How to Overcome the Slow Economy: Go Ice Climbing
Loading ...This week, due to cut backs in the company that I work for, I ended up being the victim of cutbacks; a tale I am sure many out there have suffered recently.
So what does one do? Firstly, you have to look on the bright side. At least it happened at the start of the ice climbing season. I made my excuses at home, told my wife “I need to be alone with my grief”, packed my truck, and said goodbye to the rain in Vancouver on the WET Coast of BC. I headed out on highway one bound for Canmore, Alberta. A place that guarantees good ice and adventure.
Deciding to live it up in luxury for the first week, I booked in to the Alpine Club of Canada Clubhouse for a staggering $25 a night for FULL luxury, amazing showers, lovely lounge, and library all with great views of the valley and the mountains from every room.
Waking early for my first day of climbing, it was full of promise. I headed to Beamer, the coffee hangout down town, before checking out some of the local crags. I have been to Canmore at this time of year many times and it is often very cold and has a bunk of thick ice, so I was surprised to find myself at the Junkyards with little ice and what was there was in terrible condition.
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laI decided to just step out on to it to see how it felt. Well, it felt terrible but after banging around a bit I had to keep going because I was closer to the top than the bottom. Soloing up the Junkyards is usually really easy, not so much today and I was glad to get myself back on solid ground.
Foolishly, I managed to convince myself that maybe Grotto Canyon was better, so back in the truck for the 10 min drive to the next parking area. Taking a lead fall while ice climbing is bad. Taking a fall while soloing ice is very bad. So you can imagine how bad I looked when I took a fall on WI1 (a frozen puddle) on the walk in to Grotto, mm embarrassing. I’m glad there was no one there to see me fall, don’t tell anyone. Stumbling up the canyon I made it to the climbs only to be disappointed. I’m glad I carried all my gear up here for this.
I’m now feeling that this economy is worse than I first thought; there is no work and no ice.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Getting up at 5am the next day I headed out to an area called the Ghost to solo a route called “This House of Sky” (THOS) Grade III, WI3-4+ 500m (for those that don’t work in metric that is 1640ft).
Nothing is as sweet as the alarm going off at 5am. Well I guess the only thing better would have been the sound of the alarm going off at 10am.
After a quick breakfast, I jumped in the truck and headed for the Ghost. The Ghost is only about 30kms from Canmore as the crow flies but it is two hours by car on bad roads. Given that it is Friday morning I should have had the place to myself, everyone should be working. Not the case, I was one of four groups on the route that morning. Doesn’t anyone work in Canada anymore?
I managed to get on the route first with a nice couple letting me go before them. Since I was soloing, I would soon be out of site given the lack of time consuming rope work. I made it to the top in a little over an hour and sat having a sandwich, then dozed off for an hour sitting in the sun watching the clouds go by.
Finally getting a little cold, I headed back down with a mixture of down climbing and 7 or 8 rappels. Back at the car by 2pm and heading for home. What a beautiful day and a great way to spend your time when you are supposed to be looking for a job.
After getting out of the Ghost and back on to the paved roads, a snow and ice storm hit causing a little delay and finally seeing me back to Canmore at around 8pm, ready for food, beer and then ready for bed.
Next….? Watch this space for more winter ice adventures.
