'Mistaken for Strangers' doc an unexpected exploration of brotherhood, friendship

You’re not always sure what you’re going to get when you listen to a song by The National for the first time. It may start out like a gentle lullaby, then transition into an angry seizure of chaotic energy. Or it could murmur along in quiet intensity building slowly but never reaching a climax, hinting at deeper meanings through seemingly disjointed words and phrases.

That’s one of the things I love about the band -- the unpredictable nature of their music and their refusal to be pinned down or pigeonholed as a particular sound or category.

The new documentary “Mistaken for Strangers” had a similar effect on my when I watched it last week at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. Filmed and directed by Tom Berninger, the brother of lead singer Matt Berninger, the film starts out in one chaotic, messy direction before take an abrupt 180-degree turn – which is when it really gets interesting.

Tom Berninger is nine years younger than his older brother Matt, and the two couldn’t be more different from one another. Matt is tall, athletic looking and handsome, but also dark, brooding, artsy and mysterious.

You get the feeling he could have just as easily been a college quarterback or an investment banker, rather than the lead singer of one of the most successful indie bands in America.

Tom isn’t like that at all. He’s nearly 30, somewhat short, chubby, lives at home with his parents, has no discernable job or career path and is a self-described metal head with little time for indie rock.

The story begins when Tom calls Matt and asks him to come on tour with the band – something he’s never done before. He’s not being asked to come and party with the guys though, he’s been hired as part of the crew, tasked with important responsibilities before and after each show.

Of course, he agrees, but decides on his own that he’s also going to make a documentary about the band while he’s on the road.

I expected a documentary about The National. But it quickly became apparent that the film was going in a different direction. Tom often shot footage of himself, talking about himself, or about his relationship with his brother.

During interviews with the other band members, he’d often ramble on in long soliloquies that never really ended in a question, but were more a commentary about himself or Matt.

One of the other band members even says during one such interview that he’s “perplexed” as to why he was asked to be in the film when all the questions seem to be about Matt.

But the time and effort Tom puts into the film, as well as his general apparent lack of seriousness about the job he was hired to do, quickly becomes a problem.

He films numerous terse conversations with the tour manager, who warns him his job is in jeopardy. In one scene Matt berates him because the tour bus left town and was an hour away when someone realized Tom wasn’t with them, and had instead stayed drinking in a pub when everyone else left.

Tom gets fired six months into the yearlong tour.

And this is where the film gets interesting. He returns home to his parents’ house, sinks into depression and appears to realize that an opportunity has been squandered.

But that changes when the tour ends and Matt and his wife Carin Besser invite Tom to come to New York, to stay with them and finish the film – with Carin’s help.

From there, the story shifts from being a narcissistic self-exploration to a story about brotherhood, love and patience and as Tom described at the Hot Docs opening, the ability to turn something you think is “shit,” into something good.

There’s a key moment when one of the band members is describing how The National found their place, and their success, when they learned how to take their own self-doubts, fears and misgivings and inject them into their songs. That’s when people began to connect to their music and resonate with their messages, he explains.

And that message seemed to hit home for Tom, who appeared to realize that in order for the film to work, he had to acknowledge his own failures and weaknesses too.

And when he finally begins to do that, the story goes from a generic road-trip/band doc to something deeper – it becomes an honest, genuine story that resonates with anyone who has ever struggled to relate to a sibling or questioned their own path in life.

Great film. One of the highlights was the fact that both Matt and Tom, as well as Carin, were on hand at the Hot Docs opening to discuss the movie and answer questions from the audience. See it if you can.

'Crossing the Ice' and 'Honnold 3.0' inspire and terrify at BMFF

There were a couple of films this year at the Banff MountainFilm Festival that inspired and motivated me to plan my next climbing or mountaineering trip – and one that made me never want to climb again.

The one that jumps out immediately is “Crossing the Ice” – a film by two amateur adventurers, Aussies Justin Jones and James Castrission, who attempted to become the first team to walk from the edge of the Antarctic continent to the South Pole and back, entirely on their own steam.

No one had ever done it before, and they decided they would try. Of course they had to learn how to ski first, and prep for deadly cold temperatures, winds and completely unfamiliar terrain.

Jonesy and Cas are used to taking on massive challenges. In their previous effort they crossed the Tasman Sea from Australia to New Zealand in a sea kayak, achieving another record with the nearly 1,400-kilometre journey.

But this was new territory for two Aussies with essentially no experience in the cold. And making matters worse, as their departure approached they learned that Norwegian exploration legend Aleksander Gamme was planning to attempt the same project at the exact same time. They were even on the same plan to the Antarctic.

While their mission seemed ill-fated to begin with – their food arrived late and Gamme gets a head start he really doesn’t need – you couldn’t help but root for the likable Aussies as they head out into the great white nothing, towing two giant sleds loaded with all their provisions and gear.

Days and days of whiteout conditions, blasting headwinds, fresh snow that made it possible to move their sleds just inches at a time, and a shortage of food are among the challenges they encounter. But their friendship, grit and willingness to just keep going is truly impressive.

When the pair celebrates Christmas, and Cas secretly decorates the tent with balloons, dons a Santa hat and presents his gift to Jonesy – weeks of meat rations that he has been saving for his friend – you can’t help but be touched.

And when Jonesy breaks down in tears, emotionally raw and physically battered from weeks on the ice, you feel his pain and just want to help.

Though the guys are ostensibly competing with Gamme (though really, it’s not a competition since he is just so much stronger and faster) a friendship also somehow develops, and they begin communicating by satellite phone, encouraging each other along the way.

When the end of the journey approaches, Cas and Jonesy essentially out of food and days and days overdue, there’s a beautiful moment when they see a speck far out and the ice and realize Gamme has waited for them.

Inspiring and epic – what a film. 

Honnold 3.0

At the opposite end of the spectrum was “Honnold 3.0,” a climbing film featuring Alex Honnold, who has quickly become one of the world’s most famous climbers since his successful free solo climb of Yosemite’s El Cap. That accomplishment led to a cover story in National Geographic, a 60 Minutes special and even a credit card commercial featuring Honnold and his girlfriend.

But despite all of that, he’s still a somewhat shy, nerdy climber used to living out of a van and travelling around looking for good crags to climb with no one really paying any attention to him.

The film begins with Honnold taking some time off to boulder and essentially “hide out” from any public attention.  At the same time, of course, he’s sending massive bouldering routes and climbing like a fiend.

But before long Honnold, who admits he’s not a great boulderer and can only compete by taking on terrifyingly hard routes that most climbers won’t touch,  returns to his stomping grounds – Yosemite -- and begins preparing for his next challenge.

He wants to do the Yosemite Triple, climbing Mt. Watkins, El Cap and Half Dome, all in a 24-hour period, meaning much of the climbing will be done at night, without ropes or support.

For much of the climbing, Honnold uses a long daisy chain – a nylon loop attached to his harness and used to connect into a bolt on the route. But since he has no rope with him, it’s a constant process of reaching a bolt, clipping in, feeling safe for a moment, then unclipping and moving on towards the next bolt.

He explains in the film that one of the hardest parts of the project was the constant emotional pendulum swing between being protected, and unprotected.

When the unclipping occurs thousands of feet off the ground, with dizzying exposure and massive drops out into nothing lying just one slip away, it’s enough to turn your stomach.

It’s just so scary. No one should climb like that, and Honnold is so likable and humble that quite honestly, you don’t want so see him die.

In the crux of one of the climbs, he unclips from a bolt and is attempting to reach the next safe point, stretching, but conscious of the fact he is becoming more unbalanced with every inch.

And then his foot slips. The entire audience at the Bloor Cinema held their breath, and somehow in that Alex Honnold way he refused to get excited, took a breath, regained his balance and finished the move perfectly.
Here's what it looked like:
 

Then he smiled at the camera in a “wow, I almost died….but I didn’t” kind of way and keeps climbing, eventually finishing the mission in 19 hours.

A friend told me every climbing film she saw at the Reel Rock festival inspired her to get out and climb, but “Honnold 3.0” made her never want to climb again. I didn’t feel quite the same way, but it definitely gave me a new appreciation for a rope.

Fears, truth revealed in 'Wolves' and 'The Mire' (Becky Cloonan)

On the shelves behind the cash register at my comic book shop the owners often display the creations of local or independent authors and artists. I’ve found some good stuff there, including “Klondike” -- a fantastic graphic novel about the gold rush by Toronto author and illustrator Zach Worton.

Most recently I spotted “Wolves” and “The Mire” on those shelves, both by Beck Cloonan, and was immediately intrigued by the artwork.

The cover image of “Wolves” featured a bedraggled-looking swordsman trailing blood through a snowy forest, staring up in obvious frustration and sadness. Adding to the mystery were Japanese characters along the bottom of the graphic novel. What was this?? I had to know more.

“The Mire” – which as it turns out is the follow-up to “Wolves” -- had a similar image on its cover. A dark, haunted forest, a young boy, innocent, fearful, clutching a letter, walking hesitantly through the woods. Again, I was intrigued.

At $5 each I couldn’t go wrong, and bought both on the spot.  Such a good decision.

Though they are very different, there’s a common thread running through these books. Both books involve a dark secret, both revolve around fear, and in both stories a truth is revealed to one of the central characters that will change their life forever.

In “Wolves,” the story focuses on a young man, a hunter who tracks down and kills werewolves for the king.  However his own secret comes to haunt him, both literally and figuratively, during one of his darkest and most difficult assignments, handed out by a vengeful king.

In “The Mire,” a young squire is sent by his master in the midst of a war to deliver a message to a castle that lies on the other side of the swampy forest for which the book is titled. It’s haunted, of course, and the young man is terrorized by real and imagined fears as he makes his way to his destination. When he arrives, he discovers a deeply haunting and personal truth, which is revealed to him in order to save his life.

Both books have a hypnotic, fairy-tale feel that is both sophisticated and simple at the same time.

The artwork is fantastic. There’s a certain Game of Thrones quality to the illustrations, but with more mythology mixed in – more like an Ang Lee film, when Ang Lee is at his artsy best.

 Cloonan dedicates “The Mire” to “those of you who have crushes on your characters.” And you get the clear sense that she cares deeply about the characters in her books, and she knows them well. As a result, with just a few words, or a few panels, the reader feels as though they know them too.

Great to see a successful writer/illustrator like Cloonan still releasing independent work. Keep it up!

'Corto Maltese: The Early Years' sets the stage for future adventures(Hugo Pratt, 1983)

While "Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea" took place in a dreamy, sun-kissed South Pacific, "Corto Maltese: The Early Years" is set in China at the messy conclusion of the Russo-Japanese war around 1904.

A young and cheerful Corto, already established as a world-traveller with friends in every port, of every colour and creed, has wound up in China.

His timing is bad, as Russia and Japan are grappling over trade access through Korea and Manchuria and he appears to have become stuck in the tail end of the war.

But it’s almost two-thirds of the way through the book before Corto even makes an appearance.

Instead we meet Rasputin, Corto’s villainous soon-to-be ‘frenemy,’ and Jack London. Yes, that Jack London. Throughout his books, which are Tintin-esque in their efforts to fuse fiction with good storytelling, Hugo Pratt places real historic characters in Corto’s path wherever he goes (though strangely not in "Salt Sea".)

It’s London, who is in China working as a foreign correspondent, who first meets Rasputin, and, unaware that he has just murdered two Japanese, sets him up with Corto for passage on his sailboat out of China.

Corto, who has been busy convincing the other journalists to fund his search for King Solomon’s gold, happily agrees to take Rasputin out of the country as a favour to London. And even after he finds out that Rasputin is a cold-blooded killer, he keeps his word to help the Russian deserter flee China -- a characteristic though sometimes bizarre loyalty that Corto displays repeatedly throughout the books.

The book moves at a faster pace than "Salt Sea," and the artwork is a little rougher too. Where the Salt Sea felt gentle and peaceful, with incongruous splashes of violence, "Early Years" is clearly a war memoir of sorts, and has the urgent, desperate feel of the times. Anyone could die at any time.

As a longtime Jack London fan, it was a nice surprise to see him in these pages. Pratt has some fun at his expense, though, apparently based on London’s reputation as a know-it-all who had a habit of one-upping everyone else’s stories.

In one exchange he pompously asks Corto if he is a “vision of L’Arlesienne,” which appears to be a reference to this.

Corto looks at him strangely and replies ‘Not really…”

In another conversation he is asked by a fellow journalist if he has heard of King Solomon’s mines.

“Yeah, it’s an African novel by RH Rider Haggard,” he responds. “I like ‘She’ or ‘The Witch’s Head’ Better. But his main opus is ‘Rural England.’

“Well…thanks for the bio. London. And after that bit of showing off, I’ll ask again: What do you know about King Solomon’s mines?”

Classic.

Though this book is purported to be an introduction to Corto Maltese, there’s unfortunately very little of him in the book. But it’s still a fun read and a great set up for future adventures, laying the groundwork for the weird relationship he has with Rasputin and giving you a sense of his character.

The art is good too, particularly the sketches in the first few pages depicting Japanese soldiers in various uniforms. Beautiful.

Worth a read!

Corto Maltese: Captain, castaway, pirate

I’ve been on a graphic novel and comic book kick for a while. I’ve also been on a Cormac McCarthy kick. But since I’m not in the mood to plunge deep into the darkness of human depravity right now, I’ve decided to get back in the blogging habit with a series of reviews of the graphic novels and comics I’ve read recently.

I have to start with Corto Maltese: The Ballad of the Salt Sea.

What a fantastic book. The cover art sucked me in with its promise of a South Seas, damsel-in-distress, vagabond, pirate/anti-hero kind of tale. Add in cannibalistic but mostly helpful Polynesians, and that’s exactly what it delivered.

Corto is the invention of Hugo Pratt, an Italian writer and illustrator who wrote the books between 1970 and 1984 while living in France. I’ve so far been able to find Salt Sea and Corto Maltese: The Early Years, in English.

Corto, a sea captain, is the son of a British sailor from Cornwall and a gypsy Andalusian witch and prostitute known as “La Nina de Gibraltar.” Maybe because of his dubious pedigree and the fact he seems to earn his living carrying out sketchy deeds on leaky ships in the South Seas, he is loyal to no flag and seems to base his allegiances on individuals, trusting everyone until they give him a reason not to.

Perhaps his only loyalty is to underdogs – even Corto’s enemies, when they are down, seem to elicit his sympathy and often his help, which he usually comes to regret.

His escapades take place in the early 1900s. In Salt Sea, the story begins when a villainous rival of Corto’s named Rasputin picks up two shipwrecked Dutch cousins, whom he believes might be worth a large ransom.

Soon they encounter Corto, tied to a piece of driftwood and floating in the open ocean, and the adventure begins as he comes on board and tries to decide whose side he is on – another South Seas disrepute, much like himself, or the wealthy castaways, one of whom is a beautiful girl.

Complicating the story is the addition of the Monk, a powerful pirate who controls the region, playing nearby navy ships from the Netherlands, Germany, Japan and America off each other whenever it suits his purposes.

Pratt has a way of capturing the alien experience the two cousins have, and putting the reader in their place, far from home, surrounded by gruff captains and seamen, violent pirates, ruthless or clueless military officers and local natives.

And it’s the natives that he uses most effectively to convey a sense of unease – their tattooed faces and strange, stilted way of talking revealing little about where their loyalties lie.

The artwork is also compelling. Remember, these were drawn between 30 and 40 years ago, so there’s none of the intricate detail and sophisticated artwork and printing techniques we see in today’s comics.

Instead, there’s a simplicity to it that forces the reader to fill in some of the gaps on his own. Pratt’s attention to facial expressions is especially well done. There’s a perfect mix of excitement and fear as Pandora, the girl, says, “I’m curious to see this famous ‘Monk’” – referring to the murderous and mysterious pirate she is about to meet.

It’s a compelling adventure story, especially for anyone who has been to that part of the world, or who grew up fascinated by Herman Melville or Jack London’s South Sea tales of adventure, like I did.

I couldn’t put it down but also forced myself to read it slowly in order to stretch it out – it was that good. I recommend this book.

Peak-bagging in the Lyells and Mt. Forbes in Banff National Park

 

This article was written a few weeks after a mountaineering trip in July 2012.

Sitting here in my apartment on busy Queen Street in downtown Toronto, with traffic whizzing by and bar-goers hooting and hollering outside my window, it’s hard to believe that just weeks ago I was standing on the summit of Mt. Forbes with four other members of the Toronto Section of the Alpine Club of Canada, taking in an incredible vista and feeling as though we were on top of the world.

Which we kind of were. At 3,612 metres, Forbes is the highest peak in Banff National Park, and the successful summit bid was the highlight of the section’s summer mountaineering trip for a number of us.

Fourteen of us joined the trip this year, flying to Calgary, then making our way to Golden, B.C., where we caught a “high clearance vehicle” – a.k.a. a bus -- into the mountains. From Golden we travelled for several hours along  twisty alpine logging roads until we reached our rally point to await the helicopter that would shuttle us into the Lyells region in the high alpine –- a well-kept secret that holds six of the country’s 54 11,000-foot summits.

Once we arrived, we began to separate into two groups. One group would spend the first five nights at the Lyells Hut (2,860m), close to the five mountains that make up the Lyells range. The other group would start at the Mons Hut, slightly lower at 2,370 metres of elevation but closer to the coveted Mt. Forbes -– the highest peak in Banff National Park and the objective that obsessed many of us.

After the first five days, our groups would switch huts, making for a total of 10 days in the mountains, with numerous potential summits for each group to bag.

My group, under the guidance of trip organizer Rob LeBlanc, won the coin toss that determined who would head to the Lyells hut first. Everyone generally felt that the group that stayed at the Mons hut during the second half of their trip would be better acclimatized and would therefore have the best chance at reaching the summit. As it turns out, this was entirely the case -- the major summits were bagged later in the week by both teams, largely due to the weather.

Our group was happy about the result, but as Alex Perel, the leader of the other group pointed out, weather and timing were the unpredictable X-factors that would inevitably determine success or failure on Forbes.

At the muster point we met our experienced, talented, and sometimes helpfully bossy cooks – Monique and Darcie.

Monique immediately took charge, dividing up the teams, gear, and giving us specific instructions on how to manage the helicopter arrivals and drop-offs. There is no arguing with “Mo”, and why would you want to? She holds the keys to feast and famine.

And then we were gone, heading up the valley and into the mountains, climbing hundreds of feet of elevation and looking down on old, fissured, crevasse-riddled glaciers spawning powerful waterfalls. Untouched snowy bowls, massive rock faces -- we were truly in the Rocky Mountains now, and the adventure was underway.

Within minutes the helicopter was circling in on the Lyells hut, a lonely tin box perched awkwardly on the shoulder of Christian peak at 2,860 metres. We had been warned it was “winter up there,” and that was no exaggeration. The temperature was about 15 degrees cooler than it had been on the launch pad, and the chopper landed on snow. We went from shorts and T-shirts below, to post-holing our way in thigh-deep snow as we hauled gear from the chopper to the cabin.

But after months of planning and days of travel, we had finally arrived, and it felt great to be in the mountains, taking in our first far-off views of Forbes as it towered above the other mountains in the distance.

We could only hope that our friends in Alex’s group would get a shot at the summit and as many other peaks as they hoped to climb before we swapped huts.

The next day, our first full day in the mountains, we ate a big breakfast then geared up and headed out. Our plan was to rope-up and hike to a steep snow slope behind the hut to practice self-arrest techniques, crampon skills and glacier travel.

After some sliding around, getting comfortable with our mountaineering axes and crampons, we continued on up Christian peak, following Rob as he kicked steps up a steep slope, then went over-the-top into an area we dubbed “The Sauna” -- a natural half-pipe carved out of the glacier where the temperature went up dramatically. Not only that, but The Sauna was a terrific terrain trap for rockfall and debris. To add to the misery, as a descent route it does not reveal itself as a dead end, as members of Team Eh! would discover to their exhausted chagrin only a few days later. 

Like most of the Lyells, Christian looked a lot easier than it actually was. From a distance you could convince yourself it was a quick 30 minutes up and 20 down, but the scale is different up there. What looks close could be two hours away. What looks far off could require a long day’s hiking.

But we were fresh and eager, and soon we were at the top of our first summit -- and the only summit of the trip that all the members of Team Huh? reached together, at the same time. Christian, or Lyell #5, was a fantastic first objective at 3,390 metres that left us feeling like our group was gelling well and was ready to bag a bunch more summits!

On the way back down, we decided to rappel down the steepest section. Jon Newman and Rafael, however, decided to glissade. We quickly realized, watching Jon gain speed at a frightening rate for a few moments, that the snow masked a layer of ice that made for less than ideal glissading. (A few days later, that snow was mostly melted and the massive sheet of sheer ice was revealed.)

On July 29, our third day in the mountains, Team Huh? had its first alpine start. Waking up at 4 a.m. was painful, but the reward made it well worth it -- the alpenglow created a blue and pink aura that framed the mountains and set the stage for an epic day as we hit the glacier.

We crossed some crevasses and had our first brush with the dangers of glacier travel as we headed toward a massive snowfield that served as a super-highway to the base of the Lyells, which we could see clearly ahead of us, beckoning us onward. This was one of those instances where an estimated hour or so turned into three or four hours of hard slogging, just to get to the base.

But eventually we made it, our two rope teams regrouping at the bottom to make a push for the summit. Though we could see all five Lyells, it was #1, #2 and #3 that were our objectives -- three 11,000 footers in one day! We managed to achieve the first two with no major problems, but things got dicey as we approached Lyell #3. Weather started to move in, and between breaks in the clouds we could see a nasty-looking bergschrund that would need to be negotiated, just below the summit of #3.

Onward! We did it, beating the weather, surpassing the bergschrund (and gaping snow cave we had to carefully climb around -- upon which Rafael Kolodziejczyk executed his first lead!) to reach the summit, and turn around to head home as the weather quickly deteriorated.

Little did we know, the ominous weather approaching would quickly deliver a blast of rain, hail and lightning that would chase us for several hours, making for a miserable and scary trip home.

But once we were all safe in our cozy cabin, and the scotch and boxed wine was being passed around and stories swapped, all agreed it was an epic day, climbing three peaks with elevations of 3,507 metres, 3,514 metres and 3,511 all in one day, and we wouldn’t have traded it for anything.

The next day at the Lyells hut was mostly rained out, though a few of us managed to get on the glacier to practice walking on steep ice in crampons (more later on why that came in handy!), building snow and ice anchors and using ice screws.

Finally, on our last day at the Lyells hut we did some exploring around Lens, a peak of 3,150 metres, but were unable to find a route to the mountain’s well-defended summit by our turnaround time, which was inflexible since this was transfer day to the Mons hut. The same schedule led Team Eh to have a “rest day” on Division Peak, the highlight of which was an attempt to cut down a cornice, in the name of sport.

Finally, after a stressful couple of hours of packing, and some weather-related delays, we heard the far off ‘whoosh whoosh’ of a helicopter approaching, and the transfer was underway –- a rushed ‘hello’ to our friends from Team Eh! as they unloaded, and we were once again in the air, heading towards the elusive Forbes peak that had been taunting us for so long.

Though the huts are only about 500 metres apart in terms of elevation, the difference is immediately noticeable. The Mons hut is warmer, there’s a melt-water creek passing by the cabin and a picturesque turquoise tarn just below the hut. And it’s easier to breathe –- which is good, because we were up for our biggest challenge yet.

The next day, Aug. 2, 2012, Team Huh was caught in a blizzard. We had planned a reconnaissance day, with the goal of walking in the direction of Forbes to suss out whether we could use a rumoured couloir as a sort of back-door shortcut to a ridge that would drop us directly at the base of the northwest face.

We got within sight of the couloir, barely, when a blizzard suddenly socked us in during our lunch break. It was instant whiteout conditions, and we all put our hoods up to wait it out miserably, detached in our own worlds.

That was when Mo, our cook and a true self-described Kootenay mountain girl, busted out her emergency tarp and rigged up a shelter that managed to keep all eight of us out of the snow and in close proximity. She also broke out her collection of jokes, ranging from inappropriate to all-out filthy, which kept us laughing during the storm.

The next day the weather was bad in the morning, so for Team Huh? a Forbes attempt was out of the question. This opened the door to climb Mons, the peak directly between the hut and Forbes. Once again, a deceptively easy-looking climb quickly became a challenging one, complete with patches of bare, exposed ice that required us to “poon up” and get in lots of unexpected practice with the mountaineering axes. Jon even had to cut steps. But once again the entire group reached the summit under bluebird skies, meaning we had another summit (3,083m) to add to the list.

Finally, on our second-to-last day, the weather looked like it was going to be perfect, and we decided to plan a 2 a.m. wake-up call for the five team members making a summit push, with a 3 a.m. start time planned.

At 2 a.m. the sky was filled with stars, and we knew it was now or never. So after a hearty breakfast, the five of us set out on a single rope, first climbing the toe of the Mons glacier in front of our hut which eventually led to the West Glacier, which was the approach that would lead us to our mystery couloir. We had been told “it goes,” but hadn’t gotten close enough to see for ourselves, and others had told us Forbes was only possible with a bivy at the base -- something we weren’t prepared to do, and frankly refused to believe.

Under a full moon with no need for headlamps, walking on a perfectly frozen glacier, we made good time, but still trudged four-and-a-half hours at a brisk “Rob LeBlanc trot” before we could finally get a good look at the so-called short-cut couloir. What we saw was intimidating. Roughly 100 metres high, with bare ice at the bottom, loose scrabbly rock in the middle and another section of terrifyingly steep ice at the top.

We put our crampons on, got our mountaineering axes out and short-roped. And then it was time to go, with Rob leading, placing ice screws wherever he could (which wasn’t all that often).

Instead of a direct line, we had to execute constant switchbacks in order to avoid kicking rocks down on the climbers directly below us. It was a sketchy, intense climb, but there was nowhere to go but up, and the glimpses of daylight at the top of the couloir kept us motivated -- along with ample amounts of sheer terror.

When the group finally crested the ridge we had an easy line to drop down to the base of Forbes, where we took our first break while we tried to chart a path up the exposed, steep face.

Jon Newman had climbed Forbes 15 years earlier, and had taken a route that required a long slog up the face, before finally traversing to the ridge just below the summit. Other members of the Toronto Section on a previous trip had chosen a route that got them onto the north ridge, which they then took to the summit before descending the west ridge.

Rob chose a hybrid route somewhere between the two, switchbacking directly up the northwest face before finally heading to the west ridge just below some exposed rock.

We set out behind him, as he began kicking steps in what was perfect, packable snow for a good portion of the ascent. At a certain point, however, that beautiful snow gave out and we found ourselves traversing on thinly-covered ice with nothing but a couple of ice screws between us and a spectacular drop down the northwest face.

Eventually, our horizontal ice climbing transitioned to vertical climbing, as we tackled a steep portion of bare ice in order to avoid loose, steep rock on the right which led down to a dangerously steep gully.

Finally, after a short but exposed high-altitude free climb on a rock step, we were on the summit ridge -- a steep, snowy slab that took us to the summit of the highest peak in Banff National Park. 

It was awesome. Bluebird day, a great team, an incredible view and nothing left to do but get home safely.

Of course, that turned out to be an epic mission. Instead of following our shortcut couloir, which would have required an impossible rappel, we took the classic North Glacier route home. Unfortunately, that required us to find a way across a raging torrent at the toe of the Mons Glacier, where it met the North Glacier. When Jon came this way a decade-and-a-half ago it was a solid ice bridge, but the glacier had receded significantly and we spent close to two hours in an exhausting search for a route, before we finally found a place where it was possible to cross the river and get onto the glacier for the long -- and slushy -- slog home.

After a 3 a.m. start, we arrived back at the hut at 9:15 p.m., more than 18 hours after setting out, but with our objective accomplished -- and the best surprise of the day, cold beer that Jon and Alexandra Welsh had secretly stashed for just such an occasion.

Beer never tasted so good.