Diadem Peak, Humble Horse IV 5.7 W4

Weather: 15C Cloudy with sunny breaks. Little wind.

Peak: 3371m

Time of Departure: 0645h (Late alpine start!)

Time of Return: 0115h

Total Time: 19h30min

Approach: 8km (Gain of 1345m)

Climb: 610m

Return: 13.5km (Loss of 1955m)

Because of our late start, I had little hope of actually climbing and thought we were out for a scouting mission to get familiar with the approach to do the climb tomorrow. From the parking lot, we forded the Sunwapta River (crotch deep!) and walked up and along Diadem Creek. We reached the moraine and trended right to head up and reach the glacier. It took us five hours to reach the base of Diadem Peak. On the approach I had low expectations of actually doing the climb due to our late start. Once at the base and looking at the route we decided to give it a shot. There was a 300m snow slope that steepened up to 55 degrees as we climbed. Crossing the ‘schrund was easy with supportive snow bridging it. Our steps in the snow came to boot top and was supportive. We then roped up for the first pitch. Carsten led the first 60m pitch of mixed rock which also involved digging through a foot or two of snow. We opted to climb to the left of the suggested couloir because it was lower angled and we thought to go through it quickly. Instead the protection was scarce. Two more pitches of easy rock and little protection brought us to the first pitch of ice. This was the first alpine route where pitons were a must to help make belay stations and place as protection during the climb. The following pitch of ice was great and kicked quite steeply for a few meters. The thicker ice was about a foot wide and varied in depth up to 6 inches. Another stretch of 55 degree ice reached steeper mixed grounds. The last pitch was a fun mix of rock and ice which thinned out and topped out onto 5.7 rock. To reach the summit we opted to contour bellow a big menacing cornice and traversed onto some more rock to get around and above.

To descend we walked down to the Woolley-Diadem col and passed next to big seracs. We got off the glacier around 2230h just before darkness set in. We walked the Woolley creek drainage out towards the highway and forded the Sunwapta river once again to reach the highway. The following 6km along the highway to reach the van was dreadfully long. I’d close my eyes from time to time and walk in auto-pilot mode. An hour and a half later and we made it to the van where our sleeping bags called on us.

It was interesting to see how my mentality changed as I realized we were going to commit to the climb with a later start. Overall the climbing was great with mental challenges coming from runout sections.

The route follows the couloir directly to the top.

















Heading up the initial snow slope.























Carsten heading up the first mixed pitch.




Summit photo!




Walking towards the Woolley-Diadem col.
Mt. Alberta in the background






Mt. Athabasca, North Face III 5.4

This spring in particular hasn’t offered the best conditions for alpine climbs in the Rockies due to the higher than average snowpack which lingered around for longer. I took this time to work on rock climbing technique by sport climbing at Grassi Lakes and Grotto Canyon in Canmore. I also honed down gear placements with a few days of climbing on Yamnuska and a day out at the back of the lake at Lake Louise. The weather has been quite wet. During one of the rainy days, Erin and I made a trip out to the more arid “town” of Spillimacheen and discovered an awesome climbing crag within two and a half hours from Banff.

The shoulder season between winter and summer is finally coming to an end. Pat and I were discussing to ski tour up onto the Columbia Icefields and ski up the Twin Towers (3^rd highest peak in the Canadian Rockies). But as the weekend neared, the weather forecast didn’t look promising for the three days needed for the trip. Instead, we opted to attempt Mt. Athabasca’s North Face (3491m). We drove up Saturday night at 2000h after I finished work. After two hours of driving we parked along the Snocoach Road and slept in the van.

We were hoping for an overnight freeze when we woke up at 0200h. Unfortunately it didn’t happen; instead we were greeted with a little drizzle of rain bouncing off the van’s roof and moderate to strong gusts of wind. We didn’t mind the weather conditions as we started heading up the glacial moraine at 2030h. As we walked along I was hoping that there would be some freezing higher up to hold the snow bridges together on the glacier and the rock and snow on the north face as well. The drizzle did turn into a light snow once on the North Glacier. But there was also a thick cloud/fog cover which reduced our visibility to about 10 ft. There was only a slight crust that froze on the glacier overnight and the snow bellow it was wet and heavy. Earlier this morning I was woken up by a group who had left before us at 0145h. We followed their tracks and caught up to them a few minutes before reaching the seracs bellow the Silverhorn route. When I asked which route they were planning to do I was glad to hear them say the Silverhorn and not our intended route. Around 0500h I decided to stop for a few minutes hoping that the sunrise would soon give us a better clue of our direction since we were still navigating in the dark and the visibility was still poor. The cloud cover opened up momentarily and gave us a glimpse of Mt. Athabasca. We were nearing the seracs bellow the Silverhorn route and I took a bearing of 120 degrees with my compass assuming the cloud cover was going to roll back over us which it did. The first light of the day was starting to brighten things up around 0530h, but the snow conditions didn’t improve as we climbed higher up. We realized that the snowpack was possibly going to be similar on the North Face and called it a day. A good overnight freeze would make the climbing safer and more enjoyable. As we followed our tracks back down the North Glacier Pat tweaked his knee. His leg caught in the snow as he fell forward. He had a little hop going on since he couldn’t put too much pressure on his leg. Once past the glacier he managed the sections scree and snow quite well considering. After a little snooze in the van we drove home. The 2hr car ride gave Pat’s knee enough time to stiffen up. He was in quite a lot of pain as he hoped up the apartment stairs and determined that he probably has a slight tear in his ACL.

Time of departure: 0230h

Highest point: 2900m

Time of return: 0630h