Once you can’t trust your knowledge base, reality quickly sails to sea
– Brian Greene
I had fully intended to write an entertaining (yeah right) series of stories about my training for this trip. I published one here, but that was as far as I got in documenting stuff. Things in the training universe of course did not go as exactly planned. (when does it ever?) But… it didn’t go too badly either. I’ll eventually write up a companion piece on what I’ll do differently next time.
Our original intent was to do the Asulkan Traverse as a day climb. This was to have been one very long day for us, but being sanguine as always we obviously we thought it was very doable. Turns out… not so much.
Even getting to Calgary seemed to be a challenge that took me the better part of a day. We had been hearing a lot of grim stories about lost luggage on airflights so that was weighing heavily on my mind. I had tried to pack my two checked bags and my carry-on in such a fashion as to minimize the impact of the loss of any one of the packs. Kevin, also would pack some critical spares for us in his truck, in the event of a loss of gear. At the end of the day however all our bags made the flights unscathed. Kevin and Renee were waiting for me at the airport as planned, so all was good in the world. It was too late in the day to head up to the mountains, so we grabbed a nice bite to eat and crashed in the hotel that Kev had already arranged for us.
Next day we got up bright and early. Got much needed coffees, did some last minute grocery shopping, and headed west on the TransCanada to the Rockies and beyond.
The Rogers Pass area towards which we were headed, is, and for very good reasons, popular with tourists and climbers alike, and it attracts both in spades from around the globe. World class scenery and even better… top shelf climbing, abounds through a wide range of difficulty. This popularity however leads to a scarcity of camp sites. They can’t be reserved, so one has to arrive early in the day to even stand a ghost of a chance in getting one. We were lucky because there were only about 3 open ones by the time we rolled in late in the morning, and so it was that we snagged good old number 32; the very same one Kev and I had when we were there a few years back. The joint was jumping with climbers, hikers, campers, and tourists of all sorts. We even ran into a climber friend of Kevin’s there. And while it was that we met people on the trails every day, we rarely saw anyone else off trail and never on our actual summit attempts.
One somewhat negative aspect of the location is its notoriously poor weather. Something I can personally attest to, having had experienced it many times over the years. Yet, on this trip it was virtually flawless. We had a thunderstorm late in the afternoon on one of our rest days, and once at night; the remainder of the time it was nothing short of aces.
The weather forecast was good and there was no earthly reason to dawdle so we decided to go for it the very next day. We did a good job of prepping our packs and gear. The general idea of course was to go as light as possible… but no lighter. We had one skinny rope, a skeletal rock rack, helmets, ice axes, crampons, minimal food, and minimal clothing. Too much. Dump everything out and try again. Better, but our packs still weighed in at close to 8kg each. Still really too heavy for such an enterprise as this. Gravity, our arch nemesis was getting up in our grill yet again. But this was it; as low as we thought we could go. We would just have to suck it up. After a fitful nights sleep and choking down some calories we got started on the trail at first light. The big advantage of this trail is that one gets into the alpine pretty quickly. The cost associated with that however is steep, as in a steep trail. Not as unrelenting as the trail into Hermit mind you, but an arduous slog nonetheless. We made pretty decent time I suppose, but we all admitted how tiring it was getting to be. To add to our discomfort it was uncharacteristically hot and we were all sweating like whores in church. Eventually it got to be really fun going, and much cooler once we reached the ridge complete with its amazing vistas in all directions. The guidebook calls it a splendid belvedere. I admit to having had to look that one up: From the Italian for ’beautiful sight’
From the end of the ridge we dropped down to a little col and from there it was an easy and short class 3 scramble on some blocky quartzite to the summit of Abbot. But before we attempted this we filled our bottles with snow, as it did not appear there would be much in the way of running water for many km. It was around here that I got a massive leg cramp, and had to rest for a long while, along with taking on some extra hydration and food. After a bit I was able to carry on and we easily tagged the summit. From there we dropped into the col in preparation for the next and second summit: Afton. After only a few meters of ascent my leg painfully seized up again. Kevin looked down to me and I could tell that he knew that I was in a bad way. What the fuck was going on? This time it was too debilitating for me to safely carry on, not to mention we were now at risk of losing daylight later on in the day since we, or rather I, had burned so much time with the fucking cramp. I would be putting Kevin and Renee at risk were I to attempt to continue. It was hard to believe that I was living in a universe where a leg cramp was taking me out.
It was at this point that after some not inconsiderate amount of time discussing the situation that we all agreed that the remainder of the ridge (the fun and hard bits) were going to be out of reach to us on this particular day. So with heavy hearts we had to turn back. Kev was in the best condition of the three of us and opted to solo Afton’s east buttress as some sort of consolation prize whilst Renee, and I down-climbed a bit and awaited his return below. Thanks to his bright orange helmet and neon blue pack we could easily watch his progress almost the entire way up and down, except for the time when he pulled onto the summit. It was stiff class 4, and of course he did a great job of it.
You need light packs and a lot of stoke
– Random climber from parking lot several days later
While we waited, besides swatting flies, and eating and drinking our fill, we ruminated on many things and especially on what is required to be successful in this type of climbing. One needs to tap into elements of multiple worlds. Lightweight, fitness, skill, the ability to move with speed and confidence over highly exposed class 4 terrain unroped, and above all the capacity to just keep moving.
Soon we were reunited again and then of course we had to get back down to our camp. We could dream of para-gliders or wormholes all we wanted but the only option open to us in this universe was to retrace our steps back along the crest of Abbot Ridge until we could pick up the steep switchbacked trail down to the valley floor. So this is just what we did. There was no way to offset the constant pounding our knees were taking. At least going downhill was not bothering my leg in any noticeable way. The somewhat sad thing is that this trail, although rated ’difficult’ by Parks Canada is also one of the most popular in the area and we met a considerable number of folks coming up on our way down. Ultimately it took us about 10hrs. round trip, and we all had a bit of the thousand yard stare about us as we stumbled back into camp.
We were exhausted, sore, and mightily disappointed, but not deterred. For you see, while Renee and I had been waiting for Kevin, she came up with a pretty decent idea that would allow us to salvage a bit more of the traverse and our egos as well. So please stay tuned, because the adventure continues and will be presented in a universe near you soon.
The Many-worlds interpretation is the only completely coherent approach to explaining both the contents of quantum mechanics and the appearance of the world.
– Hugh Everett III
Photos:
K | R | B
Soundtrack music:
Sudbury Saturday Night – Stompin’ Tom Connors | Rocky Mountain Rangers – Colter Wall | Simple Twist of Fate – Bob Dylan
Coffee:
Kicking Horse 454