Canada Ridge

July 20, 2013

Yesterday I travelled via airplane to Calgary, met my friend Sharon for brunch and then met Andy and Brad at the university. Drove to Golden in Brad's truck which was a big enough vehicle to blot out the sun. Slept at the Kicking Horse River Lodge. In the morning had a buffet breakfast and then piled into a 14 person van for the drive to Radium. followed by a 40 km ride down a rough logging road which brought us to the helicopter staging area. After a bunch of gear sorting and a briefing on helicopter safety we were on our way being shuttled in multiple chopper lifts up the valley to camp. Since I was the heli-virgin, I got to ride in the front seat next to the pilot. About three minutes after taking off we landed in camp and found that we had an assignment right away. After firkling some more gear, Andy, Brian, and I teamed up and were scrambling the Canadian Ridge above the camp. Some moderate snow and a bit of 3rd class terrain was encountered to gain the ridge. Our instructions were to find a view point and identify the local peaks, which we accomplished from the summit where we also had some lunch. It was a beautiful day, and we lingered a while before deciding to go back down. As a second assignment we were to hike to an old cabin in the valley we had flown up in. We decided to try to find another route down, which turned out to be considerably easier than our route up. We hit the trees and some easy bushwacking along another ridge brough us to the cabin. This was the most dangerous part of the day as the boardwalk was rotten and collapsed as we explored. A short hike through a lovely meadow brought us back to camp. We had a meeting with Cyril, our instructor and his two assistants, Matt and Nick, to make plans for tomorrow. It is going to be an "acclimatization" day by attempting three of the 3000 meter peaks here. As I was feeling the altitude today, I am somewhat nervous about tomorrow.

Staging area.

Riding shotgun.

Arriving at camp.

Heading out with Andy and Brian for our first assignment.

Scrambling on upwards.

View from the summit of Canadian Ridge. North Star is dead center, with Alpha Centauri behind to the left. Carmarthen is at far left.

Finding another route down.

The love shack. Also the most dangerous climbing of the day was had to reach the second floor porch.

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