Kootenay National Park, British Columbia

Just three weeks ago I posted about the beautiful Fay Hut designed by my good friend Simon Statkewich (featured on the cover of last month’s Cottage magazine) and re-built with thousands of hours of volunteer effort after a forest fire took the original structure with it in 2003. Today I received the sad news that a group of alpine skiers discovered the hut burned to the ground on Saturday, two days after a previous group departed (they have “assured us that the fire was extinguished, as were all propane appliances before they left the hut” according to an ACC e-mail I received)—the pristinely located hut was “self-insured” by the Club… so it remains to be seen whether it will again arise from the ashes. My feelings go out to you Simon…

Moraine Lake, Alberta

This is the time of year where I really start dreaming about getting onto rock again… and the Grand Sentinel (at 2766m, the tallest of several large quartzite obelisks located on the northern slope of Pinnacle Mountain) looms large in those dreams. There’s just something about topping a rock needle that defies description…

I first climbed the Grand Sentinel at the end of the 1990s (in what seemed like a mini-epic at the time, replete with a wet summit blizzard, near-hits by rockfall, stuck double ropes on the abseil, and a subsequent benighting on the descent…). Due to summer grizzly bear closures in the Larch Valley and Sentinel Pass ever since (restricting access to contiguous parties of six or more) repeating this classic has proved elusive—but with access restrictions having been lifted in 2008, the Grand Sentinel holds promise as a key goal this summer…

Photos by Dow Williams and  ‘Phil.’

At 3200m, Stubai Glacier, Tyrol (Austria)

As viewing platforms go, this is pretty sweet…

Somerton, U.K.

I’ve always loved clouds—while cloudless skies tend to leave me nonplussed. So it was with considerable pleasure that I stumbled across The Cloud Appreciation Society today. View a gallery of nearly 5000 cloud images here. Following is the Society’s manifesto…

~~~~~

WE BELIEVE that clouds are unjustly maligned

and that life would be immeasurably poorer without them.

We think that they are Nature’s poetry,

and the most egalitarian of her displays, since

everyone can have a fantastic view of them.

We pledge to fight ‘blue-sky thinking’ wherever we find it.

Life would be dull if we had to look up at

cloudless monotony day after day.

We seek to remind people that clouds are expressions of the

atmosphere’s moods, and can be read like those of

a person’s countenance.

Clouds are so commonplace that their beauty is often overlooked.

They are for dreamers and their contemplation benefits the soul.

Indeed, all who consider the shapes they see in them will save

on psychoanalysis bills.

And so we say to all who’ll listen:

Look up, marvel at the ephemeral beauty,

and live life with your head in the clouds!

Winnipeg, Canada

I met up with long-time climbing buddy (and talented [also very modest] architectural technologist) Simon Statkewich for brews and dinner last night. At Simon’s place I noticed a copy of Cottage magazine lying on his coffee table—replete with a cover feature on the new Fay Hut in Kootenay National Park that Simon designed (as a volunteer) for the Alpine Club of Canada—to replace the original built in 1927 after it burned down in 2003.

Top photo by Matt J. Simons; bottom photo by Marta.

Churchill, Manitoba

These shots just in from good friend Mike Grandmaison, who’s been hanging out with local polar bears in Churchill again, (on Hudson Bay, about 1000 km north of Winnipeg). Enjoy more of Mike’s outstanding photography—spanning the entire breadth of Canada—here. (Images ©2009 Mike Grandmaison).

in London, Stockholm, Tallin, New York, Amsterdam…

Graphic designer Anna Garforth’s Mossberger project takes advantage of the extreme adaptability of mosses, applied with the help of a natural-yoghurt and sugar solution, aimed at walls, etc.—formerly grey surfaces “become alive” in the truest sense of the word, and without unhealthy paints and lacquers. (Thanks Miles Harrison for the story link).

The great blue-white North

It’s a cold time of year to be in the high arctic… nevertheless an enjoyable experience to get into the remote North. The last three days have been a frozen blur—a quick sortie to art direct photography with Ian McCausland (can’t wait to see his shots!) for our mutual client, The North West Company. We left Winnipeg early Thursday, stopped in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan for a few hours, refueled in Yellowknife, then on to Inuvik in the Northwest Territiories. Besides photographing in the NorthMart store there on Friday, we got out on the ice road to Tuktoyaktuk. Then, back eastward with a fuel stop in Kuglugtuk (Coppermine) and an attempted landing in Arviat—but as the runway lights didn’t work, it was on to Churchill, Manitoba for the night (with all food services closed by the time we landed we settled for brews with the local revelers). Up early yesterday, back up to Arviat (with photography in the Northern store there), and a bone-chilling session out on the land with champion musher Michael (who assured us he was “sweating” in his traditional seal-skin parka, caribou leggings, and wolf-skin mittens). Then back down to Winnipeg to spend a comfortably warm Valentine’s Day evening with the lovely Evelin…

Images: Ian on the winter road to Tuk; the (ice) road beneath our feet; refuelling the Conquest in Kuglugtuk; with the sled-dogs in Arviat’s -40 degree windchill; Nunavut’s iconic license plate.

Lecco, Italy

Great little article in The Independent about Ricardo Cassin, the amazing Italian mountaineer who turned 100 last month. Check it out here.

Image: Riccardo Cassin: “I always brought home everyone who came along and never lost a friend on a rope.”

Winnipeg, Canada

Some people have asked about the booklet Top Climbing Knots that I wrote and illustrated for the Alpine Club of Canada in 2007. Intended as a primer to aid skill development (and as a handy pocket-sized refresher for occasional climbers), the booklet covers the Figure-8, Water Knot, Double Fisherman’s, Clove Hitch, Münter Hitch, Prussik, and Klemheist. Copies can be purchased from the Manitoba Section of the ACC, or contact me directly.