With alpine fever, Mike Treetops and I blasted down the Icefields Parkway after work yesterday and had a stellar bivi under a full moon, calm skies and still air in front of the Athabasca Glacier. 2am rolled around and the skies opened up blowing things around in a very unfriendly manner, mostly snow into our eyes. Needless to say, when we awoke at 5am to try our route across the road the wind had zapped our reserves and we were left with the question, what now? Thankfully we had french press coffee and we drove north to Beauty Creek and the ice climb, "Shades of Beauty". After a snowy and scrappy first pitch, I brought Mikey up to where he promptly fired the steep and thin 2nd pitch, bottoming out 10cm screws here and there. The ice however was great and very climbable and we were stoked. The last pitch was probably the most fun as stemming between rock on the left and ice on the right is probably the most exciting thing you can do in this world. We topped out and high fived before getting the ropes stuck on the descent. Constant laughs and a really great ice situaton = awsomeness!
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