Summer 2011 Climbing Clinics for Women, Men and crazy people who want to climb big walls!

I've spent the past few days clipping bolts in the sun in Red Rocks, enjoying a brief but amazing respite from winter. All this warm rock has got me thinking about how much I love climbing and how psyched I am for the coming summer of guiding and climbing in Squamish!

Here's my clinic list for the summer. If you are interested in a day of private instruction or guiding, or would like to sign up for one of these clinics, please contact me at: jasmincaton@gmail.com.




June 4-5 Trad/multipitch techniques. $275 for 2 days.
Gear placement, anchor building, multipitch station management and much more!

June 11 Rock Rescue. $175 for one day.
What to do when the sh*% hits the fan? If you are multipitching it's your responsibility to know your stuff! This course covers escaping the belay, improvised rope ascending, improvised raising and lowering systems and rappelling with an injured climbing partner.

June 18-19 Big wall and aid climbing tactics. $400 for 2 days, 2:1 ratio.
Want to climb The Nose on El Cap? I can help you learn how! Clean aid climb leads, jumaring/cleaning, rope management, hauling, dropped poop bag dodging (not really).

June 25-26 Crack climbing technique for women. $275 for 2 days.
From tips to chimney, hand jams to butt-scums, learn the movement skills to improve your crack climbing surrounded by a crew of like minded ladies. Includes a BBQ on Saturday night.

July 1-2 Trad/multipitch techniques $275 for 2 days.
Gear placement, anchor building, multipitch station management and much more!

July 3 Rock Rescue. $175 for one day.
What to do when the sh*% hits the fan? If you are multipitching it's your responsibility to know your stuff! This course covers escaping the belay, improvised rope ascending, improvised raising and lowering systems and rappelling with an injured climbing partner.

July 9-10. Crack climbing technique for women. $275 for 2 days.
From tips to chimney, hand jams to butt-scums, learn the movement skills to improve your crack climbing surrounded by a crew of like minded ladies. Includes a BBQ on Saturday night.

Hope to see you this summer!

VMT video

Some smart person said, 'do what you love, love what you do'. It's a philosophy I have taken to heart, and something that I chant over and over to myself neurotically while scooping my dog's poop off the uptrack, digging out stuck snowmobiles, sponging pubic hairs off the sauna floor and other tasks that spell G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S (or glamoUrous if you are Canadian, which obviously Fergie is not).

Anyway, a few weeks back had an absolutely magical week of "work" at Valhalla Mountain Touring. Minimal 'glamour' maximum good times with great snow, great food and an awesome mix of guests who came from far away, exotic lands like Barrie, Ontario and Anchorage, AK to sample the Selkirk Powdeur.

One of the guests, Skai Dalziel, is the owner of Whistler Tasting Tours and put together this sweet video from the week.

When work and play are the same thing: days off ski touring at Rogers Pass

Evan and I had a few days off from slaying pow at Valhalla Mountain Touring this week so we decided to take a vacation to the ski touring mecca of Rogers Pass. You would think we would want to lay around and eat pizza and watch TV on our days off, but no can do. Apparently we don't get enough exercise and excitement at work. At any rate, we couldn't have planned it better: clear skies, a recent dump of snow and a pretty stable snowpack gave us a chance to sneak up several classic ski ascents over the past few days.

Our first day at the pass we headed up towards Mt. Rogers, where we hoped to stay warm on south faces in the -20C temps. Lucky for us a few other ski guides on their days off had broken a killer skin track and bootpack up the south face of Rogers. We met up on the summit, found out we knew a ton of people in common and then enjoyed a 2000m ski run back down to the highway together in lovely boot-top pow. Gotta love that.

Evan enjoying the view towards Sir Donald from a rest on the Tupper Glacier

Descending the gut-wrenching knife edge from the summit of Mt. Rogers

Descending off the summit in my pink suit

Enjoying the descent in the sun

Evan posing with his wiggles in the background

After having such a fun day on Rogers we decided to brave the shady side of the highway and head up the Asulkan Valley towards Young's Peak. We had our sights set on Forever Youngs, a classic couloir slicing the rocky massif of Young's Peak. Sighting crowns from a recent cycle on many, but not all, of the slopes around the ski objective we changed our plans to climbing and skiing the Seven Steps of Paradise, the classic descent of Young's into the Asulkan Valley. After freezing our fingers, faces and skins off we finally made it up into the alpine and even got to break trail to the summit of Young's, a rare privilege as Rogers Pass gets increasingly busy. It was a great day of skiing, although the snow was so cold we had trouble getting glide as we skied down the long descent.

Busting track up Young's Peak

Booting up the steepest slope to reach the Peak

Enjoying views from the summit

Scoping out the line from the huge windscoop near the summit

Enjoying the slow, faceted snow on Young's Peak

It's going to be hard to top these past few days as I spend the rest of my week off with Evan. Great tours, amazing views in a spectacular setting, and evenings spent catching up with old friends over nachos and beverages in the Glacier Park Lodge at the pass is just hard to beat. On the agenda is soaking in the hotsprings, going out for coffee in Revelstoke, oh and maybe a few more ski tours before we head back to work.... ski touring.