There aren't so many hard and fast rules in alpinism. We know a few though:
-There is no free lunch. Popularized by Uphill Athlete, essentially this says that there are no secret short cuts to endurance training.
-Ice is always more difficult than it looks from the valley. This is exemplified by the pitch on K6 West that Raphael Slawinski (2 times winner of the X-Games Games for ice climbing) said had him more pumped than ever before on a pitch of ice. From the valley we were calling it the “Guiness Gully” pitch as it looked like easy WI4.
”You’ve got to go with good guys”. This from Urs Kallen, Rockies legends, which reflects the truth that only a team of like minded people is likely to get up much.
To these truisms I would add, “If you don't nail the approach you probably won't do the climb.”
This I learned early on in my climbing. One of the first times I went to the Bugaboos, with Chris Brazeau (before he became the master of the Bugs) we set our sights on the world-famous Becky Chouinard. Chris was studying Adventure Tourism under KFR, Keith Reid, Squamish legend. Keith tried to let Chris know that it was within his abilities to climb the B-C in a day, but my doubts had us choose a more conservative two-day strategy. We camped at the Pigeon-Howser col (I believe this was allowed at that time) so that we could leave our camping gear and return to it after the route. Late at night we were selfishly concerned when we were woken by a party passing us, heading to camp at the base of the B-C, at what is now referred to as the East Creek camping boulder.
“We just drove straight from Manitoba, we’ve been up for 24 hours”.
We were worried that this team of three would be ahead of us the next day, and having moved from Manitoba myself 10 years earlier I knew that it wasn't exactly a hotbed of fast climbers. Given their level of sleep deprivation we weren't too surprised when one of them left their radical waterfall ice tools behind, but we were surprised when, informed of their loss they replied,
“Throw it down here,” in the middle of the night. So I hucked it downhill, out of the ray of light from my headlamp, and presumably toward our new-found climbing compatriot.
The next morning we passed a tent just before dawn with the same very groggy fellow standing outside advising us that,
“the route is that way,’ pointing downhill,180 degrees away from what was even in the near dark a clearly looming South Howser Tower.
“Alright, thanks, see you up there,”; Chris has always been nothing if not polite.
As we topped out pitch 6 I remember vividly seeing three brightly clad figures packing up their tent and heading directly away from us, downhill, into the steep East Creek. I have always wondered what became of their long driving and hiking trip, and whether they recovered from their first effort to make another attempt on the route.
With this example in mind, when I a decade later began the process of taking guiding courses, I put a lot of effort into scoping out the approaches to the commonly guided trade routes. I had skipped over most of these routes, chosing as a recreational climber to do more of the difficult grade routes rather than the moderate classics. I had heard of the common guiding trope of the guide candidate who, in the dark of pre-dawn, flubs the approach so badly that they get lost and can't recover, and fail the exam day without even getting to the route. At the time my partner had a very energetic, fit, and adventurous dog, so I managed to combine dog walks with getting approach beta for these classic routes. Dog leashes are required in the national parks, the dog would often get surprisingly high on some scramble approach or other, and I would often have to restrain her with the leash on the way down. This demonstrated another truism of alpinism that it is often easier and safer going up than going down. As soon as some photos were taken of me holding the leash tightly we began joking that I was getting to practice my short-roping skills on the dog (some clients have in fact called short-roping “dog-on-leash”). With most of the common terms for guiding companies in the Rockies already taken by friends of mine (anything with Rockies, Alpine, Ice, Canadian) this led to me striking upon the unclaimed niche of Canadian Rockies Pet Guides, a joke which I was amazed some people didn't catch onto.
The two examples of the importance of getting the approach right coincided in my first summer working as an apprentice guide. As the key bivouac permit to climb Mount Sir Donald requires an in-person visit to the Parks Canada booth at Roger's Pass, I was paid an apprentice wage to show up at 9 am to secure the permit, with the clients arriving later in the afternoon. From Manhattan, they had gotten up at 3 am in order to make it to Banff by noon, Roger's Pass by 3, with a planned arrival at the bivouac below the famous NW ridge by 6 pm. They were an incredibly interesting young power couple: the wife a lawyer as well as a PhD in psychology who was studying addictions, the husband a commercial lawyer. With a world of New York city stories to entertain us with, I and the mountain guide were quickly enthralled, and the very steep approach hike flew by.
That is until the mountain guide, around tree line, turned to me and said,
“What mountain is that,”
to which I replied,
“Sir Donald,”
but with somewhat of a sinking feeling as somehow the mountain I was looking directly at just didn't fit the billing as one of the more impressive ridge climbs in North America.
“Really, look again. You think so….”
at which point I realized he was being rhetorical as he looked at his GPS map on his phone.
It only took us a moment to realize we were looking at Sir Donald’s much smaller northern neighbor, Eagle Peak, and that we had severely messed up the approach.
We had been so engrossed by the conversation that we had hiked uphill steeply with the New York couple for 600 meters and an hour and a half. We literally made the wrong turn about 5 minutes out of the parking lot. I realized what a high performance couple they were when the mountain guide gave them options.
“We can camp here and improvise something tomorrow, or we can turn around, walk down all of the vertical we have gained so far, and arrive in camp around 11 tonight.”
“Yes, let's go to Sir Donald, we are fine.”
As the apprentice I would like to blame the mountain guide for the mistake….but I probably should have noticed. To make amends, and to try to help salvage the day, I took as much weight from the couple as I could, went ahead to cook dinner, and arrived at camp around 10;30. They rolled in at 11:30, refused dinner, and went straight to bed, almost 24 hours after waking up. Our planned 4 am wake-up the next morning was out the window, so we agreed on having 7 hours sleep.
The woman was the main climber of the couple, the fellow was fit and did a good job the next morning more or less keeping up. As guides we were sensitive to their fatigue , and kept asking how they were feeling and doing. So did the wife, wanting to check in with her less experienced partner. By three quarters of the way up the ridge I as the apprentice had fallen a bit behind the lead guide, which gave the man the opportunity to tell me some news which explained his motivation:
“I am going to propose on the summit.”
And he did, on a bright hot clear blue day above the firey red forest fire smoke of the valley below.
So, put in the effort, do your research, and don't mess up the approach.
