Canada

I arrived in Canada a few days ago to check out the Flashed shop and the climbing in the Bow Valley. Flashed is located in Calgary, Alberta in the back of the Calgary Climbing Center. Flashed is experimenting with some new designs for some of their gear including a re-designed chalk bucket and even more durable pads. There have been a couple changes to the ninja pads including new placement for the small gear pocket and a slightly modified closing system. Check out their website at www.flashed.com/

The climbing in the BowValley near Canmore is amazing. Canmore is a small moutain town located an hour west of Calgary. We climbed at Acephale on Wednesday. The hike to Acephale is reminiscent of the hike to Chaos Canyon in the sense that it is long and steep. The Upper Wall hosts a great concentration of difficult lines with bouldery moves on slightly overhanging limestone. Yesterday we went to Grassi Lakes which is close to town. The drive and hike combined only takes 15 minutes. The climbing at Grassi is on steep overhanging limestone with huge buckets. The area is very scenic with several clear blue lakes near the climbing. We did a line called Meathooks which is 40 feet tall and overhangs 20 feet at a 40 degree angle. None of the moves are difficult and the holds are just amazingly big, definitely a good pump factor.

We're going to check out Lake Louise on Saturday, which hosts Quartzite cliffs in another Canadian Rockies Setting. Depending on the weather, we're going back to Grassi Lakes the day after before heading to Wyoming. The climbing in the Bow Valley is unlimited, the only constraints are how far people are willing to hike to bolt new lines.