(Note: Bouldering is like rock climbing but you just climb up/on boulders and don’t need any equipment. A nice substitute if you don’t have a partner.)
Well I don’t even know if you can say I attempted bouldering. I attempted to find a boulder to, uh, boulder. I was actually planning to summit Mount Rundle today but yesterday’s hike up to Harvey Pass took way more out of me than I expected and when I finished I just couldn’t imagine ascending another 5,000+ft today so I was really looking for something else to do.
While brushing my teeth last night at the water spigot the guy behind me mentioned bouldering in the area which immediately gave me a better idea than going up Mount Rundle. I did some searches on my phone and found that one of the biggest places to boulder in Western Canada was about 25 mins from me. Done, found a replacement plan.
The boulder location was in a provincial park but not on any established trail. I had the GPS coordinates punched into my phone and I started walking towards the red flag waypoint. The main trail at this park leads to Mount Yamnuska where all the other hikers were heading but my phone pointed me up a dirt road. I followed the dirt road as far as I could watching dump trucks pass me back and forth every few minutes. Obviously they were hauling dirt or rock from somewhere in the park. I finally got to the end of the road at an active mine. While the signs said “Warning: Active Mine” it was really just a rock face with a front end loader dumping rocks into the dump trucks. I followed the road around the construction site and walked as far as I could until I finally decided to turn back not being able to find a trail. As I started walking back down the road looking for a trail, one of the dump truck drivers stopped me and asked me what I was looking for. I told him I was looking for a rock climbing site and while I was expecting him to reply with something along the lines of “this is a construction site and you have no business being here” he surprised me with a smile and telling me that he saw people hiking along the same road with their “gear” last week and said there was a trail “up” there somewhere. Astounded at how helpful he was I turned around again and headed back up around the construction site and found what looked like the remnants of a trail and started trudging through the forest.
My iPhone had my blue dot location and red flag waypoint and I tried my best to walk straight there. The trail pretty much vanished immediately and I was trailblazing through knee high grass and fallen trees. Finding my way to the boulder proved way more difficult. I should have just followed my phone and walked straight there but instead I would find what looked like a trail and start following it for awhile until I realized it wasn’t going towards my destination. This happened several times. Now I’ve been walking through pretty dense forward for about 30 mins, turned around several times and was worried that I wouldn’t find my way out if my phone died.
One of the drawbacks of living out of your car is lack of access to electricity. The only times I can charge my phone and USB charger are when my car is running or if I’m holed up in a coffee shop. So my phone was running low on battery and of course I left my USB charger in my car.
According to my phone, the boulder location was only about 1000-1500ft from me and I figured I could make it but after another 15mins of walking I didn’t seem to be any closer. Once I got the “20% power level” on my phone I turned and started heading back. Even if I got to the site within a few minutes, I was worried I would be stranded there after a few hours of climbing. I set my heading for a lake nearby which the dump truck driver said another dirt road ran to.
Finding my way back was just as difficult and I don’t know if others’ phones are like mine but I feel like going from 20-0% could take an hour our 5 mins so I wasn’t sure when my phone was going to die. I took my compass out, found my bearing to the lake and figured even if my phone died I wouldn’t miss the lake or dirt road. After a few more minutes I decided to change my direction back to the original dirt road I walked in on because it appeared on my iPhone the road was running perpendicular to me so I changed my bearing to hit the road ASAP. Finally I made it back to the road then quickly found the other dirt road that I assume led to the lake and as one might expect a much more defined trail heading back into the woods. I considered following this trail to see where it led but thought better of it as by phone was below 10% at this point so I headed back to my car.
It was about noon when I got back to my car and although I still had plenty of time to make it to a trail and complete a day hike I decided to take care of a few items that needed to get done. I ended up going to the grocery store to stock up on trail mix, Peanut Butter and tortillas (pretty much the staple of my diet) get gas, then head to a coffee house. Currently I’m in Beamer’s Coffee Bar in Canmore, AB which is a chill place. I’ve downloaded several audiobooks (thanks Nick) and podcasts to keep me busy for weeks and obviously update this blog.
While, I didn’t get to do any bouldering today I’m glad I got to attempt to find the location and I feel like with a fully charged phone I could have made it there and back. I feel like I kept a cool head while “lost” in the wilderness and didn’t get frustrated with myself for failing. I realized this was the first time I had ever attempted anything like this and was fully aware that failure was possible. I’m happy to have had the experience of forging my own path (even if I didn’t make it to my destination) but also happy that I made the right decision to turn back.
While I’m not really sure how to define this trip or what I expect to get out of it one thing I know for sure it is meant to push me out of my comfort zone and try new things but not do anything (too) stupid. I think I did that today.
Matthew