Mount Athabasca via Silverhorn -- My First 11,000er!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 11 ก.ย. 2024
- This is our assent of Mount Athabasca via Silverhorn. We completed a training/refresher day the day before and camped the night at the Icefields Campground.
I had planned on climbing Athabasca nearly a year earlier on an Intro to Alpine Ice course but a cold front resulted in large amounts of snow the area. We decided not to attempt the climb with poor (1+ meter of fresh snow) conditions near the summit. I promised that I would come back and make Athabasca my first 11,000 foot peak.
Sure enough, 11 and a half months later I was back at the Icefields and on the summit of my first 11,000er
We were guided up by Jesse from Yamnuska Mountain Adventures. Thanks for an awesome time as always Jesse !
Blog:
guide2point0.b...
Strava:
/ strava
Thanks for the memories. My partner and I "simulclimbed" Silverhorn in '78. Beautiful line.
I'm sure the gear was very different back then! And so was the glaciers!! I noticed a change even over the course of a year! The Athabasca has retreated hundreds of meters since then. It's a sight now, I can only imagine how impressive it must have looked back then!!
Glad I could bring back some great memories!!
@@mikeshumanpoweredadventures Relatively flexible boots with appropriate crampons. I used a 70mm ice axe and crappy Salewa hammer. Put a belay in at the ‘schrund but then, to my partner’s dismay,, I decided to run it out to the top of the arete.
We had perfect blue ice on most of the arete. Perfect day. Bit of cloud on the summit ridge but cleared for great views.
Same approach two years later with another partner on Andromeda Skyladder - just the rope between us. Perfect “styrofoam” fern.
That’s heartbreaking to see today - much of what was a soaring wall of ice reduced to a rubble pile.
The thing that struck me about the retreat of the Athabaska Glacier a couple of years ago was not so much the lateral retreat but the height loss. Mind boggling volume lost. Now hundreds of feet lower than where we stepped onto the upper glacier 43 years ago.
"I decided to run it out" a true Rockies mountaineer! Thanks for sharing!! I love hearing the stories!
Skyladder is close to the top of my tick list. Hopefully I'll be able to get it this year! Andromeda caught my eye more than any other peak in the area for some reason (probably because I couldn't see Columbia with all the smoke)...
The volume loss is the real issue. People don't realize the point you make. It's the reduction in hight that's astonishing. For every meter back they go, the volume loss is massive. It's glorious but also so tragic. This fact hit me while I was climbing through the first ice fall... just how much higher up I would have been above the bed rock just a few decades before... one day you will not be able to see it from the ice fields parkway...
@@mikeshumanpoweredadventures Yes. I remember listening to an interview with Laurens van Der Post 30 years back -- he was in his 80s -- and he made the point that the amount of environmental change he'd seen in "just my lifetime" was astonishing and disconcerting.
I understand now, as I approach 70, exactly what he meant. The Icefields and other alpine areas I climbed in my 20s and 30s are my touchstone, if you will.
I'm writing this, sweltering in my living room on the west coast. It hit 45℃ today, under my back balcony.
We're in for a wild ride. Enjoy what's left.
Skyladder: I talked to a warden a couple years back on a winter visit. Boasted about my climb of Skyladder and I bemoaned its state. "It's probably harder now," he said. 😃 Yeah, never liked that crumbly Rockies shale. Preferred ice or Bugaboos and Coast Range granite.
@@mikeshumanpoweredadventures Incidentally, some of my videos include glimpses of my old alpine exploits.
For the first section how do we know you weren't "climbing" on level ground with the camera tilted to look like you were climbing up!? Batman and robin style
HOLY CONSPIRACY BATMAN!!