Sunday, July 26, 2009

Summer Madness!

Me, Dan & Carsten atop Castle Mountain.

Big changes in my life since my last post...

I moved down to Canmore! There were so many reasons why Canmore was right for me. First, I wake up, and I see mountains. Second, I wake up, and I smell mountain air. Third, I wake up, and the climbing and skiing is right outside my door. Ya know what I'm sayin?

So here I am, well into the summer with fall approaching faster with minutes subtracted from each sunset. Hmm so let's see... where did I last leave the story?

Right. So, I signed up to be hut custodian at the ACC's Castle Mountain Hut for 5 days in early July. So off I went to do some climbing and take care of the coolest, smallest hut you've ever seen. Thursday night we packed up, and made it down to Canmore in time for a quality night at Zara's! Man is that place steamy on a summer night. Ladies, if you are single- you need to go here. Up at Castle we climbed Brewer's Buttress, Lookout Buttress, and the Layback route. The climbing was super interesting, and had a good alpine feel.
Ces't moi leading the top-out pitch on Brewer's.

Did some jet setting down to Santa Fe & Albuquerque, New Mexico for an academic conference where I presented some early findings from my research. Took off on the last day of the conference to do some hiking in the Sandia Mountains just outside of Albuquerque. Super cool to step off the city bus and onto the trail.
Embudito Trail in the Sandia Mountains, NM.

After the conference I met up with my family in Canmore for a week of hiking. We chilled in Cmore for 2 days, and me and my sis even got out climbing one day. Then we headed up to Sunshine for a jaunt on the Bow Valley Highline Trail. Saw some grizzlies and moosetlets up close, and did a bunch of cool side trips from Egypt Lake and Shadow Lake Lodge where we stayed for another few days. After the hike we went down to the Southern tip of Kootaney National Park to Cross River Cabins for some serious R&R baby. Unexpectedly met some very spiritual people there that were truly in tune with it all.


Me, Mom, Dad, Julie & Ryan in the Healy Pass Meadows.

On the way outta there I met up with Dan for some climbing at Back of the Lake. The next day Ian & Carsten (who were fresh off of their ACC/TNF Leadership Course up in the Neptunes) met up with us to climb Grillmair's Chimney's, which was actually my first route on Yam!

After all this fun in August I had to spend a painfully long time in Edmonton. Thankfully when I left this time, I left forevaaaa! Well, not really... I still have to go back to the Uni to teach on Wednesdays, but I can live with that. Canmore has been good to me, I went out climbing on Monday and did that ever feel good to start the "work week" with a nice climb (Ballista on Tunnel). The good news is that the mountains remind me how cool my research is, and I’ve actually rekindled some of that love I have for my work. Noice!

Dan climbing at Grassi Lakes, Canmore.