The Amazing ACC Clubhouse in Canmore
Bottom Line: The Alpine Club of Canada Clubhouse in Canmore is a hostel like no other we’ve ever seen. We almost don’t want to let the secret out about this place as we want to keep it to ourselves. But that wouldn’t be fair. If you are staying in Canmore for it’s access to adventures and want to immerse yourself in mountain culture then you simply have to book a stay at the ACC Clubhouse. Observations: We’d heard rumours on the grapevine of some well furnished, cozy cabins on the outskirts of Canmore filled with the positive vibes of mountain people featuring spectacular views of the surrounding mountains, for the low price of $36 a night ($25 for ACC members). We had to check it out! We’ve been members of the ACC and we’ve visited a few of the Cabins they maintain in the mountains on the West Coast. Something that always strikes us about them is how comfortable they are considering where they are located and how cheap they are to stay in. We’ve stayed in other Cabins in the mountains that are sometimes nothing more than a wooden garden shed, with shelves to lie on. Hey, when you are moving in the mountains you appreciate any kind of shelter you can get. The ACC Cabins that we’ve stayed in though have always gone above and beyond in providing facilities and comfort in really wild locations like high ridge crests or at isolated alpine lakes. We had a trip to the Rockies planned so we wanted to see what the ACC would offer at their Clubhouse in Canmore, which is near a large town, but still in a pretty wild location, located a few kilometres outside of town, nestled in the trees below Grotto Mountain. More than simply a Hostel. What I found did not dissappoint. I’ve stayed in “Hostels” in Europe and they can tend to have a bad name for being noisy, crowded and not relaxing. They are somewhere you crash after a night of partying. I did that through my 20’s and while affordable, I didn’t get much sleep there. Now in my 30’s I’m motivated to sleep well, get to bed early and get up and out before dawn to make use of the daylight in the mountains. The ACC Clubhouse is a different type of Hostel. It has shared rooms, eating areas and facilities but that’s where the similarities with the City Hostels I’ve stayed in ends. The feel is much more like the mountain cabins that I love to visit now. The views from almost every window are breath taking and inspiring....
Hat Mountain Photo Essay
Hat Mountain is a small peak in the North Shore Mountains near Vancouver that is not as popular due to being dwarfed by it’s neighbour summits of Brunswick Mountain and Mount Hanover but also because it is not heavily featured in hiking guidebooks for the area. I’ve found that mountains that are well documented and detailed in guidebooks will almost always grow in popularity. The description for Hat Mountain on the popular mountain database bivouac.com reads: “A minor bump located on the NW shoulder of Mt. Brunswick.”. Wow, I wonder why hardly anyone goes there! These lesser mountains have always interested me, I guess because I like a good underdog story and none of the “minor” or “insignificant” summits I’ve visited have disappointed me yet. They’ve always been highly enjoyable to climb and offered amazing views out towards the other summits nearby that would be considered “significant”. Check out my photo essay below to see what you can expect to encounter if you climb Hat Mountain. Directions: If you’d like to visit this mountain for yourself you can find instructions at this link: Clubtread: Hat Mountain We followed the 3rd option, ascending the mountain via the Hat Pass Trail. We highly recommend it....
Mount Corriveau: We, like, totally did it!
Last Summer I worked for a few months as a Landscape Gardener. Daily we’d go to these palatial mansions in West Vancouver and preen these extravagant, terraced gardens. At one such house I noted that their garden terraces dropped down from their front windows so that the people living their couldn’t even see their own front garden. Across the street from them was another house whose occupants did not care how their garden looked. There was an old car, rusting and broken, a dog tied up running in circles, patches of weeds and dirt and states of general disrepair. But it didn’t matter, their view was of all the terraced gardens across from them. They had the best view on the street and everyone else around them was paying us gardeners to give it to them. In many ways I’ve seen parallels to this while in the mountains. The dramatic, jagged peaks, with impressive prominences beckon the Mountaineer to climb, but once on their summits we lose sight of the mountain below us. While I am drawn to climb to the prominent summits, at least once a year I also try to visit and camp on an obscure summit that doesn’t stand out in its own right, but has the best seat in the house to view another mountain, or range, nearby. I began this tradition near the end of 2012 when we camped on Panorama Ridge. An unimpressive ridge with a minor bump for a summit that has the best view in Garibaldi Park. After that I began scouring reports for other, similarly unimpressive peaks with impressive views. Last year in 2013 we visited Empetrum Peak, a knolly bump with a view across to the dramatic Black Tusk. Camping on Panorama Ridge The Black Tusk from Empetrum On another trip last year, while scrambling to the summit of Welch Peak, I seen an impressive group of mountains near the horizon across from us. I asked others with me what they were and was told they were the Rexford group of mountains. While those jagged spires of rock drew my attention I was also interested in a ridge I could see that ran parallel to them. This ridge appeared to have an amazing vantage point across a valley to those striking peaks. I made a mental note to do some research about it later and possibly put it down as a viewpoint location for 2014. After a bit of research I found out that the high point on this obscure ridge was actually a named summit, Mount Corriveau. After a bit more research I found some information about a...
Tantalust, Part IV: Risking Adventure
< Tantalust, Part III: Finding Jim I stirred awake. I could hear Spring outside, in the kitchen area of the Cabin, preparing breakfast. I hadn’t really slept, the sleep I did get was restless and fitful at best. I woke up periodically and looked around to remind myself that I wasn’t out sleeping somewhere on those glaciers. My shoulders felt stiff and knotted, from bearing the weight of a heavy pack and a stressful day. I joined Spring outside. The clouds still hung low beyond the large windows, dulling the morning light. There was an unease inside me that wouldn’t abate. The previous day had been hard, really hard. The mental fatigue from it still lingered. An Alpinist I met while ice climbing in Canmore last Winter, and subsequently added on Facebook, did some serious climbs in Alaska this past Spring. When he returned he posted online about how amazing his trip had been, and mentioned the obstacles he had overcome in a very matter of fact way. Weeks later though he posted a picture of the journal he had written on that trip which told a very different story. A story of fear, of exhaustion, of doubt. In retrospect he could only remember how much fun the trip had been, but his journals kept him honest when reflecting. I took inspiration from him and kept my own journal on this trip. Reading over it now is like looking at the scrawlings from the mind of someone else. It would be easy for me to gloss over the trials in hindsight and make light of them. In retrospect, they weren’t that difficult. In retrospect I know that we left the Tantalus Hut and arrived at the Jim Haberl Hut 12 hours later and successfully navigated some heavily glaciated terrain. The experience of that day was very different though and merely stating the facts would be disingenuous. I didn’t know if the fringes of snow that I’d step onto would hold, I didn’t know if the choices we made would work, I didn’t know if we’d have to sleep out there, if we’d find the Hut, if we’d get trapped by a dead end and an irreversible route, if we’d get injured by any one of the objective hazards we had to contend with, or worse, die. That constant uncertainty and worry whittled away at my core all day until nothing was left but a shell. I sat in the Hut for most of the morning, looking at old, tattered magazines but seeing nothing but the events of the preceding day. Sometime in the afternoon on our first day in the...
Tantalust, Part III: Finding Jim
< Tantalust, Part II: Dreams and Reality “Spring… we have a problem…” I slowly inched my way back from the edge, my body stiff, my heart beating up out of my throat. I turned to Spring and I could tell that she understood from my body language that something was wrong. I scanned around for options and couldn’t see any, today was not supposed to be like this. “Thanks Ron” I whispered in reply as I came down the ladder from the sleeping area in the Cabin that morning. Ron was gesturing towards a fresh pot of coffee he had brewing, instructing me to help myself. It was some time after 5am. Myself and Spring had been lazy stirring awake, but when we heard Ron in the kitchen getting coffee ready for us, we got up quickly. We got our breakfast ready and sat down to eat it. I couldn’t tell yet if it was still dark out or if there were just dark clouds low in the sky. As we ate breakfast, relatively slowly, Ron shared a little anecdote with us, he said “You know, when I used to climb Mountains, the time we set to get up at, was the time everyone got up. There wasn’t any waiting around either, we got going right away”. I understood the moral of his story. There is a maxim in mountaineering that goes “It’s later than you think” and Ron was right. If we had a hope to accomplish our lofty goal of summiting Mount Alpha today and then traversing to the Haberl Hut then we needed to get moving asap, but I was stalling as I still wasn’t sure about the weather as it was too dark out. As the dull light of the morning spread I could see across the lake that the clouds were still hanging low on the peaks that rose above it, obscuring their summits from view. Ron returned from a trip outside and said that it was raining now. Myself and Spring made the decision to forgo our attempt on the East Ridge of Alpha. The rock would likely be slick from the rain and the low ceiling of clouds would mean that visibility would be poor, similar to the conditions we had encountered the previous day. We still needed to make the Haberl Hut by that night though so we set out as soon as we’d finished breakfast. After a few minutes of hiking away from the Tantalus Hut we paused at a fork in the trail. Turning right would put us on the route to the East Ridge of Alpha. We took one...
