Friday, August 1, 1997

Introduction: Canadian Rockies '97 Climbing Trip

Toyohashi Alpine Club
Mountaineering in the Canadian Rockies

Introduction: Canadian Rockies 1997 Trip

Banff National Park, Canada
First two weeks of August, 1997
Introduction by Darren DeRidder
Party: Iain Williams, Darren DeRidder, others.

This section contains four climbing reports from our climbing trip to the Canadian Rockies in the summer of 1997.

Iain and I met in Japan while rock climbing. There was a small group of foreigners and we called ourselves the Toyohashi Alpine Club (TAC). TAC was started by Iain, and his frequent climbing reports were the inspiration for many of my own reports and for this site. The chief activities of the TAC were trying to look cool while avoiding the lead, hot springs, and Denny's (yes, there are Denny's in Japan).

Iain and I have since returned from Japan and now live in London England and Ottawa Canada respectively. Last spring out of the blue I got a call from Iain. He asked me what I was up to. "Not much", I said, "it's not as if there are any big adventures on the horizon."

"Oh, there are, my boy, there are", was Iain's reply. Iain had hatched a couple of plans, one of which was to go back to Switzerland and finally knock off the Matterhorn, the other was to come to the Canadian Rockies (good idea!) to climb a few peaks. Plan B it was.

We spent the first two weeks of August in the Rockies and had a fantastic time. We made four successful climbs, had excellent weather almost the entire time, and no accidents. We climbed Mt. Temple, Mt. Edith, Mt. Athabasca, and Mt. Victoria. Reports of all four climbs are here.

I would like to say thank you to Iain, because he was very generous in sponsoring the largest portion of this expedition from his own finances, kindly taking my student lifestyle into consideration. It was great to climb together again, and I found Iain's enthusiasm and energy for climbing made him a nearly perfect partner.

Enjoy the reports!

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