Article Contents

Time for some more updates... Aside from these items, I've been going to the gym 2 or 3 times a week.

• March 21 - Scramble: Grotto Mountain. Ricardo led an ACC trip to Grotto. There wasn't much snow left, and I thought spring was quickly approaching... oh how I was wrong!
• March 22? 28? 29? - Snowboarding: Sunshine w/ Tyler. I don't remember the date, but there was some snowboarding in here somewhere. Pretty decent snow, actually!
• April 5 - Snowboarding: Sunshine w/ Shanna. A Fun day :-)
• April 9 - ACC event: The Unplanned Bivy: Mountaineers Art of Suffering. Three ACC members talked about (unexpected) bivouacs they've done, how they dealt with it, and what they would have done differently.
• April 10-12 - Watrous Trip. The farm auction was this weekend. It was very busy. We left on Friday, but I forgot something in Calgary, so we had to go back, and it ended up being a ~13 hour trip instead of ~7.5 or so. My parents gave me their 2006 Vibe, and I forgot the papers on the table in the apartment, d'oh! The trip back went smoothly though, phew.
• April 17-18 - COSSFest 2009. I spoke on the Saturday, which I mentioned in a previous post. My topic was "Getting things done on the command line." Turnout was pretty low for the whole event, but it was a very good time overall.
• April 19 - Snowboarding: Sunshine w/ Shanna. Another fun day :-) A little icy though.
• April 21 - ACC Meeting: Early New Routes and First Ascents - Glen Boles. It was an excellent presentation full of awesome photos and amazing history about climbing in the Rockies in the 50s-80s.
• April 25 - Beth Rodden was at the Crux from 1-4PM for a meet&greet. I showed up when the place opened at 12 to get some climbing in. It turned out that practically nobody else showed up until 2, and most people didn't show up until 3! It ended up being me and two young girls (13/7?) talking to Beth for an hour. Boy did we run out of things to talk about fast!
• April 25 - Calgary Outdoor Festival - Mountain Film Festival. Beth did a slide show, and there were some films, pretty good overall.
• April 26 - Bouldering at Yamnuska w/ Shanna. We spent an hour trying to find the boulders at Yam. There was fresh snow on the ground (and occasionally still falling,) and freshly cut down trees covering the path that leads to the boulders... d'oh! I did climb one problem, but it was a pain having to switch shoes at the top just to come down. The weather kept changing every few minutes, so we left. I'm glad we finally found them, though!
• May 3 - My first lead climb on rock! Shanna and I went climbing with a few people from ACC at Wasootch. There was still snow on the ground, but not near the cliffs. The weather cooperated for the most part, and we got a few climbs in.
• May 6 - CLUG Meeting - I presented my "Getting things done on the command line" talk to the Calgary Linux Users Group. It was well received, and many people downloaded/viewed the slides afterward (presumably they couldn't make the meeting.)
• May 10 - Rock rescue course w/ Sean Isaac. The ACC training and leadership committee organizes courses to try to get more trip leaders for the club. I see myself leading trips of some sort in the near future, so I took this course (and another one coming up in June.) The course covered things such as how to tie off your belay device, transfer it to an anchor, lowering from the anchor, pulley systems, and tandem rappelling.
• May 15 - The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra performed Video Games Live 2.0. There was really too much going on to cover it all here: Guitar Hero contest where the winner played on stage with the orchestra, costume contest, video game demos, tons of music with video displays, live skype video feed with the creator of the first video game (the feed kinda worked,) the blindfolded pianist played the SMB theme blindfolded, and so much more!
• May 16 - Climbing w/ Shanna at Wasootch again. I led my first slab climb (a 5.7, but it felt waaay harder because I'm not used to slab,) what an experience! Shanna led her first climb as well. It was the same one as I led the last time we were there :-)
• May 17 - Climbing w/ Tyler at Yamnuska. Tyler led Unnamed 5.7 600' 6 pitches (AKA the Pumpkin Route). It was a very fun climb. We managed to get on first by about 10 minutes, but there was still rockfall on us from the wind coming from the north! We were sheltered and in the sun all day, but at the top it felt like 100km/h winds gusts!
• May 19 - ACC Meeting - There were two parts, first there was a "Spring kickoff party for trip coordinators." I attended that, and found out I need to do a first-aid course to lead trips. Makes sense... I probably should have renewed my first aid a long time ago. The second part was about wild edibles and medicinals. I can't say that interests me much, but I did learn that it's the blue Juniper berries you want to eat... not the green ones like I had tried previously (yuck!!!)

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

1. Clouds at the rock rescue course.
2. Some tandem rappelling with menacing clouds in the distance.
3. Shanna's first lead at A Slab at Wasootch!
4. Tyler at a belay station on Unnamed.
5. Me at the same station.
6. I didn't end up getting a good angle for this panorama, but it almost turned out. The view from the top of the climb.
7. I took several panoramic photos at the farm auction (for practice,) and I think this one turned out the best.