First climbing and camping experiences around Canmore

To familiarize ourselves with the rock and climbing grades in Canada, we picked the Mount Baldy sport climbing area as our first spot. We enjoyed the nice limestone climbing there. As the great finale, we did the route climbers from Saxony must do – “Slabby McSlabface”. The name says it all: 120m of fine, easy (5.6) slab climbing! So, we even did our first (sport) multi-pitch that day.

To continue our squirrel experiences, we saw a Golden-mantled ground squirrel (Goldmantelziesel) for the first time at the base of the climbing spot. Of course, we were psyched (so CUTE!) but the Canadians couldn’t have been less excited. They plainly told us “He’s here to steal your food”. Well, they can see it everyday…

But more about rock climbing. On June 26th, we had awesome weather conditions to send the next multi-pitches “Grey Waves” and “Highlight”, both 5.8 at Kid Goat. It was pure plaisir climbing on great rock with a fantastic view of Yamnuska mountain. Only on one pitch, we had to place our own gear which was exciting but also felt great, as it wasn’t hard to climb but had a slight touch of alpinistic adventure.

Even more adventurous felt our first time camping in Canada in the Bow Valley Campground that night. At check-in, they told us there are 3 bears in the area! But the Canadians are really relaxed about that because it’s just normal that there’s a bear around anywhere. Basically, every campground has the sign “Bear in Area” put up. But we were nervous, of course when getting comfy in our tent and strictly followed every rule to avoid bears. You see, it worked out ;)