Hiked Mt. Bourgeau last weekend with my boss Carl, his sister, his friend Chris, and one of Chris's co-workers. It was a long day; here's a timeline.

• 9:22 AM: Left car
• 11:07 AM: Got to Lake Bourgeau, waited 20 minutes for everyone else, then did some easy bouldering
• 1:40 PM: Summit! 1500m elevation gain! Hail, ack! Luckily it blew over immediately, but it did send the message that there wasn't any time for dilly-dallying. Took many photos, waited another 15 minutes for everyone else to show up. I managed to not find the summit register (who puts one near a weather station anyway...) but I did get some great photos while I was up there!
• 2ish: Left the summit and headed back... storm's blowing in.
• 3ish: There was spotty rain and short thunderstorms for the rest of the day, but nothing too bad. I only needed my rain gear for a short period of time.
• 5:55 PM: Back at the car, whew.

The scenery was fantastic the whole way after the Lake. Lush alpine meadows, alpine lakes, marmots and squirrels, and long views with dozens of peaks in the distance. There was fresh bear scat on the trail on the way back, so that was a little nerve wracking, at least when you couldn't see around the corner on the trail. No encounters though, whew. There were some snow patches that were big enough to glissade down, so I tried that for the first time. I made out alright, but I did have to rig up a bandage on someone else after they slid into the rocks, whoops! The weather was not too bad. We were about 500m away from a lightning bolt at one point, however. At least by that point we had made it down into the valley quite a bit, and were off the ridge.

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1. Panorama: Sushine Village from the ridge on the way to the summit.
2. Panorama: More mountains and a stream that seems to come from nowhere.
3. 360 Panorama: Just down from the summit of Mt. Bourgeau. A 360 pano from the summit would not have been as nice since there is a big cornice blocking most of the valley on one side, and a big ugly weather station blocking another nice view, so I compromised and tried to block them out.
4. A squirrel of some sort. Too many people have been feeding these guys. They would walk right up to you when you were eating and squawk at you if you didn't feed them! Bad tourists!
5. Alpine lakes are so neat.
6. Looking down on Lake Bourgeau from near the summit.
7. Me on the summit, Carl to the right

It's been a busy two weeks since I've updated this last. There's too much to get into any detail, but here's the short form:

1. July 6 - Climbed Mt. Grotto (1475m elevation gain,) exhausting!
2. July 8 - Proposed to Shanna (exciting!)
3. July 9 - Rock climbing with Shanna at Tim's Bluff (near Exshaw,) Shanna's first time rock climbing
4. July 10 to 14th - In Watrous for Grandma and Grandpa Carlson's 50th anniversary, announced our engagement in front of the crowd at the anniversary (since I didn't have two minutes alone with my own parents the whole time!)
5. July 16, 18, 20 - Indoor climbing, my first successful 5.10b!
6. July 20 - Sold a video card I had lying around on Craigslist (first time selling something online, and it went rather well.)
7. July 22- Sold my skateboard on Craigslist. It was a really special board, made of carbon fiber and Kevlar by a small company in St. Thomas, Ontario. The company was called "Bulletproof Boards" if I recall correctly, and was the first to make boards that had a 1 year warranty against breakage! It was pretty hard to get one though, and I picked mine up on eBay from Vancouver. I hadn't used it any appreciable amount over the past 6 years (since breaking my arm skateboarding in August 2002,) so I decided it was time to let it go (long overdue!) Luckily, the first person to reply to my Craigslist posting was someone who was from Ontario who used to test ride them! He said he left his last one on a bus in Toronto and didn't think he'd ever be able to get another one. $10 later and it was his. I probably would have given it to him for free if he didn't get me to ride the train one stop in the wrong direction... which ended up adding over a half hour to my transit time today... sigh.

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1. Stitched 360 panoramic from the summit of Mt. Grotto. You can see the rain clouds starting to move in, yikes!
2. Stitched panoramic of a storm moving over a field across from the farm in Sask. Notice the lack of trees and hills... flat!
3. A pika somewhere much less flat... at the summit of Mt Grotto!
4. Prairie sunset at the farm
5. Shanna and I at Joe's 60th birthday at Kilkenny
6. Shanna on her first rock climb!

I went rock climbing at Wasootch with the Alpine Club last Wednesday. Initially, we were planning on going to Tim's Bluff (near Grotto Canyon,) but it rained right before we got there and everything was soaked. It looked like the rain was pretty spotty though, so we headed towards the bar in Kananaskis and checked out two other places along the way. Finally, it appeared that Wasootch was dry so we pulled in to the parking lot. As soon as we got there it started raining... but very lightly and it was heading away from us so we headed out anyway. The rain stopped right away and we had a great time climbing on "Slab A." I climbed 3 or 4 pitches, from 5.7 to 5.9. Some had small overhangs. It was a really fun evening.

Shanna and I took climbing lessons on Friday (indoors) at Stronghold in Calgary. The guys at the Alpine Club said they would have to start making fun of me if I didn't do it, so I figured they were serious and should take their suggestion. Indoor climbing is quite a bit different. You don't have to worry about falling as much since you pretty much always fall away from the wall... and there are no razor sharp rocks to slide against if you make a wrong move. The holds are way bigger too, but they are quite a bit more slippery. Along with the lesson, we got a month pass, so that should help me get some of forearm strength which I am sorely lacking!

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1. Me at the botttom of the Fossil Wall

I went rock climbing for the first time this week. I was also up to a lot more, which is why I haven't updated this in two weeks. Last weekend, Tom, Shanna, and I went to the Inkpots at Johnston canyon. They were very pretty, and quite mysterious looking. Of course, it is the start of the tourist season, so it was a bit of a pain getting there, but not bad once you got past the waterfalls.

I joined the Alpine Club of Canada Calgary chapter in the spring. I didn't know anybody there, but they have a lot of club outings for n00bs like me, so I joined up. At the last meeting I met a guy I knew from CLUG and he told me to check out Rock Rage. On Wednesdays, some club members get together after work to go rock climbing, and apparently as long as you have all the gear and are willing to learn, you don't need any experience! I picked up some gear last weekend, and signed up. It was a blast! I climbed two 5.9s and almost did a 5.10b. I could have done more, but my body isn't used to that kind of movement. Hopefully I'll be able to make it out next weekend as well!

On a side note, I'm on the CUUG board of directors (I hope they put up my real profile picture soon...) this year. I'm more of a seat-filler though until the bylaws are changed so they don't need so many board members.

Finally, my sister, mother, and grandmother were in Calgary on the weekend. My grandmother was at a 50 year reunion for her nursing school (St. Pauls.) On Friday night after work, Mom, Lara, Shanna, and I went to Heart Creek for a short hike. The timing was perfect because it was getting quite dark when we got back to the car. The weather was fantastic. On Saturday we did some shopping at Southcentre Mall and on Sunday I took them to the Crossroads Market. I managed to find a DLink 10/100 network switch for $1.00... but I still haven't tested it yet.

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1. Shanna and I at Johnston Canyon
2. Inkpots: The circles are created by the bubbling spring water; and the colors are caused by different minerals suspended in the water based on the rate of the spring water flowing through the sand (that, and some algae in this picture)
3. The woman on the right is climbing the first route I did (a 5.9.) The guy in the red helmet below (Robin) belayed me on the climb, and was the first person I belayed (scary!)
4. Robin, the guy I know from CLUG, hanging after failing to get up onto the overhang on this route
5. Lara and I at looking at the waterfall that blocks the end of the Heart Creek Trail
6. Group photo after getting back to the parking lot at Heart Creek.

Hiked Mt. Baldy this weekend. Chris, his uncle and cousin from Saskatchewan and I headed up on Saturday. They went around the crux (see route description / or this photo,) while I went over it. It was a short (2m) downclimb with good holds, but it's a little scary for some people when you're going down as there are steep drop-offs on both sides. The weather was fantastic, not too warm, not too sunny (but it did come out half the time,) and my favorite clouds were out (see pictures!)

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1. The downclimb on the ridge is on the left side of the chunk of rock in the foreground (not quite visible though.)
2. Another attempt by me to do a 360 degree panorama from the. It didn't quite work as well as last time, I really should bring a tripod next time.
3. Me on the summit!

Hiked Ha Ling Peak today. It's about 6km round trip, but a steady, approx. 15-20 degree, 700m elevation gain. The weather co-operated very well, and we stopped in Canmore for refreshments afterwards. Another good day in the mountains.

Warning: the pictures will take a while to download (six seconds,) especially the really big one(probably 25 seconds.)

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1. Me near the summit
2. Standard waterfall shot...
3. A 2x2 stitched shot of what I think is Miner's Peak (right beside Ha Ling Peak)
4. 360 degree panoramic from the summit

Mt. Yamnuska hike this Saturday. Shanna, Tom, and I hiked up to the east ridge. Tom and I went a bit further, up the chimney and up to a high point on the east side of the mountain (Seen on the right-of-centre high point in this picture.) It ended up being approx 750m vertical and 10-11 km round trip. The weather was awesome, not many bugs (saw a few ticks though,) but it was very busy. Not many other hikes are free enough of snow yet, and the avalanche danger was high, so Yamnuska was a pretty safe bet since it gets lots of sun and melts very early.

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1. Looking at the east side of Yamnuska
2. Me at the highest point for the day
3. Shanna and I on the way down
4. Looking over the edge

We attempted hiking to the C-Level Cirque in Banff on Saturday. Unfortunately, there was just too much snow at the top on the last leg of the hike, and it was very tricky to walk on. Rather than risk twisting an ankle, we decided to make it approximately a 7k, 300m gain hike instead of a ~8k, 450m hike. We'll have to try it again in a few weeks.

We went to the CPO's performance of Bolero on Friday night. The music in the second half was exceptional, but the first half was a little boring. To top it off, there was a large group of early teenage children in the audience behind us, and some clearly did not want to be there. It must be music festival season or something, because afterwards they all filed into a large bus.

The Best of the Vancouver International Mountain Film Festival was last Sunday. It was pretty good. The weather was great, which was good because we had to stand outside in line for about 20 minutes. We only stayed for the first half, but the films were very good. The second half had only two films (30 and 45 minutes respectively,) one of which we'd seen at the last "best of" and the other was about kayaking... no thanks. The highlight for me was a short film about "buildering" on the UBC campus in the '60s.

Now, I hope hiking works out better this weekend than last!

We almost went hiking today... until we read the avalanche bulletin for Kananaskis. The paragraph starting "Hundreds of loose, dry avalanches up to Size 2 were observed..." made me do a triple-take. Unfortunately, by this time, it was 7AM on Saturday, so I had to find something to do for the day, fast. Shanna and I did some shopping, I phoned a bunch of people, and nerded out on the computer for the rest of the day. A nice relaxing Saturday; the kind I haven't had in a while.