getting in shape for Europe

It's pissing rain today, and the forecast is for more to come the next few days. This sucks, but I still have to be happy with my spring climbing preparation for my visit to Austria. Although it boiled pretty much down to 5 days on rock in a 10 day period, I feel like I've gained enough endurance and confidence to face my European hot shot buddies, without embarrassing myself. Although my elbow did not get any better, it did not deteriorate either, so I take that as a bonus. Early this morning at 6:30 I had my 3rd physio/acupuncture treatment with Barb, she seems to know what she is doing. she thinks that the problem with my elbow stems from higher up, so she works mainly on my neck and shoulders, to increase the positive flow to my arms. The picture above is taken by Derek from a route called "the dark half", and the lower picture shows Derek on the classic "Nemo", both routes are located on the lower wall of Acephale

finally spring!

On May 8th and 9th Canmore recieved almost a meter of new snow here in town due to it's famous spring upslope storms. Since it stayed quite cold for this time of the year it has been pretty slow to melt initially, but now during the Victoria day long weekend, the heat got cranked up. Most cliffs are now in good shape for climbing, although there was a lot of wet routes due to the run off. Most challenging though proofed to be some of the approaches, all the creeks were running high and were pretty much impassable in the afternoon. Derek and I managed to get out to Lake Louise, Bataan and Acephale within the last week, and I was quite happy with my elbow, which seems to hold out quite well after taping it. Both of us tried to climb easier routes and get some milage in, before we look out for some projects for the summer. Derek seems to have his mind set on "Existance Mundane" on the upper wall of Acephale, which is certainly a great project for him. I will fly to Europe in 8 days, so no need to find something until I return end of June. On top you see the raging waterfall in the Colliseum, most of the impressive climbs are located on the wall just left of it. The picture above shows the NW-face of Wind Tower and Mt. Lougheed to the left. Both pictures were taken at almost the same time from my front deck yesterday evening.

back in the saddle!

It's been a while, I know. I was not sure if I wanted to continue this blog anymore. Initially I thought it might be a good idea to start a little personal blog, but things have changed. I wanted to sharpen my less than midiocre writing skills, let some friends in Europe know what I'm up to these days (it's been almost 3 years that I wasn't there!), and probably most importantly, keep me off the streets! Let's just say, it was a good idea, I was just simply too lazy to keep it up in a busy Winter season like this one.
The picture above was taken about one hour before I got buried in a freaky, little avalanche at work in the Bobbie Burns. It was such a great morning with unbelievable low density powder, and it also was my last day guiding this winter season.
The worst part of the whole story, I buried a guest over 3 meters deep! Luckily we got him out fairly fast and he was unharmed, but the potential for desaster was huge. This was the first time in almost 20 years of guiding (14 winters with CMH), that I had a client I was directly responsible for, completely buried in a slide.Since we did not know what else to do after surviving this nasty little slide, we drank our guts out until 4a.m.! It was of course all fun until the next morning, when I actually realized first thing after I woke up, that there was a reason why I usually try to avoid partying past midnight.