Failed Attempt at Mount Kerkeslin June 23

Where goats go after they die and go to heaven... we saw over 30 goats in here

Neil and I joined the ACC trip to climb the south peak of Mount Kerkeslin. I've wanted to climb this peak for a very long time. Unfortunately, the leader did not scope out the starting point properly, and lead us up the wrong gully. Neil and I knew we were not starting at the right spot but when we saw him pull out his GPS we thought we must be wrong, so said nothing. All the same we had a great day and saw where mountain goats go to heaven after they die.

This is as far as we got. We were not equipped to scale the rock walls above... nor would we have had enough time with the group we were with.

Roche Miette June 21.

This was our annual summer solstice trip. This year we tackled Roche Miette, a nice day outing with time to shop in Hinton at the end of the day.

Interesting rock spires between the rock summit and true summit of Roche Miette.

No action because I'm sick

We were planning to backpack to the Mount Fitzwilliam basin this weekend, but I'm sick. a strange illness where my head feels detached, sore throat, sore ribs and sides, dizziness and a lot of snot (like you needed to know that).
I guess I'm wore out from an astounding 253 hours of work through out the past month plus I have climbed to four main summits, one minor summit, four days of technical climbing, one failed climb attempt (although we did manage 1200m of elevation gain), over 30 km that I can recall of mountain biking, and countless hours of wildlife and wildflower photography. There was more but I can't recall it all now. How did I fit this all in?!?
Anyhow, being sick is allowing me to catch up on my blog and get ready for this upcoming month... lots more plans. As I'm sure you can read I'm missing some entries. Above are entries for Roche Miette and the failed Kerkeslin trip. Enjoy.

My first two days off in two weeks. I never let the June monsoons stop me.

Yesterday I joined Peter Amann, and two other ACC members (Earl and Beth) to climb a feature known as 'the Arch'. The weather started off as crap and well stayed crap throughout the rest of the climb. We practised a lot of 'short roping' and would have made the arch but is started to snow and rain. Photos: Peter with the Arch above, (bottom) Earl and Beth with some snow.

Today, Tracey and I climbed the ridge above Medicine Lake... one mountain over from the arch. The weather held out for us but has since turned sour. It was a pleasant, nearly windless day. Tomorrow is back to work... why must we work?

It is officila!!

I shot over 500 pics of this bear cub and all I got was two good photos. I buy my new lens tomorrow.

Bear Attack and the rest of the week

Yes, there was a bear attack, and it was on my camera case. Here are photos of the bear checking out my camera case while I was photographing from a different vantage point. I learned a valuable lesson... latch the case when you leave it alone... luckily, nothing was damaged. Pelican case rules!

Top two photos, the brute is 'bear handling' my case while I yell at him. Third photo he's looking at me as if "what?!?". The last photo are the teeth marks. Gives my pelican some history.

The rest of my week. Busy as usual. I've guided two Peak Adventures, making three summits this week. I've also been photographing wildflowers and wildlife when the weather co-operates. I think I'll order my new lens this week.... the Canon 100-400mm f4-5.6 IS USM... expensive but worth it. I find my Tamron (75-300mm) doesn't give the clarity I need and the auto focus is slow, noisy and often inaccurate.

Mountaineering Course and Mount Athabasca

It is hot here... 30'C hot!

The last three days have been with Neil Pilgrim, Simon, and Peter Amann. Yet another course with this formidable mountain guide. Peter taught us a lot about Crevasse rescue, glacier route finding, snow and general mountaineering. We had a great time and enjoyed staying at the Icefields campground in the camper truck. I took the course to ensure what I knew was correct.. what I found was that much of my technical knowledge was not correct! I'm glad I took the course. We plan to hire Peter again at the end of the season to teach us more advanced skills.

Today we awoke at 1:30 am to attempt Mount Athabasca. We made it. The conditions were a little warm, but we made it off the mountain before the sun hit and baked the snow into an avalanche nightmare. We were a fast team... reached the summit in 4:45 at 7:15 am... our maximum elevation was 3490m! The way down was a little slower than we had hoped ad much time was spent post holing through the snow... waist deep in spots. The elevation wasn't all that bad and now we are looking forward to our next peak. We mad it off the mountain at 10:11 am.