James Y. and I headed out for some top-rope practice at Drywood this past Saturday. James had been there before but it was my first time climbing there. There are a number of bolted routes that can be top roped by scrambling up the west side, passing between the cliff face and a cool gendarme. We left Lethbridge around 8:30 and by time we drove out there and got all our bikes and gear sorted out it was 10:15 AM. We brought a couple of ropes and way too much stuff.
We biked as far as we could and slogged our way by foot with our heavy bags to the cliffs. There are a number of bolted routes on some cliff faces below an adjoining ridge of Drywood peak and arrived at the Ram's head around noon. I hadn't realized how much time and effort it would take to get to the cliffs (about 350 m elevation gain to get to the cliffs) but it was almost worth the hike just for the impressive views below.
The routes from Goble's book were a lot tougher than anticipated! I could only muster getting up the easiest sport route and could barely get partway up the other rope we set up. J. tried a lead climb towards the end of the day.
Biking in the morning was a slog and it was crazy windy, so it didn't feel like we were saving much time on the way up (but it definitely was worth it biking out). We were driving out by 5 back in Lethbridge by 6:20.
Some useless stats for the day:
El. Gain: 1135 ft (346 m); Car: 5133 ft (1564 m), Cliffs: 6267 ft (1910 m)
Round Trip Distance (9.5 km)
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