This WI5 climb can be pitched in different ways (depending on how it’s formed in given year).
We did it in following way:
Derek Aherne - Pitch 1 30m WI4 & Pitch 5, 20m WI5 Michal Samsel - Pitch 2 30m WI2 & Pitch 4 WI3 Padriac Gibbons - Pitch 3 60m WI5
Pitch 3 could have been broken down in 2, but hero Gibbons goes all in if rope is long enough!
But let’s start from beginning.
We arrived to Field (same place where we did Guinness Gully) a bit late , aided with a lost hour due to the summer time change, made it particularity late start.
There were few cars parked on the side of the road – indicating possible queues.
We parked behind one of the cars, marked ours in usual way and moved on.
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The walking is trivial – 100m west of the right hand side parking place, and then up the gully through a well established path.
Even from the bottom the climb looks impressive and it didn’t take us long to ‘claim’ pitches.
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Del started first with a textbook 30m WI4.
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I did the 2nd one, real easy terrain. Some people actually skip 1st and 2nd entirely by walking around it and starting from the 3rd. We decided to the as much as possible in a classic way.
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As I was topping out pitch 2 it was obvious that pitch 3 will be epic. I read in the guidebook that it’s beautiful, but what we’ve seen exceeded our expectations.
Coming up we’ve seen the leader of the party ahead of us topping it out.
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I spoke to him later, when they were abseiling – they are Czech climbers living in Calgary (PS – if you are reading it and are interested in native resolutions photos of you, leave a comment and I’ll make them available).
Del’s ‘wow moment’ seeing Pitch 3 for the first time:
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I didn’t take Padriac long to rope up and go at it. He was very excited – this monstrous of a pitch – 60m, no less, at WI5 grade.
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Off we go!
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1/3rd up:
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Almost there:
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A lot of people skip the last part and just abseils of the bolts to the left of Pitch 3 – we, once again, decided to do the whole thing.
Last part can be done in 1 go, but it’s much better to split it in half (due to the drag that can be generated by the first 20m).
It’s really is made-up-by-conditions pitch, that we graded WI3. Belay of a small tree to the left of the steep ice.
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Del claimed the last pitch. It really is much steeper than it looks.
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He really run it out here. It was actually safer that way. (rather than stopping on steep terrain trying to place dodgy screw).
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Obligatory top out photo:
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First abseil is pretty awkward, be aware of sharp rocks and the fact that you are going diagonally from right to left.
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2nd abseil is from the bolts at the top of Pitch 3 – and goes straight down on the left hand side of the climb – be aware of other parties – as some people climb it that way. We actually met 2 guys from Wisconsin going that line.
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If you have 70m ropes you can abseil from bolts 15m below pitch3 (to the left), but most climbers just walks it off on steep enough path to the right of it.
Be very careful though, most accidents happen on relatively easy ground, like the fatal accident in that very spot in 2004.
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