If you have done any ski touring in the Canadian Rockies, you’ve probably heard of Bow Summit. The many dozens of cars parked here, and number of AST1 courses that take place here on any given weekend should hint that this is a very popular ski touring destination. But is it really the best first…
The Presidents in Yoho National Park are a popular alpine mountaineering objective in the summer months. They offer one of the most spectacular viewpoints in Yoho due to their prominence relatively to other surrounding peaks, and on a clear day you can see more 11,000′ Canadian Rockies Peaks than almost anywhere in the Rockies. In…
Purple knob is an excellent ski touring zone near the southern end of the Smith Dorrien or Spray Lakes Road in Kananaskis Country. K-Country sometimes gets a bad rap for ski quality. However, when the snow is good in this zone, it is definitely one of the best and most accessible ski touring locations in…
Puzzle Peak (or OXO peak) is usually a great, classic ski tour to a prominent mountain summit that is relatively easily accessible along the Icefields Parkway. The day I met up with Brandon, however, it was a little more of a “scramble in ski boots” than it typically would be. But I think, that’s part…
Hangboarding is one of those training tools that is extremely effective, but it is tricky to get right in terms of intensity, frequency, and balance with other forms of training and climbing. When I first started hangboarding, I had just sent my first 5.13 which at the time felt like the absolute limit of my…
In my last post, I talked about my journey from my first days climbing at Wasootch, to my first 5.10a later that season in 2012 to my first 5.12b and 5.12c in 2014 and 2016. This post covers the training season leading up to my first 5.13a in June of 2018. Toes in the Water…
Bow Valley Climbing Photography from 2018. My best of photo list from the season.
Climbing 5.13 was a seemingly impossible goal. In 2019 the impossible became possible. This is the story of how I got there.
The Mt Engadine burn is a hidden gem of ski touring in Kananaskis country. When the snow in this area is good, this zone offers some of the best bang-for-buck skiing anywhere. While the upper slopes are certainly avalanche terrain, the lower angle slopes lower down offer mellow, safe skiing during times of high avalanche…
Ski touring (or Backcountry skiing) has exploded over the past decade. Some estimate put the number near 6,000,000 self-powered powder junkies out there in the US. But with this growth comes a lot of aspiring backcountry travellers trying to learn how to get into ski touring/backcountry skiing. While it’s a relatively simple sport to access…