After a bit of a delayed start, Roy and I headed up to the Hut on goat ledge on Castle Mountain. The hike in is a fairly benign, uphill climb on a hikers trail for an hour and a half to the Lookout where views towards Banff and Lake Louise can be had for miles and miles. Making good time here, we continued on our way to the more technical part of the ascent. One short pitch took us to a series of steps and more uphill gain to our home for the night.
It not being the hugest quarters, we were relieved to find ourselves the sole residents for the night! A bit of tea, a bit of brandy and soon our heads hit the down jacket for the night.
We awoke to pitter patters of rain starting at 1am and by 6am when our alarms went off, the rain was still intermittent. Trying to shove our oatmeal and instant coffee down, we contemplated our options. The initial plan was to do Brewers, but with the rain and the difficulty in retreating with one rope we decided to change it to Eisenhower tower since Roy had not climbed either.
The goat traverse still had a fair amount of snow so we were happy to have our axes with us. The dragons back is always such a cool way to start the tower, some fun climbing up and down little spires that take you to the tower proper.
Once on the tower the climbing is super fun on good rock…even if it is raining! We headed toward the decision point where one can either climb on the left of the right side of the tower. Due to the rain that didn’t want to subside we opted for the left side to keep our options for retreat easy!
Lots of snow in the gully still made for some fun mixed snow and rock pitches.
Near the top, we had to make some decisions on the weather…we knew we were close, but the rain was starting to really come down. Some climbers that headed up the right side decided to bail, but because the weather wasn’t electric, we continued on to tag the summit.
Lucky for us, we popped out to a fist full of sunshine that allowed us some glimpses of our amazing surroundings…
Of course, going up is only half the day! We high fived, had a snack and started our descent down. Several raps got us back to the ledge where we traversed back to the hut, grabbed our stuff and headed towards the car.
Thanks Roy for a great day in the mountains and persevering in the less the optimal weather! Looking forward to our next adventure