Climbing Canmore Wedding Party, Montana | George’s Blog

AFC athlete George is part of the Young Alpinist Group programme, which is dedicated to supporting the next generation of British alpinists. In his blog, George shares his recent experiences with us.

Alpine Climbing Stateside - Canmore Wedding Party

One of the more surface level things I really missed while living in the US (aside from the usual friends, family etc,) was proper alpine climbing. Not just rock climbing at altitude in the wilderness (how people over here define it), but proper mixed stuff on big loose mountains where mountain sense is far more important than climbing ability.

The campsite with ‘A Peak’ in the background.

Unhealthy quantities of Googling showed some unrepeated winter alpine routes in the Tetons, untapped potential in the Winds (though I didn’t have 10 grand to drop on a snowmobile and another 50 grand to drop on the truck to tow it), and a king, unrepeated line way up north in Montana maybe 75km south of the Canadian border in the Cabinet Mountains called ‘Canmore Wedding Party’.

For two winters, I tried and failed to scrounge up a partner to head up there and try to repeat the route. Honestly, I didn’t try too hard, it took both winters to get to a level I wanted to on pure ice climbing, something that I’ve never had much luck with in the Alps. However, this winter a buddy called Ryan was psyched to head up there and try it as preparation for a bigger potential route up in Canada. That found us both scrounging four days off work and shoving our shite into my little Suzuki for the 11 hour drive up to the town of Libby. The first ascentionists had taken 3 days to climb the route, with a bivvy on the route and another on the descent, and they were pretty fucking good, so I was fully expecting to have to call in sick, there was no way we would be able to do 22 hours of driving, 9 miles of approaching and the route in four days. Nonetheless, fortune favours the stupid (sorry, bold), so we kept our doubts mostly to ourselves.

Avalanches, bad parking, and… bears?

Crux Ice Pitch

We managed to cut a mile and a half off the approach by getting the Suzuki as far up an unplowed road as possible until it got stuck. We loaded up our bags with way too much shite and started plodding, bear spray at the ready on my hipbelt – grizzlys liked this area apparently. Okay but not great weather meant that we never really got a proper look at the route in it’s entirety, and mountains with clouds covering the top halves seemed to grow by 50 percent in my mind. Big bags and postholing meant we were both a little more tired than ideal, and unforecasted light snow all night wasn’t the best sign. Nonetheless, we woke up at 5AM the next morning and started the walk around 6AM. Depressingly slow progress up the approach slope was fully halted by a massive avalanche ripping straight down the entire route. It literally started in the gully at the top of the route and went the entire 2500ft length. Closer examination showed that the side walls of the chasm the route went up funnelled unholy amounts of snow onto where we would be climbing – an inch of snow falling probably translated to a foot of snow on the route. We sat for a while under a boulder, knowing the trip was over but not really wanting to turn around after all the effort made to get there. Increasingly heavy snowfall over the next hour made up our minds for us, and we turned around to try another day. It wasn’t an utter waste of time however, as we learnt that our bags were way too heavy, and what kind of conditions you would actually want on that route to climb it – i.e., in autumn before there’s been much snowfall, or late spring when it’s gone through some freeze-thaw cycles to glue everything together. Undeterred, we decided to return in late April if the weather was good. We went about sourcing some lighter gear before then.

The second attempt

Changing it up, we took Ryan’s truck the next attempt, wanting to limit the possibility of my car breaking down in middle-of-nowhere Montana. I’d broken out the kitchen scales and weighed all my food and gear beforehand this time after the brutal reminder last time that ‘light is right.’ That plus the lack of snow left us at the little campsite and the end of the lake feeling relatively chipper this time. The weather still didn’t look amazing, but at least this time I could see the entire mountain and it wasn’t actively snowing. Once again, setting off early morning, a nice solid frozen spring snowpack saw us to the base in 2 hours! Simul-soloing up to the base of the first crux pitch, Ryan led this vertical to slightly overhanging snow-ice pitch with good sticks and terrible screws. I took over and one pitch later we started simuling up what we dubbed ‘the groove’, a one meter deep groove scoured out of the neve by endless avalanches and sprindrift throughout the winter. Good neve and non-existent gear had me continuing for a marathon simul block until, finally, I found a couple pieces in a sidewall for a belay right when I thought my calves were going to explode. Ryan took over leading, and I took over the role of ‘target’ for all the debris the leader sends down. We astonishingly hit the bivvy boulder just past midday, brewed up a cup of tea, and then I took over climbing until the mixed crux. As Ryan took the ice crux, this M7 was mine. A lot of excavating, a good nut low down and some cams slotted between loose chunks of rock that I hoped were frozen together at the back of the slot, I pulled over the top of the difficulties on a smear of ice to the second good belay on the route so far. The last two pitches were loose mixed covered with deep sugar snow for a nice Alaskan experience. Ryan got through one, and I fecked around for ages on mine trying not to kick loose rocks down to the belay, and figuring out a way through what was probably easy ground but didn’t feel like it. Finally, we topped out to a Cairngorms blizzard. A long ridge traverse, some downclimbing and hiking brought us back to where we camped, only 18 hours after we left. The next day we hiked out and did the 11 hour drive back to Salt Lake, arriving at my house ready to drop into a coma for a few days. The housemates had other plans however, and I turned up to a fairly rowdy party.

Name and goal of trip: Canmore Wedding Party, A Peak, Montana

What went well during the trip and what didn’t go as well as planned: Making good decisions about the weather during the first attempt didn’t go well. We also packed too heavy. However, we learnt from that and reduced the gear we brought by quite a bit, weighed out our food beforehand, and made sure we had a better weather window before the second attempt.

How did you prepare for the trip: Lots of climbing, lots of running and big mountain days beforehand. Was also preparing to head to Denali later on in the year, so all the training for that helped quite a bit!

Favourite food and snack while on the trip: Homemade trail mix

Best or favourite moment: Reaching the bivy site at midday when we actually climbed the route, and realising we may be able to do the route in a day.

Any lessons you learnt which you will remember for your next trip: Light gear, lots of big days in the mountains needed prior to build up the fitness. Bring enough food, but not too much to weigh you down.