This is the sequell to the previous post, here you can expect to be Gnawr on alpine ice and cruising over glaciers in the area known as "The columbia Icefields" or as the homies say, Home.
On this particular trip we learnt to use terrain as protection. It was also there I learned that short-roping in hazardous terrain is more about staying close to your client, coaching and instructing to prevent any slip, than actually functioning as a human tow.
By this point I had realized that I was used to do things in a different way. Luckily, our teacher Fred is good at adapting and bringing things in a sensible manner ( even though he might have a strict style of teaching)
As we got into the ice fields we spent some of the first day practicing crevasse rescue and getting a bit warm in our crampons. There they have taken commercial trips to a different level, there are actual buses going ON the glacier. Strange times
Next for us was a big goal: Fred had his eye set on Mt Athabaska, and the route 'Silver horn II' that runs up a low angle ice slope from the Athabaska glacier. It's a 7 hour hike to the top, where the crux is a big bergschrund. Alpine start, roughly 03.00.
The way up went fast and smooth, with no big incidents. And we got to do a couple of nice transactions between short rope and glacier modes, as well as pitching things out.
As we got down we figured it was time to have a little siesta... Next up was this hill, i can't remember the name of, but it included a traverse of the Athabaska glacier 1 and an exiting ridge that took us a bit closer to the parking lot. This was probably the day with the most intensive transition-making in the entire course, as we changed between two glaciers, pitching both ice and rock. Therefore this is also the day with the least pictures.
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With this course I really got stoked for doing some alpinism again, time to get some rust of those pitons and get going ! But first it needs to get cold!