CA Rockies - Shooting Gallery 3/23/2008
Trip: CA Rockies - Shooting Gallery
Date: 3/23/2008
Trip Report:Made a quick trip to CA Rockies this past weekend. Met up with David (Avitripp) who was up there few days before me gettin' some ice
(He ended up getting off of his couch long enough to run up Carlsberg and Louise
).
I wanted to do some alpine so I talked David into checking out Shooting Gallery on Andromeda. Forecast was for overcast and temps well below freezing.
We left Canmore at 4:30am and got to Columbia Icefields at 6:30am. Very cold and windy! We were not sure what we would encounter on route so we had assortment of cams, nuts, screws, pins.
Got to the base of the route in 2 hours. We slogged up the lower portion of the couloir...still hoping we would find some alpine ice conditions further up. It was not meant to be. Except for the crux ice pitch (which was thin and rotten), the entire route was snow slogging. Up higher, we encountered sugar snow over slabby rock. Snowed the entire time we were on route and spindrift was constant. Wish I had my goggles.
Approach. Route is the obvious couloir in the middle
Dude, are we having fun yet?
Slogging up lower portion of the couloir
Spindrift!
David thinking it over at the crux ice pitch. Very thin and marginal ice.
David styling and having fun while I was freezing my ass off at the belay...how is this fair?
It was fun overall just to get out but I would recommend you wait till late spring or early summer before attempting this route. Too much snow!
Good training for my Ruth trip in few weeks though....
Dane went up this route couple weeks (?) before us...you have any pics to share?
Gear Notes:We took the whole house but only ended up using (2) stubbys, (2) 13cm screws, ONE nut...
(2) 60m rope for full length rappel
(2) tools each
Approach Notes:No floatation devices necessary.
