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.’