After having an early 7am breakfast saturday morning, our international climbing team composed of Blake, myself, and Douglas our new Scottish friend, headed up towards Maligne Lake to an area called "WAD Valley" for another day of ice climbing.
After a 30 minute approach we were up high in WAD valley with fantastic views of the Skyline ridge across the valley. During the night, a few centemeters of fresh snow had fallen leaving the mountains with a light dusting of snow on their slopes.
Blake led (or rather Solo'd) the first pitch of the climb and setup an excellent belay station in a corner to the left of the climb and out of the way of falling ice. I led the second pitch and then setup a top rope from which we spent the rest of the day climbing on the vertical ice...
Through out the day, Douglas told us about Scottish mountaineering and what the Scots refer to as "Full Conditions". "Full Conditions" are what happens to a route that is pounded with north atlantic weather of foul proportions...rain, snow, ice. Also about a terrifing thing called verglas...(aka the mountaineering version of freezing rain), and the joys of using turf spikes for pro. Brave dudes those Scots are...
Tristen Rasmussen, <tristen_r@yahoo.com>