Last week I had the pleasure of joining my friends Amitae and Zack for a trip into the Columbia Icefields area for some classic mountaineering. We packed our bags and blasted down the parkway Thursday morning, ready for the scalding coldness of the Sunwapta River crossing. Indeed, a great time was had as we hiked up and made a stellar bivy under the routes and stars.
When morning dawned, we made coffee in the inky night and made our way up the glacier and the big couloirs. Nice snow climbing and rock scrambling led to the final couloir, leading us to the broad col between the two mountains and after going just a little bit further and basking in the 25 degreee heat at 9 am, we pulled the plug before summiting either one. A good call as the snow was knee deep and only getting deeper. We quickly descended and broke out the coffee and lunches, after looking up at we had gone up and catching glimpses of the neighboring Mt. Alberta and other giants, we could sit back and take it all in- this is one of the best spots in the Rockies.
The Sunwapta double espresso.
The fellas at the bivy, dinner was dried food and enormous talk of the next day.
The second couloir, descending.
Wooley and Diadem. Super classics
1 comment:
yeah! its much better,
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