Morningside - Mount McGillivray

July 12, 2024

Most people went on a scramble/hike today up Windtower, lead by ACC Ottawa visitor Kristen while a few others went back to Grassi Lakes for more cragging. Since I have climbed Windtower a few times before, I decided to go climbing with my Canmore resident friend Tana.

In the morning I picked her up from her condo and we drove slightly east along the TCH to the parking lot for McGillivray mountain. We hiked along a wide gravel trail for about twenty or thirty minutes until we found a cave. Our desired route was about 40m past the cave, and after some searching found it without too much difficulty. I lead the first pitch, which was only about 15m of fairly easy climbing. Tana lead the next two very difficult and run-out 5.7 slab pitches (terrifying) from here. The guidebook said the second anchor at the top of the second 5.7 pitch is very "hard to find", and indeed Tana searched around for it for quite a while, eventually lowering off of a bolt into a chasm where there was a manky old anchor. She belayed me up and then continued the lead, finding the proper actual anchor just around the corner.

Looking up at our goal from the approach trail

Since communication was difficult due to the noisy highway below us, she belayed me up this short 15m section and then the angle eased off a little so I grabbed the next lead. A nice long pitch of fun but slightly run out and terrifying 5.6 climbing ensued. One more pitch of 5.6 lead by Tana brought us up to the top.

Success!

The view... not exactly a remote spot

Three sixty meter rappels had us down on the ground where we ate a quick lunch and decided to explore the cave. Almost as soon as we entered it, our lungs started burning and we immediately turned tail to run and cough our way back out into the fresh air. No idea what was in the air of that cave, but it was not healthy!

And down we go

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