January
Exactly 200 years to the day – Jan. 10 – Canmore writers Jerry Auld and Dustin Lynx reached the fabled historic site in remote Jasper National Park where intrepid adventurer David Thompson made the first crossing of Athabasca Pass in 1811. While 27 backcountry skiers attempted the 58-kilometre journey to commemorate the occasion at a camp organized by Parks Canada, frigid temperatures turned many around.
Canmore-based ice climber and ACMG mountain guide Jen Olson was thrilled to earn second place in the women’s mixed climbing competition at the Ouray, Colorado ice climbing festival, which ran Jan. 6-9. Olson finished 11th overall in an international co-ed field of 19 top ice and mixed climbers.
February
The sixth annual MEC Sunshine 5000 ski mountaineering competition drew 38 competitors from across B.C., Alberta and as far as Whitehorse, Yukon for the Feb. 5 race. While Valemount, B.C.’s Reiner Thoni successfully defended his title, the event also welcomed its first ever youth competitors, Katarina Kuba and Martin Carnogursky, both 15.
March
Canmore ACMG mountain guide Grant Meekins and Calgary ice and mixed master/physics professor Raphael Slawinski established The Peach, a four-pitch, 110-metre climb on the Storm Creek headwall in Kootenay National Park.
April
Canmore’s Daniel Robb teamed up with Nelson, B.C.’s Gerry Heacock, Vancouver’s Edward McCarthy and Carsten Moldenhauer, from Erfurt, Germany, to become only the eighth group ever to complete the Great Divide ski traverse over 19 days. First accomplished by Chic Scott, Charlie Locke, Neil Liske and Don Gardner in 1967, the 320-kilometre route crosses glaciers and high alpine passes from Jasper to Lake Louise.
While the event drew only 14 competitors, both the organizers and the athletes proclaimed the inaugural Ken Jones Classic ski mountaineering competition, which took place at the Lake Louise ski area on April 2, a smooth success. What the event lacked in numbers was made up for in enthusiasm as skiers raced the 1,615-vertical-metre, 16-kilometre course, with top Canadian Reiner Thoni crossing the finish line in 2:21:26, and Canada’s fastest female, Revelstoke’s Melanie Bernier, blasting to second in 2:38:45.
May
On May 27-28, Canada hosted its first World Cup climbing competition in Canmore’s Millennium Park. With 1,100 spectators, volunteers and officials cheering their vocal chords off, 70 of the world’s best competitive climbers from 10 countries including Austria, Slovenia, Japan and the Netherlands displayed their best moves at the Bouldering World Cup, with Vancouver’s Sean McColl taking bronze.
June
Coast climber Jason Kruk teamed up with Golden B.C. ‘alpine artist’ Jon Walsh from June 20-22 to establish the aptly-named Kruk-Walsh route on the queen of the Rockies, Mount Robson. During the 55-hour car-to-car push, the duo climbed 20 new pitches on the peak’s famed Emperor Face.
July
Top Canadian rock star Sonnie Trotter and U.S. big wall climber Tommy Caldwell endured typical Rockies summer snow squalls and leg-numbing hanging belay sessions – alleviated by rigging a $20 lawn chair to the sheer overhanging wall – to establish The Shining, a 15-pitch route on the Bow Valley landmark Mount Louis’ Diamond Face.
The International Olympic Committee announced that all three competitive disciplines of climbing – bouldering, lead and speed – have been proposed for inclusion in the 2020 Summer Olympic Games.
August
After years of studying Google Earth and topographical maps, and waiting out weeks of rain, Canmore’s own inimitable Will Gadd boarded a Greyhound bus from Canmore at 1 a.m. on Aug. 1 and disembarked in Vernon, B.C., from where he spent the following week accomplishing the first ever paraglider flight over the Monashee Mountains, the Selkirks and Purcells from Revelstoke to Invermere, and over the Rockies from Invermere to land within walking distance of his home.
September
The newly-released Freedom Climbers (Rocky Mountain Books), by long-time Banff resident Bernadette McDonald, was nominated for the prestigious Boardman Tasker Prize. Not only would the book, detailing the fascinating story of how a cadre of exceptionally bold and tough Polish climbers overcame the oppressive government of the era to dominate Himalayan climbing through the 1980s and ‘90s, win the award, it also earned Grand Prize at the 2011 Banff Mountain Book Festival.
October
On Oct. 29, the 36th annual Banff Mountain Film Festival, kicked off with a double bill featuring renowned Canadian ethnobotanist and photographer Wade Davis, and Canadian filmmaker Dianne Whelan’s 40 Days at Base Camp, which unveiled Everest as a mountain that is at once explored, trampled, worshipped and defiled.
November
Bow Valley climbers Brandon Pullan, Carlyle Norman and Cian Brinker were awarded the very special John Lauchlan Memorial Award for their planned climb of the spectacular southwest face of Aguja Bifida in Patagonia’s Torre group. The annual award celebrates the life and innovative, small team climbing style of revered Canadian climber John Lauchlan.
December
Canmore’s Alison Vest and Calgary’s Luke Muller took tops spots at Plasticfest, which took place at Canmore’s Vsion climbing gym. The annual non-sanctioned competition, in which participants attempt to climb as many of 50 routes of varying difficulty in a three-hour time span as possible, attracted 130 competitors from as far as Calgary and Edmonton.
