January 13, 2007

Dustin Good and i set out to make a winter ascent on crowsnest mountian. it was a little chilly with an average temature of -13 degrees celsius. snow shoes where much appreciated on this trip. we made really good time to the tree line following an old ski trail. we went up a little to far to the left we went through some drifts where i was actually digging our path as we walked because it was to soft and to deep to walk through. we wound up to far to the climbers left on the seven sisters and then traversing up high over to the chimeny. since i had never climbed it and it has been 5.5 years since Dustin had climbed it we were a little hazzey on the route. we eventually got to what we were pretty sure was the chimeny and started up. we dodged around the ice and first and then kicked steps into the hard snow and climbed up and up until we could no longer kick steps and strapped on our crampons. then made light work of the snow and we carried on up till we stumbled across the chain and followed it up as best we could with frozen wet gloves as we could. then an easy hard snow pack to a 5' ice section and the top of the chimeny was ours. the top of the mountain was every windsept and posed no real avalnche danger. from where we were there reamained only a seemingly simple walk to the top. we were unable to complete it due to being short on time which was primarily used up traversing around from the seven sisters. there were some short good looking ice climbs on the even sisters and a few on crow. there were some that looked like in a little better fatter year they might be really good in the 5-6 range or maybe mixed but very cool. the descent we went down to the climbers right of the chomeny which maybe really steep in the summer but was drifted hugely with snow and we desended that and then tried to follow the regualr train off. we only got off track a couple of times and the drifts of snow where very helpful and forgiving. we came down some beautiful snow slopes that would have been a cake walk in the snow shoes. oh well, we will know for next time. Crow is apparently a fairly safe mountain as far as avalanches go so it is a go winter objective and would be fun to get it done now. could be a really good year to get through the chimney provided the snow that was coming down when we were descending and that night never all drifted into the chimney or something, which is unlikely. if you go bring crampons, 2 axes per person and a little rope and pickets sure wouldn't hurt. and ice screw or two or more might be a good idea. as far as rock pro goes, you should be fine with out. i guess if you have the everything else you could throw a rack of pins in, it wouldn't hurt.

jason