At university I climbed indoors pretty much every week and it’s probably one of the things I miss the most since I finished! I guess technically the first time I climbed outside was when I was about eight years old, but that’s quite a long time ago now. So after I such a great experience learning to ice climb in 2013, I decided that I wanted to rock climb outside. Again I went on a two day course with Yamnuska Mountain Adventures. The first days climbing was based at Yamnuska Bluffs about twenty minutes east of Canmore, at the base of Mount Yamnuska, which is one of the most distinguishable mountains that you’ll see heading towards Banff National Park from Calgary.

Looking east

Whilst I thought I had taken photos of the rock we climbed, I forgot to! However I did get some of the views from where we were climbing on the hike back to the parking lot.

The gentle rise from the foothills

Seeing how the foothills gradually build up to form the Rocky Mountains from the prairies is a nice sight to see. Where we climbed it was partly shaded by trembling aspens, but the top of the bluff had a good view from it.

Barrier Lake Lookout at the top of the treed mountain in the centre

Lots of trembling aspens in the area – it would look spectacular when they change colour

The second day of the course was at Wasootch Slabs in Kananaskis Country, which I’ll write about in a later post, and I promise I actually have photos of the rock we climbed!

South towards Kananaskis Country

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