Top Alpinists in Canadian Rockies for Spring

Spring in the Canadian Rockies often means there will be a few windows for climbers to tackle some of the Rockies’ biggest alpine walls, like Mount Temple, Kitchener, Cromwell, Robson or any of the other steep mixed faces.

This spring, there are a number of international climbers based in Canmore hoping for good weather. From the U.K., Tom Livingstone and Uisdean Hawthorn to the power duo of Luka Lindic and Ines Papert.

It’s none of their fist times in the Canadian Rockies, as Livingstone, fresh off making the first ascent of Latok I from the north, climbed The House/Anderson VI WI5+ M8R/X 1000m on Mount Alberta with Hawthorn. Read about it here.

@uisdeanhawthorn skiing towards Mt. Woolley, which for years I’d thought was Mt. Diadem. Huh! Thanks for the photo: Ethan Berman

A post shared by Tom Livingstone (@tom__livingstone) on Mar 16, 2019 at 8:34am PDT

Papert has made many trips to Canada over the years and has a number of first ascents to her name, including Sensory Overload V 5.11+ on Mount Asgard on Baffin Island; Into the Wild M12 in Icefall Brook Canyon and Power of Silence V 5.13a in Cirque of the Unclimbables.

Lindic has also climbed new routes in Canada, all with the late Marc-Andre Leclerc, including The Leclerc/Lindic V M7+ W16+R 1,100m on the Northeast Face of Mount Tuzo, Psychological Effect V M7 WI5+ 700m on Mount Neptuak and Fantastic Mr. Fox IV M5 WI5 500m on Mount Deltaform. With Leclerc, Livingstone also made the first winter ascent of the Navigator Wall on Mount Slesse, B.C. at IV M7+R.

The temperatures in the Canadian Rockies have risen to above freezing, which left many alpine climbers hoping for cooler weather in the next few days. If there’s a weather window, it will be interesting to see what gets climbed this season.

@tom__livingstone on the start of The Wild Thing just before we went the wrong way *mostly my fault i had the photo to look at* we ended up taking too long to correct our selfs. So were stuck inbetween to big gullys when the sun hit the face both of which we really didnt want to be in when it was that hot incase some snow mushrooms or avalanches came from above . We sat and waited for hours in a safe spot but the temps stayed really high, so whilst doing lots of nervous looking up bailed back down the first gully which we decided had the least threat from above. Sometimes conditions and weather make you fail but on this occasion we failed because we fucked up. @mountainequipment @scarpa_uk @tisoonline

A post shared by Uisdean Hawthorn (@uisdeanhawthorn) on Mar 25, 2019 at 6:50am PDT