Less than a year ago my cousin Ryan invited me on a trip to Abott's Hut, an alpine oasis perched on the continental divide between Lake O'Hara and Lake Louise. This was the weekend I was introduced to climbing, and the endless possibilities for adventure that are beyond trails and scramble routes. The weekend was filled with cragging around the Bow Valley, myself flailing on easy climbs and Ryan patiently showing me the ropes- pun intended. But it was the evening spent in the highest structure in Canada that will stay with me. The hut was filled with people of all sorts and skill levels. There were the hikers like us that were just up to experience the hut, the mountaineers taking a shot at the mountains that stood tall over the hut and finally, the guides. The glacier glasses, the rope slung over their Arcteryx jackets as they discussed their climbs with clients, exemplifying knowledge and confidence that stood out among this conglomerate of people. Above all, they looked like they were having a blast, and they were on the clock! I went full fanboy and grilled them about life in the mountains. My admiration developed into a deep respect for their profession the more we chatted. Guiding isn't as simple as just taking people into the mountains, you are responsible for your clients whether you like them or not, and before that you have to earn your stripes through the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides starting at the bottom of the chain as an Apprentice Rock Guide. Of course to even be accepted into the course you first have to build an impressive resume of diverse climbs, knowledge of rescue systems and 80 hours of wilderness first aid training all supported by a respected reference- just to get your foot in the door. All the guides at the hut reached consensus that it was the hardest thing they'd ever done, and I believe that in an effort to rightfully scare this naive sixteen year old scrambler from pursuing a career in guiding, they inadvertently had thrown gasoline on the fire of a young man's dream. Those moments in the hut combined with the sport climbing of the weekend changed my life forever and by the end my mind had reached a conclusion: Climbing is rad and I'm going to pour myself into this lifestyle.
Contrary to what I'm sure the guides and my parents thought, this new found passion was not a whim, and it soon overtook every aspect of my life. Fast forward through a winter of training in the gym, learning lots and climbing outside as much as possible, I find myself living in beautiful Lake Louise for the summer where four days a week are spent attending the parking lot at the ski resort and almost all other spare time devoted to exploring the terrain of the Rocky Mountains. I have never been happier.
Recently I've been spending most of my time rock climbing the beautiful quartzite and limestone that is concentrated throughout the Bow Valley. I love trying really really hard, and therefore enjoy sport climbing where I can work very difficult moves relatively safely on bolted routes. That being said, there is something about the big mountains that call on you, and I felt that I needed to find balance in my climbing between the bolted walls at the back of Lake Louise, and the adventure that could be found in the alpine. With both active in my life, I could appreciate each individually more.
Towering over Abott's Hut is Mt. Victoria. It is one of the Canadian Rockies coveted 11,000 foot peaks, is photographed a countless amount of times from the Chateau, and as far as mountaineering goes, is not a very difficult peak depending on the route you choose. Victoria is visible from my job, my porch, and the approach to the sport climbs in Lake Louise. I was constantly staring at it, bewildered by its knifeedge ridge and snow slopes that hurried down to the shores of Lake Louise. I could only stare at it for so long before I started to dream, and I could only dream for so long before I took action. I was going to climb Mt. Victoria, it would be a good introduction to alpinism and would bring forth the adventure I constantly yearn. To find a climbing partner I only had to look as far as my kitchen, for there was my roomate, Karl Durtler. Karl is a both a bold climber and a character, and we had climbed quite a bit together in the last month at the crag and wanted to get in the alpine together. Trained by his father, whom from stories I understand is a classic climber, Karl is knowledgeable, bold and most importantly always psyched. Despite being less than a week ago, I don't recall exactly what Karl said when I asked him if he wanted to do Victoria via the Southwest Face, but I'm sure it was a goofy smile accompanied by some profane synonyms of the word yes. We picked a day, the 29th of July, and did our research, getting more and more excited as the days passed.
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| My daily view of Mt. Victoria |
The Southwest Face is given the alpine grade II. This means that while it isn't overly committing or technical, it should still be taken seriously and is a mountaineering route opposed to a scramble. It begins at the Lake O'Hara parking lot with a road hike up to the Lake, followed by a steep but well maintained trail leading from the lake to the Wiwaxy gap between the Wiwaxy Towers and Mt. Huber. From there it is up the Huber ledges on scrambly terrain, around a ridge into the first of two glaciers, then across a bergshrund (a large crevasse like feature that forms when a glacier meets a face, basically a crevasse on a slope) and up snow, ice and the odd rock step to the famously knifeedge summit ridge. For the novice mountaineer that I am, it would be more than enough excitement.
Regardless of the excitement or how romanticized the process is, the 1:45am alarm always comes far too early, and the 10km gravel road slog that follows is a mentally taxing one. Nonetheless, we were up at Lake O’hara by 4am, and then made quick work of the well maintained Wiwaxy gap trail, which who would've guessed, took us to the Wiwaxy gap. It was there that we witnessed one of the most beautiful sunrises I have ever seen, and it felt like a good start to the day.
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| The world waking up at the Wiwaxy Gap |
Karl and I felt good and pushed on through the cairns and 4th class maze known as the Huber ledges. Although at times committing, they were quite straightforward and we were soon at a large gully with the south face of Mt. Huber watching over us. To be blunt, this is where shit hit the fan. The cairns were gone and we were totally unsure how to get to the glaciers we knew inhabited the Huber-Victoria valley. After traversing back and forth, we decided that we would scramble up demoralizing scree to the base of the headwall and hope the glacier was over the ridge. It was rough, wading through the rock version of quicksand and not having a clue if we were even going the right way. Finally, we got to the base of the headwall and peered over the ridge, praying the glacier was there. It was, but was 200 feet below us and between us was a near vertical festival of what the Canadian Rockies are famous for: Choss, the loose rock that makes you question how you could ever be so stupid to put yourself in a position between a deadly fall and the illusions of safety that ready to crumble holds present. Having already wasted lots of time with out scree slog and not wanting to lose elevation we sought out a line down the choss. The next 20 minutes were terrifying and I can't count how many rocks fell off the face and how many close calls there were. But we made it to a ledge above a steep, icy aspect of the glacier, placed some gear; an ice screw for Karl and a camming device in the rock for me. Then we prepared to get back on route.
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The ice and snow were Karl's niche, he body belayed me down the first crux section and then calmly soloed down it. I started off on lead, but had never been on snow this steep, and was totally uncomfortable which made the going very slow. We crossed a bergshrund on a good snow bridge and traversed to the top of the first glacier. My pace was so slow however, that we were certain our summit was down the drain. I shouted a few profanities into the O'Hara area, frustrated at myself for letting the team down. But in the midst of all this, something beautiful happened: I fell. The root of munch anxieties on the steep snow had become my reality. I slid perhaps a metre and then instinctively dig my axe into the snow, coming to a stop. Although aftert that I was still not as fast as Karl, my fears had been faced and my pace greatly improved. We made it to the top of the first glacier, climbed a short but soaking rock step in our crampons and after a few moves more insecure than the boys sitting on a gym bench at a middle school dance, we topped out to the second glacier, and our first view of the Southwest Face of Victoria.
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| The SW Face of Mt. Victoria, our route following the "7" of snow and ice |
It was 1:30pm, our turn around time was in two and a half hours. We could see we still hadn't a ways to go, but we are young, keen and stubborn, neither of us wanting to give up. "Well we aren't turning around now, we might as well just for it," Karl verbalized both of our thoughts. We smiled and blistered up the glacier, the majesty of our current position rekindling morale.
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| Karl, the glacier, and the Sherbrooke Lake area behind |
Soon we were at the base of the Southwest Face, with myself the last glacial challenge, the bergshrund. It was perhaps 3 feet wide where we were and was bottomless in spots, revealing a wild and barren sea of bright blue ice. I was a little gnarled out, but felt I owed it to Karl and myself to lead over it. The snow simply wouldn't hold for a traditional up and over style tactic. So I got creative, digging a knee hold on the other side of the shrund with my axe and plunging my axe upslope. I rocked my knee into the hold, and flopped like a fish over the ice world, by no means graceful but effective. I was able to punch the snow with my axeless hand and that allowed me to get my feet onto the early slopes of the SW Face. I then witnessed Karl fluidly use his ice tools and climb up and over the bergshrund, sans fish flop. Karl led up the sun-softened snow up the SW Face with an impressive pace. I did my best to match the pace and certainly felt more confident, thanks in large part to Karl's patience and teaching. The snow slopes ended hastily and after a short scramble step with our crampons we saw the final challenge before the ridge. Low angle but thin alpine ice. Perhaps it is a good think Karl didn't stop to ask if I was comfortable, we were tied to one another and if Karl didn't stop, neither did I. Halfway up the ice my crampons were shifting on my boot and this caused panic. I too kind a breath and knew that falling simply wasn't an option. Karl waited for me at the top and soon I was beyond the ice safe and sound. It was easy scrambling from here to a notch in the ridge, and the reveal the ridge presented is something I'll never forget. Mother Nature had pulled out all the stops, with a 6,000 foot drop down to Lake Louise and the cherry on top being the endless sea of peaks surrounding us. We followed the summit ridge, hip belaying an ice traverse and a vertical step. The exposure was beautifully terrifying. "I am alive," I remember thinking to myself on one of the Moreno knifeedge portions. The summit came shortly after and we were psyched. We had battled and our hard work had paid off. We were only on the summit of a moderate 11,000er, but it might as well have been the top of the world. It was 4:20pm, twenty minutes past our turn around time. We had to go but quickly scrawled this in the register:
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| Karl sitting pretty at the summit! (3,464m, 11,365ft) |
KARL DURTLER AND NAT BAILEY, THE BIGGEST GUMBYS ON EITHER SIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL DIVIDE, BUT ALSO THE BIGGEST HEARTS! FUCK YEAH!
Our grammar horrendous and our souls flying free. It was a fuck yeah moment, we are young, passionate about life in the mountains and god dammit this is the start of something beautiful.
We made good pace back on the ridge, but also took our time, understanding many accidents come from being careless and exhausted on the descent. We were roped together and if one of us fell off the ridge the other would jump off the other side, acting as a counterweight. We got off the ridge unscathed, bid adieu to the views of Lake Louise and sauntered to the top of the ice where three piton s made Ann anchor we could rappel off. We opted to only bring a 30m glacier rope opposed to the recommended 60m, so the rappel was a little interesting. From there we enjoyably plunged down the SW Face, stopping at the shrund only for a short moment where Karl told me to give him lots of slack, then proceeded to do a two foot jump over the shrund and the ice world it exposed. "Do it!" Karl hollered back at me. I leapt over the cold cavern and landed softly in the glacial snow, rad. We then ran across the upper glacier following Karl's suggestion. Life is good, and this moment cemented that. The snow got softer and softer the more elevation we lost and a total one point my right leg fell in to my waist. "Holy shit, this snow is deep!" I yelled a thing Karl, but then realized that my right foot, buried in the snow was not standing on anything at all, just air. Using my left foot and my axe, I willed my foot out of the crevasse and Karl and I laughed at the close call. Following another spicy rappel and downclimb between the glaciers we were just about homefree with some scrambling and the low sun being our only obstacles. We passed a gorgeous bivy spot our off route ascent neglected, and were soon past the Huber ledges after some mellow down climbing, just in time to watch the sunset through the Wiwaxy gap, a great way to end the techniv part of our day.
After an all out 14km slog in the dark that ended with us hallucinating seeing the road gate at every twist of road we finally made it back to Karl's Volkswagen Jetta. It was nearly 1am, 22 hours after we began. We celebrated as best a start our exhaustion allowed and underneath the fatigue I felt a deep satisfaction. Although the SW Face is considered an easier mountaineering route, I hadn't gone out of my comfort zone and spent literally a full day pushing my mental and physical limits. Combining this self growth with a beautiful setting left me fulfilled. As we blasted the Beatles on the way home to avoid falling asleep, my mind wandered happily at the thought of a lifetime of days like this. Finding myself each day, growing in the mountains and thoroughly enjoying this beautiful, wild adventure. In my mother's hand me down fleece and my kijiji mountain boots, I am slowly becoming a man of the mountains and I am truly loving every minute of it.
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