Kentucky Climbing and Squamish Ski Touring

I just returned from a rock climbing trip to Kentucky. As always, we climbed at the Red River Gorge, one of the top sport climbing destinations in North America. The weather was fickle, but that always seems to be the case out east. I came home to a glorious week of weather in Squamish, a nice treat for mid-November!

Pictures from the trip:

The sunny weather in Squamish was a great welcome-home present, but the mountains need snow. Whistler is open, but the snow pack is low. Regardless, yesterday I did my first ski tour of the season into the south end of Garibaldi Park with my friend Jay. We worried about not finding enough snow to ski, but the terrain was very skiable, much to our surprise.

View of the Tantalus Range on the skin up.

Passing a couple heading out, not far from Elfin Lakes.

View to the east of Pyramid Mountain, Trick Peak and Mamquam Mountain.

Our objective for the day, Columnar Peak, the rocky mound on the left.

Atwell Peak as seen from The Saddle with Mt. Garibaldi just poking out from behind. The snowy pyramid right of the ridge line is The Tent.

The final ski up to the summit of Columnar Peak. We descended the slope in the shawdow on the left of the peak.

On the summit!

Great light during the descent.