Mount Temple is one of the classic mountains in the Canadian Rockies. My friend Randy who I have been on many adventures with and who I credit as the spark who ignited my love of the outdoors has wanted to do it for awhile. His brother Ken who I now call my friend as well since he has also been with me on many adventures was also with us. Ken and Randy have grown up in the outdoors hunting, climbing and back packing and I am fortunate that they let me go on adventures with them.
Randy and I have decided we want to get more into mountaineering (Mom you may not want to read the rest of this post despite your persistent efforts in getting me to blog). Mountaineering involves more technical elements in climbing mountains including climbing with rope and harness as well as climbing on ice and glaciers with crampons and ice axes. It is very dangerous due to the increased risk of injury as well as increased risks of avalanche and falling into crevasses. It is also incredibly fun because it increases the remoteness, difficulty (getting you away from the swarms of tourists that frequent Banff and Jasper) and the challenge makes it much more rewarding.
On Saturday we did Mount Temple. I have done it before but due to the incredibly late spring this year in the Rockies we were expecting snowy conditions. This was going to be our first Mountaineering ascent and we were ready with harness, ice axe, mountaineering boots and helmets. But there was hardly any snow except for the very top.
On the way down we got caught in a thunder storm, slippery rock, some boulders that nearly crashed into us and a small avalanche that came down above us as we were getting off the mountain but luckily did not reach us. We also got lost in some fog but only took about a 15min detour. So even though we didn't get to bust our chops on our first mountaineering ascent we got enough to handle without having to deal with snow and ice. Here are the pictures. Next up were hoping to do Mt. Athabasca in September, well see how it goes.
2 comments:
Pop would be proud. He was a mountain man too but I'm pretty sure he kept his feet on the ground :)
Looks like a blast! My only mountaineering experience was climbing Mt. Shasta as a teen. My equipment included a hand made pick axe and crampons crafted from old tires and dry wall screws. Looks like you are better equipped. Good job!
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