Multi-pitches around Banff

We did some more rock climbing the next days. On July 7th, we went to Borgeau Slabs and climbed Walk of Ages with a first pitch variation via Great to be Straight (5.10c). The steep, sometimes slabby route in solid rock was quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, a thunderstorm stopped us from doing another route. But thanks to that, we could pay Minnewanka Lake a visit (where it apparently didn’t rain) and relax a bit in the sun while watching the people daring to take a swim in the cold water.

The next day, we did Riverrun on Banff’s local mountain Tunnel Mt. It was hard to find out the right moves for the cruxy first pitch (5.10d). I even fell 2 times leading it, but as soon as I found out the right sequence it actually felt quite easy. All in all, the route was quite sustained in difficulty and a great climb. Initially, we planned to rappel the route, but on the second last belay station, we figured out it isn’t easily doable. So, thanks to this bad luck and a bit of bad planning on our part, we had to walk down the hiking path. The only problem: our shoes were still at the start of the route... Well, we just had to accept to get a great peeling for our feet and walked down barefoot, around 3 km. The other hikers were looking at us like we were crazy. One woman even stopped, out of breath from the walk uphill, and asked in a trembling voice: “You are actually doing that barefoot?”, like she could hardly believe her eyes. Well, we didn’t really have a choice. Though the gravelish parts did hurt a little, it wasn’t as bad as we imagined. You just had to walk fast enough, haha.

Later, when driving to Lake Louise, we also stopped at the impressive Johnston Canyon and walked to the upper waterfalls. But this time with our shoes on!