After our rest day, we were amped up and ready to climb. We had done Mountain Biking, Hiking, and a scenic drive. Now, we wanted some rock.
Before setting out, we stopped in Canmore at the Rock Shop, Vertical Addiction where we gleaned beta from a super nice dude, Ben. If you climb in the Canmore area, I would highly recommend this shop, the guy there was a great source of information, and ultra friendly!!!
In addition to beta, I bought a couple pairs of climbing shorts, as my favorite pair have a hole in them.
We then jumped in the car and headed up to Lake Louise. We decided on going to the Outhouse Crag as there are a high volume of moderate climbs at this wall.
The Outhouse wall is quite popular, and soon after we arrived, there were ropes hanging on every route.
The other climbers were from Vancouver, Portland, and Calgary. We were a group of Tourists.
Rachel on Neverland (5.8)
Clare Cleaning Neverland (5.8)
Clare on Men With Brooms (5.6)
Dennis on Men With Brooms (5.6)
Dennis & Clare at the Anchor Ledge
View Southwards from Anchor Ledge
Later in the day, Rachel & I rescued a pair of very young German dudes. They only had 6 quick draws, for routes that required 7 -9!
When I was at the top of a climb, cleaning the anchors, one of the Germans was intensely staring at me from about 12 feet over on the same ledge.
I saw that he was clipped in to the anchor, and I wondered why he wasn’t going down. I thought it was strange, but I didn’t ask why. Who knows, maybe he wanted to take some pictures from the top?
So, I rappelled off the ledge, and Rachel launched up the next climb.
By the time Rachel made it back to the ledge at the top, the youth was still up there, trying in vain to duplicate what he had just seen me do.
He started to head down, but Rachel saw that one end of the rope was not yet on the ground. In fact, it was about 50 feet above the deck!
“STOP!”, she screamed.
Followed by, “What are YOU doing?”.
Followed by, “Clare, can you hold me here, I’m going to help this guy out!”.
She patiently stepped him through the process and then watched him as he descended. Meanwhile, I explained to his partner, standing on the ground next to me, some of the finer points of climbing such as communication and helping with the rope management.
Later, we found out, at their hometown crag, the ropes are set up on TR, so they had *never* cleaned anchors and rapped off before. I’m happy Rachel helped the leader out, or else the young lad would have taken quite a fall!
At the end of the day, the Germans thanked us for our help and were quite expressive in their happiness. I just hoped that they would remember everything we taught them. It would be a shame if anything happened to them, as they were nice young lads.
Tags: Canada, Lake Louise, Rock Climbing, The Outhouse