Grand Cojones in the Bugaboos

September 2007
By Dave Henwood (former Wgtn section member)

I was very fortunate that we picked a week of gloriously fine weather to visit the Bugaboos. Had a good time although the end of the week was a bit frustrating. I was in a group of 13 from the Vancouver section of the Alpine Club. We started off with a hiss and a roar climbing the classic west ridge of Pigeon Spire and Kain Route on Bugaboo Spire – both technically easy but tons of exposure. Pigeon has a 5.4 crux (did it all in leather mountain boots) and the Kain route has a crux of 5.7 (swapped to rock shoes for that one). You have to admire Conrad Kain for his vision and ability and wonder how he didn’t trip over those massive cojones he must have had. The crux pitch is a gendarme that involves climbing good cracks, then edging across a short slab with miles of air underneath, then reaching round a short rib to a nice crack. Technically easy as long as you don’t look down.

Unfortunately, the trip was marred by a couple of accidents - while climbing on another route, one of our guys pulled a table sized boulder onto himself which crushed his left hand, then fell onto his left foot before nearly wiping out his belayer half a rope length below. He was able to set up an anchor and bring up his uninjured belayer who stabilised things, then was able to alert some other climbers including a guide who had a radio. The pair were choppered off the face and the injured guy was operated on in Banff hospital about 3 hours after the accident took place.

On the second to last day a woman in the party slipped coming down the gravelly track just above the hut and thought she had badly twisted her ankle. She was flown out next morning.”