Awesome Granite

Tuesday morning we woke and got out of camp by about 7 am. Not far from camp, Matt said that he wasn't feeling well, probably a combination of a cold and the altitude. He headed back and Kurt and I headed towards the Bugaboo-Snowpatch Col, which breaks the 2 famous spires in the Bugaboos. Once we got to the col, we took a break and then headed up the Kain Route of Bugaboo, an area classic that is used as a warm up by many new to the area and would also let us scope the descent of the Northeast Ridge, which is the same as that of the Kain route. 

After a lot of 4th class climbing (climbing that a fall could result in death and being roped up is a good idea) over lots of rock fields and up some small tricky spots, we got to the gendarme pitch which requires stepping out blindly around an edge onto a wide slab with almost no handholds. Although this would be an easy feat in climbing shoes, in alpine boots it can be a slightly scary experience. 

After a few more pitches of easy climbing we came to the summit where Kurt and I signed the summit register, which was filled, we wrote on the side of the descent description for lack of anywhere better to sign. 

We descended to a sheltered section of the ridge where we ate lunch and started our rappels down. After several stuck ropes, we made it back to the 4th class climbing which, when down climbing, results in a lot of sliding on your backside. 

After we got off the route, we grabbed our crampons and ice axes and headed back down the steep snow slope and back to camp where we chilled for the remainder of the day.

Wednesday we planned to do a more challenging climb, with almost no 4th class climbing and lots of 5th class climbing. We did the route Lion's Way on Crescent Spire. I led the first 2 pitches, then Matt led 2 pitches and Kurt led the last 2. After topping out, we decided to not traverse the whole spire which would take a while and I didn't think would be much fun, so we descended down the typical descent route and down a couloir where we glissaded the rest of the way down. 

Getting back to camp was nice because we were tired and we ate and relaxed for the remainder of the day. I layed in my tent for several hours and thought of nothing of substance but really enjoyed myself!