A day in the junkyards
min temp -20 deg. C, max temp -6 deg. C, 380m climbed.
Today we went up to the Junkyards, which is a practise area 10mins from Canmore overlooking the Spray Hydro power station. You're climbing the outflow of the power plant which gives the whole area some interesting dynamics: violent waterflows, water vapor rising from the falls as you climb them & I swear I could hear the thing hiss a little on the first pitch.
We climbed three pitches of WI3 at a reasonable pace. A little scrambling took me to the main waterfall which was flowing violently. A beautiful sight but not very safe to climb. The rapid waterflow makes for some beautiful smoothly curved but thin ice. Not a good idea to climb this. If you stay far to the left or to the right of the main fall, there seemed to be some more nice & safe (?) pitches.
We both had our first serious cases of Canadian 'screaming barfies' in the morning. Harmless but extremely painful. It's the feeling you get when your blood flows back to your hands after you stop climbing. The feeling was baptised thus because it is so painful that the only thing you want to do is scream & puke. The pain lasts for a few minutes & the only thing you can do is just wait, so it's a good idea to just clip in to something solid & take a good stance before setting up anchor because your fingers are pretty useless for a few minutes. Jo half jokingly suggested biting on a piece of pine twig to fend off the pain.
Early in the morning the ice was pretty hard, due to the cold temperatures (-20) so we quickly learned to love the blue soft streaks where the water is still flowing a little. Later in the day these little dribbles turned into steady streams.
In the afternoon we climbed a short gully of thin ice that proved to be interesting. Jo dulled his axes on the rock giving off some small nice sparks. Either I was lucky or I climbed in better style (I like to think the latter) for I never struck rock. However I was on a comfortable toprope & not climbing above sketchy short half-driven ice-screws.
We finished climbing early & went to the Bagel Shop to feed on coffee and wireless internet. I guess the posts will be coming more regularly, so stay tuned !
Today we went up to the Junkyards, which is a practise area 10mins from Canmore overlooking the Spray Hydro power station. You're climbing the outflow of the power plant which gives the whole area some interesting dynamics: violent waterflows, water vapor rising from the falls as you climb them & I swear I could hear the thing hiss a little on the first pitch.
We climbed three pitches of WI3 at a reasonable pace. A little scrambling took me to the main waterfall which was flowing violently. A beautiful sight but not very safe to climb. The rapid waterflow makes for some beautiful smoothly curved but thin ice. Not a good idea to climb this. If you stay far to the left or to the right of the main fall, there seemed to be some more nice & safe (?) pitches.
We both had our first serious cases of Canadian 'screaming barfies' in the morning. Harmless but extremely painful. It's the feeling you get when your blood flows back to your hands after you stop climbing. The feeling was baptised thus because it is so painful that the only thing you want to do is scream & puke. The pain lasts for a few minutes & the only thing you can do is just wait, so it's a good idea to just clip in to something solid & take a good stance before setting up anchor because your fingers are pretty useless for a few minutes. Jo half jokingly suggested biting on a piece of pine twig to fend off the pain.
Early in the morning the ice was pretty hard, due to the cold temperatures (-20) so we quickly learned to love the blue soft streaks where the water is still flowing a little. Later in the day these little dribbles turned into steady streams.
In the afternoon we climbed a short gully of thin ice that proved to be interesting. Jo dulled his axes on the rock giving off some small nice sparks. Either I was lucky or I climbed in better style (I like to think the latter) for I never struck rock. However I was on a comfortable toprope & not climbing above sketchy short half-driven ice-screws.
We finished climbing early & went to the Bagel Shop to feed on coffee and wireless internet. I guess the posts will be coming more regularly, so stay tuned !
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3:34 AM
