“Hello… howdy”
…
“I’m driving a coach.”
…
“I said I’m DRIVING a COACH.”
…
“Yeah, that’s because I’m driving through the mountains.”
…
“Yeah, how about I give you a call back in five minutes?”
…
…
…
“I’ll give you a call back in ten minutes, ok?!”
.

We parked in a parking lot in the middle of Canmore (well, not the exact middle perhaps, but it was certainly surrounded by houses, and there were lots of people out walking their dogs and that sort of thing) and started walking up Cougar Creek.

Partially frozen, the walking got interesting at times; there was some falling through to lower layers of frozen creek, hardly any cougar attacks, and lots of crossing back and forth across the creek.

A side fork and a couple of hours later and we were at the base of Ghoster Coaster, a WI3 route that is about 150 metres long.

Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of the most interesting pitch, which was 50 metres of scrambling over driftwood that had been frozen into place. This was followed by a short ice pitch, then the top out, which was a fairly memorable bit of mixed ice/rock/dirt climbing.

After the rap down we walked out along the frozen creek by the light of the full moon, and still weren’t eaten by any cougars.

Poutine is a fantastic Canadian culinary invention. Hot chips (or fries) with gravy and cheese curds.

Bluetine is a slightly more alarming concept, but is also rather tasty.
 

 
Sweet potato fries, blue cheese sauce, curds and a demi-glace…. mmmm, curdalicious.

Largely minor (but apparently a few substantial) corrections to be made, but it’s passed!

*collapses with shock*

Hopefully ice climbing will open up a lot more peak bagging opportunities for me here.

Since the start of December (or some time around then) the snow just hasn’t left the streets. Well, technically it’s left the streets. Unless you count the mushy brown stuff that looks distractingly like creamed butter and brown sugar. But it’s still everywhere else.
 

 
These photos were taken at the start of December, just before Banff Avenue re-opened (after months of roadworks). It was a perfect surface for skiing up and down on.
 

 
The Christmas lights are coming out all over town now. And suddenly all of those Christmas cards and images and song lyrics make a lot more sense. I’ll have my first white Christmas this year.
 

 
And when there’s enough snow on the roads, you can skate (ski skate that is) up the Tunnel Mountain road, and get this view of the Banff Springs Hotel at night, surrounding by snow covered trees.

In lieu of any new ice climbing activity on my latest days off, I’ll just have to reminisce about climbing Cascade Falls the other week.
 

 
Just outside of Banff, the 300 metre high Cascade Falls are a popular tourist destination in Summer (there was even a tour bus that had stopped to admire them as we were walking back to the car after finishing climbing for the day – noone on the bus showed much of an inclination to get out though). And in Winter they turn into a fairly classic WI3 ice climb.
 

 
We only did the first 150 metres or so, which is fairly low angled and steppy for the most part. It was very odd to see the waterfall still flowing underneath the ice in some spots though (and hear the gurgling of water rushing past after an ice screw was removed).