We head to Johnson Creek, featured in every tourist pamphlet we see for it's guided ice walks. This means that the very falls we hiked in to climb, scores of folks are hiking in to see, who are told on that hike - I can only imagine from the way we were described in detail by guides as we passed them - that if they're lucky, they'll see all sorts of wildlife, including ice climbers. (And if they're *really* lucky, they'll see those climbers fall...)

We put up the most straightforward line (WI2-3), and then TRed an overhang left by a broken pillar (WI5+) (we'll see lots of broken pillars on the trip, for each day the temps in the sun reach close to 60F), and then I try a somewhat thinner, cauliflowered line near the main falls (WI 4R (though I TRed it)) before we grab a bite in Lake Louise and head for Rampart Creek, a "wilderness Hostel" with no running water, an outhouse, no phone, and in fact about 45 min. from any gas or food of any sort. All the same, only ice climbers stay there, so we're surrounded with good folk who understand us, and we find we like it there.

Sunday we climb something called Lady Wilson's Cleavage (III, WI3, 300m), which turns out to be pretty much a non-climb, as avy debris has filled in most of the steeper steps. We solo it, and Chris puts up a nice WI3 line on the curtain above. Then we head to Jasper and beautiful views of icefields and fluted peaks, surprisingly good Greek food, and even a caribou sighting.

Monday we head to the magnificent Weeping Wall (often described as a vertical football field of ice), where we'd planned to do Sniveling Gulley (II, WI3, 180m), but it's south-facing lower half had melted out, so we led up the left side of the wall (WI4), and make a somewhat delicate traverse on wet rock and funky, bulbous ice marbles onto Sniveling, which we proceed to burn up, remarking repeatedly on the interesting state of the ice during this extended warm-snap - akin to corn snow at best, and more like deep, crystalline mush (hard to picture, I know. But if you've experienced what I'm talking about, you know exactly what I mean). It's super fun climbing since picks sink and remove trivially. But pro was sketchy in all but the deepest shady recesses. A statement that says much more about the limitations of my leading than the difficulty of the climb - this climb, or at least the pitches I led, offered my hardest ice lead yet.

I returned Chris to the Calgary airport, and stopped by the MEC to buy some shoelaces (Chris: "I don't remember what street it's on, but it's right downtown; you'll find it."). Miraculously, I did in fact find it, and found it closed, though the Coast Mountain Sports across the way wasn't, and the girl whom I checked out with turned out to be looking for a climbing partner for the following day.

Her name was Lisa, and she was pretty and delightful - somewhat confusing after a few days with Chris - and all that after having worked an eight hour shift by the time I arrived at her place just before noon. We headed to Heart Creek, and later Grotto Canyon, for some fun soloing and an attempt (hers) on a thin, rotten, hollow and latticed pillar which sent down ice and rock between the falls and cliff with each placement.

I was, of course, completely charmed.

Dinner, more discussion with Sharon about life in the small Saskatchewan town in which she grew up, and off to pick up Keren. Wednesday morning we drove to BC - to Field - to see what life was like on the other side of the divide. Keren seemed to come of the impression that life there was pretty cool. Of course it was really only cool in the shade, and a number of famous climbs were in stellar condition. We, of course tried a line in the sun (Silk Tassel: WI4, 80m, II), with a horrendous approach, mind you, and though climbing in the sunbleached ice was fun, placing pro was a nightmare - one in which I found myself digging in with my shaft and not finding secure ice as much as 8 inches into the flow. We bailed, and headed for the hostel.

Yet another crack of dawn start on Thursday morning (I think I awoke around 9:00, playing the sick card *very* heavily), we climbed the aptly named Shades of Beauty (120m III, WI4), about a hour up Beauty Creek just north of the Columbia Icefields. I have the most endearing memories of that climb, and climbing it with Keren, with whom I'd never before shared a rope. It didn't hurt that my ego was stroked - the final pitch was a new record for me for difficulty.

Friday I was feeling worse (damn you, Chris), so Keren and I headed to Balfour Wall, just south of Saskatchewan River on the Parkway, so she could practice leading and I could practice being miserable company. Then off to Canmore, to take in Karen McNeil's slideshow on the first all-woman ascent of the Cassin Ridge, and finally to Lake Louise for a God-awful night in a hostel that had electricity, running water, internet access, and all manner of atrocities that draw hordes of that drunken, raucous brute known as the resort skier.

A sleepless night, and increasingly swollen glands had me telling Keren as I woke that I was sorry, but I just wasn't going to be able to climb. But just as every other morning, twenty minutes after a few Advil, Tylenol, Robitussin, and of course a few Fisherman's Friends, I was pushing to get up something. And like every other morning, the eternally patient Keren just laughed at me and acquiesced. Our object: Louise Falls (110m II, WI4-5). We traipsed across a frozen Lake Louise, past an ice sculpture of a swan asking Heather to marry Rob, to the beautiful blue ice where the sleigh rides stop and the cameras flash. I led an easy pitch to a dead tree, and Keren lead another to a cave. Exiting that cave onto readily hooked, but nonetheless scary-steep ice, gave me my first real experience of exposure on ice (and this, coming form a guy who climbed the Ferrari route on Alpamayo). I was really nervous, and for the first time had a raging debate in my head over the relative merits of placing pro or gunning the next section. The head game was intensely engaging, and I loved it.

Keren, too, was impressed with the pitch (though she of course dispatched it handily), and as we descended we were plenty happy with ourselves, the climb, the day, the week. We treated ourselves to tea at the Banff Springs Hotel, and not much later, dinner at the excellent Irish Pub, before settling into a modest (and oh-so-quiet) hotel room overlooking the Bow River.

On Sunday, our last day, we took in a waning Canmore Ice Fest, and then headed to the Calgary MEC to read and try on fruit-boots on the climbing wall... Airport, customs, a flight to make me curse existence... an interminable delay for our bags, the beautiful countenance of an awaiting Sumi, home, drugs, and I find myself nodding off while looking up my calendar trying to figure out how to make this whole thing happen again next year...