Beaming, my climbing partner pulls up over the crest of snow onto our belay ledge. “That was the best - the best”, she says. She comes up to the belay station I have secured on a large block of limestone and sits her small frame down for a breather. Excited, she looks up at what the route has in store for us. Now that the snow and ice are behind us the route looks to be a narrow, stepped ridge which has a fair bit of loose rock; fairly typical of the conditions here in the Canadian Rockies.
This is a big day for my mother. Although she has been going on mountain outings with the Alpine Club of Canada for the past 5 or 6 years but this will be her first true “alpine” climb. I reckon that, at 64 years old, this is a hell of a thing. Not to mention that, including snow, ice, new techniques and a ridgeline that narrowed down to 18” in places this is a spicy route!
Plans for this trip began with Jan (known more affectionately as Mom) calling to invite me to join her on an Alpine Club trip traversing the Rockies from Marble Canyon to Moraine Lake. Now, not many of us are lucky enough to have the chance to be invited on a mountaineering trip by our mothers. I had missed a couple of these opportunities before so I was not about to let this one get passed me. I sent my whole-hearted confirmation back and signed myself up. As information about the trip started to appear in my inbox I got more exited. On the other hand it was becoming clear to me that this would be a pretty challenging route for my mom. As the route consisted of two days of hiking up then two days of climbing from one of the high alpine huts there was the chance for a break before descending back to civilization. Let’s face it, though, who was really going to take a break when presented with the prospects of climbing from Canada’s highest habitable structure (The ACC’s Neil Colgen hut).
So I take up our story on day three. We have hiked up past Marble Canyon, slept at the Fay hut, slogged over a day’s worth of moraines and finally up and over the glacier approach to the Neil Colgen hut. A short night’s sleep (alpine climbing usually forces one to start the day at about 4am to take advantage of the best snow conditions of the day) had us out on the approach to Mount Little. (I should take a moment to say that Mount Little’s name is maybe a bit misleading. At almost 11,000’ it is one of the higher mountains in the Rockies.) As I mentioned, Jan has spent a reasonable amount of time in the mountains but not on “technical” terrain. It was important that we spent some time reviewing the basics of snow and ice travel. The first practice swings of the ice axe saw the pick skittering sideways away from the ice, not the reassuring thud of solid penetration that an ice climber wants to hear. After painstaking practice and a few runs up a short slope we are off. Progress on the route’s initial snow slopes went fairly quickly but the steeper pitches of ice above slowed us down a fair bit. On a slope of this nature the 2nd climber is out of sight to the leader as she progresses up the slope. You might imagine that as I slowly took in the rope I was thinking that maybe our attempt was going to end here, only partway up the mountain. Usually, when someone climbs slowly it is because they are struggling. Just as I began to think about how to safely get off the mountain, I was surprised by Jan's grinning face popping over the crest of the snow slope.
The ridge, which we would follow for next two hours, loomed overhead. Although near vertical in many places parts of the ridge could be walked on upright by a confident climber. In these places the exposure was extreme with the slope dropping away on both sides to the glacier 2000’ below. On these types of routes there is very little to secure safe passage for a climbing party. We used a technique referred to as “short-roping” where the climbers move together connected by 20-30’ of rope. Security comes from running the rope over horns or spikes of rock so that a fall would be caught by the rope hooking the rock. Alternately the option is to hurl oneself right if your partner falls left. Just the very idea of this gives most non-climbers the heebie-jeebies but sometimes it is the only safeguard available. This is a technique that entails a fair grasp of rope handling skills to avoid tangles and hang ups. This must be done as the wind and the shear drops on both sides play with your physical balance as well as your emotion state. Although a bit spooky the actual climbing was well within our limits and we reached the summit together in the early afternoon.
After a descent that included rappels, down-climbing, snow-sliding and even coming face-to-face with a mountain goat we find ourselves back at the hut with the rest of our group. The others had split into two groups to climb some of the area’s harder mountains. As each of the groups relayed the day’s achievements Jan was positively glowing. The intensity of her emotion at doing something that, until that day, she had previously only dreamt was infectious. Our whole group was proud of her success. I think they all understood that this was a defining moment for Jan. For both of us the most powerful part of the whole event was that we did it together.
My mom is not the kind of person who you would meet and think, “oh, I bet that woman is a climber (skier, runner).” She has not spent her life pursuing endurance sport and other high-energy activities. Jan, however, has never been one to shy away from her dreams. Climbing has not come easily to her. Jan has put a lot of physical effort and soul searching into her climbing. She has worked hard to overcome fears that most people give up fighting much earlier in life. Yet she is concrete proof that if you commit to trying something new you may be shocked at what you can achieve. Most of us are blessed with a body that, for the most part, functions normally. With that body we can do most of the things that others have done before us. It is more often the mind that holds us back. Spending a week in the mountains with my mom was concrete proof that with the right attitude, the seemingly impossible becomes possible.
