Total time: 7h45min (Peak 2177m)
Approach: 2h50min asc. 491m
Climb: 3h25min
Rappel: 36min
Return: 55min (asc. 13m)
Pat got a flat tire on Chico (the van) two days ago while coming back from skiing Mt. Hector with some other friends. After installing the spare tire and having driven back to Banff. He noticed the spare tire was missing a bolt and there was another one that was half bent. Which means two out of the five bolts are now non functional. A friend happened to be going to Haffner Creek which was on the way to the climb we intended to do. We made plans to be picked up in Banff at 0845h. There was another car in the parking lot and there seemed to be fresh tracks heading up on skis. The ski up from the trail head was straight forward since we already had some fresh tracks to follow. It was a good call on the mountaineering boots and Fritchi Freeride binding combination since the trail was flat enough once past the starting incline. After 1h30min we came out of the trees into an open area and saw that there were two other people starting up our intended climb. We decided to hang-out under some nearby trees where we would be out of any avalanche danger to see how the other group would be doing as they climbed up. If we couldn’t get on the climb after waiting around for an hour we decided that we would start heading back. We sat around for about 30min when one of the guys yelled across to us asking if we planned to also climb. After yelling back “yeah!” he told us to come over. By the time we reached the climb they had both rappelled down. Conveniently for us, one of them had plans to be back in Canmore for 1500h and he figured they didn’t have enough time to finish the climb.
We did the climb in two long 70m pitches. I led the first on thin and bulgy ice and reached a bolted anchor to the left of the second tier. Pat led the slightly steeper second pitch on thicker blue ice. The rappel down was quick with the V-threads and bolted anchors already in place. The ski out was quick. We kept the skins on to help keep the speed under check since our mountaineering boots didn’t offer the most control. It was a great end to the ice climbing season!
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