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Lucky dogs on the North Pillar of Mount Macdonald

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  My summer did not go to plan, or at least to the loose plan I imposed on myself last spring. I arrived in Squamish in the middle of June in the midst of a breakup. I had saved up some money to hopefully spend a month before going to the Bugs come August. In an oh-so familiar way I managed to completely burn through my savings and had to reassess, and get a job. My friend was Boris visiting for two months and with their great enthusiasm convinced me to go get on something big, initially something in the Bugs or perhaps WA pass. We passed around ideas for a couple weeks, I wanted to do a new route, Boris wanted to climb a hard classic. Half asleep I remembered a conversation I had with my friend Vincent last year in East creek. He had said “It’s just as hard as Watchtower! Have you not seen the photos? It looks insane.” That’s it then, that big fucking hunk of rock you drive by in Rogers pass. It’s north facing, and has probably been climbed only a handful of times. I spent the m...
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Patagonia 2023

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The Power of Independent Trucking and other thoughts   Here is a copy-paste of the trip report of Mateo Esposito and I's climbing season in El Chalten. I'll be hopefully writing something a bit more personal for the Canadian Alpine Journal, but for now here is that !     In January 2023, Mateo Esposito and I met in El Chalten, Argentina to try and establish new routes somewhere on the Chalten massif. We had multiple objectives and came ready with everything from winter climbing gear to aid climbing equipment. Our main, and biggest objective was a new route on the North face of Aguja Poincenot where we knew we would likely find splitter crack systems and clean, steep climbing. I arrived in Chalten on January 11th, a short weather window was forecasted and quickly I repacked my bags to go into the mountains. The next day saw us rushing toward Paso Superior with our sights on a potential new route on the East face of Aguja Mermoz. Unfortunately I felt terribly sick and was ...
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Rockies ass kicking

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I grew up in a part of the country without mountains, in fact it was 6 years ago this month that I saw mountains for the first time. I was visiting because my partner’s mom had just turned 60 and we had rented a house in Canmore to celebrate. I still remember the car ride: rolling over the last hill and finally getting my first sight of the rocky mountains. I went completely silent. To this day I can still feel the afterglow of that first drive past Yamnuska, the Sisters and Ha Ling on an early December day. I still remember thinking, wondering, wishing I could go up there. It felt like looking at a different planet. Jed and I freezing our asses off, this was my first ever mountain outing. My first attempt at mountaineering here was actually on that first visit, I got so excited by the mountains that I somehow convinced my partner to try and hike up Middle Sister in Canmore. In December. Without any proper gear. Yeah. We managed to get enough equipment and hubris together to come up w...
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