Canadian Sun

Well...it was a very good Sun. After a whole week freezing and on some places snow, it was a nice shiny weekend - like 25 degrees.That of course was absolutely great for my mountaineering plans and not so good for my red burned skin on my face.

Saturday - Vermillion peak (2622 m)
Indecently early morning wake-up 5:30 a.m.... and only 30 min later we are flying on the trans-Canadian highway, connecting the Atlantic's with the Pacific cost. Comfortably passing through Calgary and directly crossing some parts of the most interesting mountains - national parks Banff and Yoho. As we were getting into the main massifs when the sunrise caught us and we became wetnesses of that splendid view. Soon the climbing started on a steepen avalanche gully, happily without any snow. Almost close to the top my slope was close to 45-50 degrees on a smooth surface. I've tried to climb on it but the crumbling rock and my sliding boots made me change my mind... Traverse, than on the top where the rest of the guys were climbing. The fantastic panoramic view of course. Nearly an hour on the top, pictures, sign in in the register, we decided to get down. We've made some change on the way back just for a bit of variety. That's how we found a huge forest, that has been burned 3 years ago. The place was quite strange but the company was in a high spirit. Some good pictures were made. Surprisingly 3p.m. but we were down with the cars. Tried some thoughts on another quick peak but anyway the idea of a beer and some food became more nice.


Sunday - Mist mountain (3140 m)
We suggested a lot of snow and a very slow and exhausting 1300 meters that was about to climb up. But the trip started with searching for a path. As such has not been found, we decided to cross the forest. Not a very clever choice knowing the fact that some number of bears are living in that region but do we have any other choice left... After the forest we reach a beautiful grassy valley, which remined me Pirin *. Going up, passing the saddle, entered in a new valley. Totally different from the previous one! Rocky with lots of screes and snow. Winter was already there. We chose a path with less difficulties. During the rests we've made a decent snowman. The top looked huge and unreachable knowing that in fact it was only a short ridge - the real peak was hiding somewhere behind it. After the exhausting climbing on the slope we reached a ridge leading to a covered snowy peak. One of the guys decided to dig for the register... Over a meter snow! As the English guy Phil says, 'the view is spectacular!' The getting down was a real fun. Pretty much snow for a snow slide down through the valley. A serious range of rates for a few minutes 500 meters below. 45 years old men all like a kids, laughing to tears. A perfect end of a pretty interesting weekend!
* Pirin: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirin