Pure Joy!

On 5th July, we had our first attempt of climbing the route Joy on Mt Indefatigable. When we reached the start of the route, we truly fancied climbing as it simply looked awesome. But the weather conditions weren’t looking great and an easy retreat wouldn’t have been possible. After thinking back and forth a while, we decided to call it off. What a bummer! But better safe than sorry. We headed to our alternative, a hiking route, which was closed. Bummer AGAIN! Well, at least we could do our second alternative, a short hike to a nice view from the Kananaskis Fire Lookout. When we had lunch, a little curious bird (whiskey-jack or Canadian gray jay) tried to steal our food, which was funny. We even saw spruce grouse on our way back! They’re called “fool hen” for being easily approachable. Well, they were. And you should’ve seen the walk of the cock! He was doing a hilariously looking “tail dance” with every step, probably to impress the hen. After all, it was still a good day.

But regarding Joy - it ain’t over till the fat lady sings (a great expression I just learned). The next day, weather forecast was better, so we gave it a second try. In the morning, another camper told us there’s a bear in the campground. We actually saw him right outside the camp as we left, chowing some grass. As we approached the start of the route, the weather was looking stable, so we decided to climb. This time we did send it. And it was PURE JOY! Such a great line - 600 m of plaisir climbing in the massive dihedral and sometimes on the giant slab (just look at the pictures)! Plus, all trad climbing, so a real alpinistic adventure. On top of this, we had a terrific panorama from the pre-summit of Mt Indefatigable (the real summit isn’t accessible anymore). On our way down, we did the best scree skiing ever, Philipp even slid on his butt for a while! After that long day, we were done for, sweat-soaked and covered with dust from the scree field. So, we took a refreshing dip in the ice-cold Kananaskis Lake. Simply put, it was the perfect day.

Click to watch:

Scree skiing video

Thieving grey jay video