Back to the Mountains!!

Saturday morning I was up at 4:30 AM to catch my flight to Calgary. 9 hours later I was out in the Ghost Valley hiking up to Wicked Wanda.

 On the last trip I had hiked up to this route but it was really wet so we decided not to climb it. This time it was still really wet but we had come better prepared for the conditions. Grant lead the 1st pitch up to the shelf and I quickly followed. After a quick changeover I was headed up the second pitch. From the ground the route looked easy, but up close the ice was a chandeliered mess.

 After a little soul searching I committed to the climbing and started up the lacy ice. A lot of delicate climbing a few bad screws later I was at the top.

Grant sorting gear at the base.

Looking out across the valley  from the base.

 Yesterday we went to Lower Haffener Creek. After a few warmups I got on the hardest route listed for the sector. "The Girl Without..." which is supposed to be M9+.

Grant trying his hand at mixed climbing.

"The Boyd Mystery" one of my warmups.

Topping out.

Starting up GWNT

 Starting out the climbing was straight forward enough. But soon the holds became very difficult to find which meant hanging out while scanning the rock for anywhere that looked like it might have a hold and then reaching up and finding it was no good.

 After what seemed like an eternity I was near the top and so tired. So many times I wanted to quit and hang on the rope. Not finding the holds and getting so pumped was very discouraging as the moves weren't very hard once I figured out where to go.  45min+ and I was finally digging through the snow at the top and clipping into the anchor, so tired I could barely hang on.

Getting close, but still so far away from the top. It took over a half hour to get to that point.