I love getting away from roads, phones, and coffee. Managed to do this a couple of weeks ago, with Maarten Van Haeren and Jay Mills. Came back, put it n Facebook, and within two days it was online at the American Alpine Journal.
Maarten is relatively new to the first asscent game, and wanted to know why the story was getting so much attention for such an easy climb. Big fish, little pond? Slow news day? Who knows. Sure was fun.
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| What have we here?
“Travel
a thousand miles by train and you are a brute; pedal five hundred on
a bicycle and you remain basically a bourgeois; paddle a hundred in a
canoe and you are already a child of nature.
“
-Pierre
Elliot Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada (1968-79, 1980-1984)
Times
were changing in Canada. We were celebrating the end of the ten year
reign of Canada's Conservative party and their fear based policies.
They'd been trounced by Justin Trudeau, the son of one of Canada's
most revered leaders. It was October and the mountains were dry.
Things were headed in the right direction.
Jay
and I spent a day approaching, then a day and a night getting high
above Moraine Lake, featured on the old twenty dollar bill. . The
road was closed. We road our bikes in ten kilometers and had the
valley to ourselves. That's the amazing thing about alpine climbing
in Canada; you don't even have to go anywhere obscure to have the
first ascents to yourself. There are only three alpine routes on the
side of the valley we were interested in, and the last one was
established 30 years ago.
We
didn't make it up our objective in the Valley of the Ten Peaks. But
it couldn't be beaten as a backyard adventure There is nothing more
Canadian than a trip into nature, no matter how brief. It seems to
have been put aside in climbing circles, this need to commune with
the natural world. A friend has challenged her mixed sport climbing
friends to try establishing one new non-sport route each this winter.
In
1988, just down the range, Ken Wallator had spent 4 days out on Storm
Mountain. He and Tom Thomas were getting chased around by wardens
for pirate camping, so they figured they might as well spend the time
up on the mountain. It was a route that had grown to mythical
proportions, partly due to Ken's widely reputed hardman abilities. I
had been talking about going for a look see at the face for at least
five or six years, the same period I and all of my friends had been
wishing for a change back to a more Canadian attitude in our national
politics. We'd managed to get rid of the might-as-well-be-Texan
Alberta politicians; maybe we could get up Ken's route?
Jay
was chatting with our new team member, Maarten, about whether Alaska
or Cham is better. Maarten works in a wilderness centre for
addictions recovery, helping troubled young men find solace in
nature. He had spent the last 6 nights camping out.
“Come
on, look at where we are, we've got it the best”, I interceded,
“where else do you have the entire trail to yourself as soon as you
step off the highway?”
We'd
just managed to climb an easy gully up the center of the Northeast
Face of Storm in 13 hours camp to camp. We hadn't revisited Ken's
fierce looking effort from the 80s. Instead we'd shocked ourselves
with how easy it was to get up this face we'd all looked at so much.
It seemed like we had created an insurmountable problem in our minds,
rather than just going for a look. Like how Canada had veered into
scary xenophobia from the Conservatives as they tried desperately to
hold onto power. We'd voted the fear-mongers out of power, just as
we'd faced our doubts and found a path of little resistance.
Sometimes the way ahead is just staring you in the face if you'll
only take it.
“Can
I name it 'Canoeing to Cuba' after Pierre Trudeau? You know, he
tried to canoe from Florida to Cuba to visit Castro. He worked in
the cane fields there when he spent a year traveling the world when
he was young”, I recounted.
See more photos at:
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