Climbing Ha Ling Peak in Canmore and Beckey-Chouinard in Bugaboos: Trip Report 2

July 23rd, Evening:

I was excited that Kain Route had become climbable - a sign supported by the fact that a local reputable mountain guide had planned to take her client, a retired gentleman, to the Kain Route the next morning. It is one of the 50 classic climbs in North America. I had wanted to climb it for 3 years. Completing Kain Route would be a significant accomplishment in my climbing resume, and something I would feel proud to talk about to my friends and other climbers.

However, I need a climbing partner to do so. Thinking about how dangerous the scrambling section before the technical pitches started, I decided that I could not invite Dave or Suzanna or Travis to climb this route with me as they had no scrambling experience. I wished that I had made an effort to get them go up the Eastpost with me in the afternoon.

I asked a climber if I could join him and his partner to climb the Kain Route next morning. He said that he would get back to me after dinner, after he discuss it with his partner. While waiting to hear from him, I debated in my mind of two conflicting thoughts. One was to get on Kain Route at all cost. The other was to abandon the Kain Route and climb less demanding routes with my friends from Toronto, which would be of help to them. Should I follow the 2nd thought I needed to tell my Toronto friends right away that I had given up the Kain Route, before I was informed of the other climber's decision. However, I waited... until the other climber came and told me that his partner was not in favour of having a third person to join their party.

I studied the guide book and proposed to Suzanna, Dave and Travis that we climb two routes side-by-side on Central Towers the next day. They welcomed the idea. Travis would lead the Lion's Way (5.6, 6 pitches) with Suzanna seconding. I would lead the Lions and Tigers (5.8, 6 pitches) with Dave seconding.

July 24th:

We started at the bottom of the routes at 8:30am. It was a beautiful sunny and calm day. About half way up, Dave and I found ourselves taking pictures of each other with the Snowpatch, Pigeon, Howswer and Bugaboo spires in the background, on a sizable ledge. We could sometimes see or hear Travis and Suzanna working on the next route. Travis was once off route and then got back on the route. I ended up missing the 5.8 pitch and found myself climbing a face crack pitch directly to the summit. I met Travis on the summit. It was 2:50pm. Dave had difficulty with the crux. After some struggle, he asked to be lowered down to a ledge and go up along a corner crack on the right. The crux move must be at about 5.10 level, we thought. I switched my ATC-guide belaying system to a Munter-hitch belay with a prusik backup to lower him down -- a safe practice I had learned from my AMGA certification training. Dave came up the corner route and then was lowered down to the face crack route to retrieve two pieces of pro.

Descending down the summit required down climbing in scrambling style with no rope protection. Travis, Suzanna and Dave chose to be lowered down by rope to by-pass the most exposed and risky descent near the summit. I went down last on my own -- the same way I did in 2010 and 2009 from this same summit. I realized that I had made the right decision of not inviting them to climb the Kain Route with me the previous evening. Technically, the descending was not difficult. It was just mentally challenging to down climb a summit without rope. Yet the scrambling section, especially the ridges with the snow still remaining, of the Kain Route seemed 20 times more mentally challenging than this descent. In the mean time, I also felt that on a nice day like this day, I could handle both the scrambling and technical sections of the Kain Route (5.6) with confidence. It didn't matter whether I would ever get a chance to climb the Kain Route.

July 25th:

I led Suzanna to scramble up the Eastpost and returned to the Kain Hut in 3 hours in the morning. Suzanna down climbed the summit smoothly. She was getting acclimatized to the terrain quickly, thanks to her scrambling experiences in the mountains in Slovenia where she grew up. We had lunch in the hut, then descended to the parking lot in 2 hours. She then drove me to Canmore, had a shower in my hotel room, then left for Calgary for her flight back to Toronto.

Shortly after, Ilia knocked on my door. We had planned to climb the Ha Ling Peak NE Ridge (5.6, 22 pitches) the next day. However, the weather forecast indicated that there would 80% chance of shower and thunder storm. I practically gave up this plan and decided on focusing on meeting a couple of mountain guides in town the next day.

July 26th:

When the rain stopped in the morning, Ilia wanted to climb. I declined because the forecast still indicated 80% of thunderstorm probability in the afternoon. I am not afraid of rain or snow. But I fear lightening high up on the mountain.

I met mountain guide Jeremy in a bagel coffee shop. He told me that the last pitch I did to summit the Central Tower must be at least 5.9. He also suggested that Ilia and I could climb a couple of routes (5.8, 5 pitches) in the Kid Goat area on our way to Calgary airport the next day. I then met mountain guide Eric and discussed about business collaboration opportunities.

Ilia came back to the hotel in the evening. He had been drenched by rain. I presented two options for the next day: 1) get up super early and be at the start of the technical pitches of the Ha Ling Peak at 5am, finish the route and return to the car by 3pm, then drive to Calgary to catch our flight departing at 6pm; 2) climb at the Kid Goat area. He couldn't get up early, which nixed option 1). He preferred to climb some single-pitch sport routes at Grassi Lake where he had visited when he went to scout the start of the Ha Ling Peak NE Ridge Route.

Since he had failed to find the start of the NE Ridge route, he was suspicious that we would be able to find the routes at Kid Goat in a short time. It was still light, I suggested that we drove there and hike in to look for the routes now. He agreed.

We followed the description in a guidebook and hiked the base of the cliff. However, we found too many bolted routes that didn't match the guidebook description of the 4 routes on that wall. I wanted to make myself believe that we had found the routes. Ilia insisted that we were at the wrong place. It was getting dark. We decided to leave.

Hiking out from a narrow trail away from the cliff, Ilia pointed out that if we walked along the bigger trail further we would see the rock and tree features shown in pictures in the guidebook. We decided to invest an0other 10 minutes on this. And we finally found the Kid Goat climbing area! The previous area was probably a teaching area since it had too many bolts placed so close to each other horizontally and vertically.

Now it was almost past twilight and getting dark quickly. We came to a point and felt lost, not knowing where to go. We could see the lights of cars moving in distance. Ilia decided to just walk a straight line through the bush to the highway. I preferred to stay on trail, but followed him into the woods for a couple of minutes. Now it was completely dark. I turned my headlamp on and I lost the direction to get back on the trail again. Ilia still wanted to cut through the woods. As we argued, I thought about the Amazing Race show. I started walking back to the trail while asking Ilia, "Do you remember where we came from?" Ilia followed and pointed out the direction for me to go. Soon we were back on trail. Eventually, we followed this trail, despite it wasn't the trail we used when going in, back to the parking lot.

The couple of minutes in the woods was the second most scary minutes I had in this trip. I also realized that I was not as good as Ilia in recognizing big pictures and telling directions in the mountains despite of my training and experiences in the mountains. I was better at details, on a rock route, which was probably part of my personality. When I played the game GO, I paid more attention to small fights instead of the big strategy.

July 27th:

Ilia and I climbed at Grassi Lakes. I led single pitches of 5.9, 5.10a and 5.10b in my mountaineering boots to practice my foot work and for fun. But I couldn't finish a 5.10c route. Then we drove to the airport.

"Are you sure you're okay without climbing the Ha Ling Peak?" Ilia had asked me a couple of times.

"I'm totally okay with it," I replied, "Climbing is climbing. It doesn't matter what climb I do."

I no longer have a hangup on climbing Kain Route, Becky-Chouinard route, Ha Ling Peak, etc. I climb to enjoy the experience of climbing.

Through this trip, I have also realized that in the past I had put too much focus on achieving certain goals or objectives, not as much attention in building relationships. That's why I haven't been able to find a climbing partner from Toronto to climb with me in the Bugaboos. From now on, I will put relationships ahead of climbing objectives. Abby, a mountain guide I met at Kain Hut, said, "No one really care if you have climbed the Kain Route."