Everyone is cool in Canada - Calgary, Canada

Everyone is cool in Canada. The girl at the AMA – the Alberta Motor Association, the guy at the 7 - 11, the checkout chic in the supermarket, and even the dudes we met who worked at the “dump” are cool. And everything is big in Canada. The roads are big and wide, the cars are SUVs with trailers, the houses are mansions and of course the Rockies are really, really, really BIG. The country itself is so big that it takes 8 hours to fly from Calgary to the Northwest Territories; that is like flying Sydney to Bangkok, or Paris to New York!

Before exploring this big, cool, and “neat” country though, we needed to find some wheels that included a home; or a home that included wheels, or something or some way of getting around and sleeping. So, we spent our first week at Pam and Dale’s house in Calgary, looking for vans and then fitting one out. We chose is a giant white auto GMC Safari with 6 cylinders and 8 seats, 6 of which we promptly ripped out and left at the dump. We nick-named the van “Jimmy Carter”, picked up the appropriate number plate... 5.10 and with hammer and saw got cutting and nailing. Nic, using his engineering skills had dreamt up a design for Jimmy which he tried to explain to me and which I just couldn’t quite understand. After questions and more questions, eventually he just sighed and looked at me in despair... “just do what I say”... clearly I was never meant to be an engineer. Miraculously, or so it seemed to me, the van was converted into our new little home. The bed came together and fit perfectly in the back leaving just enough space underneath to store all our climbing gear, clothes and a spare jerry can (Jimmy C’s odometer doesn’t work...) and just enough room at the back for a little kitchenette with storage, an eski and a wash basin. Perfect. We were ready.

Although time is on our side, Canada is so incredibly big we decided to limit our stay to the lower west coast, Alberta and BC – home of the best climbing. The rest will have to wait. We spent a few days around Canmore checking out the local crags at Grassi Lakes, Heart Creek and Cougar Creek where the crag called the House of Cards had some awesome sustained routes on a solid limestone. Then we moved onto climb the quartzite at the back of Lake Louise where we went from living in virtual obscurity to being celebrities overnight. Lake Louise has a constant stream of tourists who take a walk around the lake passing plenty of warning signs about the bears, but no warning signs about the crazies they find half way up the cliffs... As I was facing the wall, belaying Nic I heard voices from behind...

in Japanese - “whaaaa, sugoooooi (amazing) ! Spiiiiider-man!”;

in Texanese - “ why do you think they aren’t wearing helmets?” “well, helmets are hardly going to help them if they fall aren’t they”....

in Englishese - “daddy, I want to have a go”... “no son, that’s far too dangerous”

then a Canadian man trying to get my attention.... "excuse me, excuse me, sorry, uh how did he get the rope up there?" me - "he took it up there".... him "no..." me - "yes" him "that's a "BIG WALL" me - "yes" .... him " that's so COOL" .... me "you bet!"