due to the fact young Occy did not have any ID with him. In one pub we were told you can’t get away with that in a ‘resort town’ and in another before even saying hello the bar man said “Right first I am going to need to see some ID’s from you all”. We turned and walked out straight away, I was left wondering whether or not he really wanted to see mine, at my age I stopped carrying it years ago. Although I did see a sign stating ‘40 is the new 25’ so you never know.

Having Fun

One of the most enjoyable aspects of ice climbing in the spring conditions was the ease at which one can smash the hanging ice to pieces.  It’s amazing how much frustration can be vented and fun had smashing a few icicles or kicking holes in big chunks of ice.  Overall I really enjoyed the first trip away of my mountain semester but I think I summed up my views of ice climbing to Occy when he asked me on the last day what I wanted to climb next, much to his merriment I replied, “I couldn’t give a fuck if I never climb ice again”.

After saying bye bye to skiing, it’s now time to say hello again, as the next few weeks see me taking to the mountains and backcountry on Skis. EEK!!!! :)