Big Rockies Alpine Routes Being Climbed in Summer 2021
The East Face of Babel was climbed by two young Bow Valley crushers
It’s alpine season in the Canadian Rockies, and despite the smoky skies and hot temps, climbers have been heading into the mountains to climb some classic alpine lines.
Cory Rogans and Rory O’Donnell climbed the classic big wall 5.11+R East Face of Babel near Moraine Lake in a 24-hour car-to-car push. It was their first serious alpine route in the Rockies, but both have climbed many big rock lines, including the Lake Louise Triple Crown: linking Goblin Arete 5.11 four pitches, Love at First Sight 5.11 four pitches, and Screams from the Balcony 5.11 four pitches in one day.
Rogans is currently working on a story about their day out for Gripped, and in the meantime you can check out some of their photos below.
Mount Alberta was just climbed via the Japanese Route by guides Phil Widmer and Kris Irwin and their client Roy Stadlwieser. Read their mountain conditions report below.
We had excellent conditions for summit day from a bivy on the south shoulder at 2900m. We did not use crampons or axes for the approach to the bivy site or summit day. The route and summit ridge was snow free. The few snow patches we did travel through offered good steps in soft snow. There was a trickle of water from snow melt not far from our bivy site to fill bottles, and also in the main upper gully a couple hundred meters below the summit ridge. All rap stations seemed to be in decent shape and cord was added to back up certain stations. Sadly, a cold front moved in on the morning of the 22nd with strong winds from the SE depositing 5cm of new snow at hut elevation (2700m) and up 20cm in wind blown areas with soft slabs forming. We could only see the bottom 1/3 of Alberta’s east face but it looked plastered with new snow and will likely take a least a few days of warm sun to dry out. The Sunwapta crossing was mid thigh at the deepest if you choose your line carefully. I included a picture of Woolley and Diadem taken on July 19. This ascent adds Roy to the unofficial list of having climbed all 56 of the Rockies 11000ers.
The 11000ers are a list of peaks in the Canadian Rockies that are at least 11,000 feet or 3,353 metres. At least 18 people have climbed them all, and for more info on the list you can visit Steven Song, who’s climbed them all here.
Song’s list of climbers who’ve climbed one of the variations to the list, include: Don Forest (1979), Rick Collier (1994), Bill Corbett (2002), Forbes MacDonald (2003), Roman Pachovsky (2003), Nancy Hansen (20030, Jason Thompson (2005), Colin Jones (2007), Andy Evans (2010), Robin Sandau (2011), Nathan Bernadet (2013) Helen Sovdat (2018), Dean Lister (2018), Robb Schnell (2018), Mark Klassen (2018), Ben Nearingburg (2018), Steven Song (2018), Roy Statlwieser (2021).
Other big routes that have been climbed this month include the East Ridge of Temple, East Ridge of Edith Cavell, East Ridge of Patterson and some general mountaineering lines around the Columbia Icefields. Around Lake Louise, Victoria, Huber and Lefroy have recently been climbed. Route on Mount Louis and Castle Mountain are in great condition.
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