- pitches: 7
- car elevation: 1296m
- base: +168m = 1465m
- top: +283m = 1748m
- car-to-car: 8h06 (start 11:12)
- approach: 1h09
- lunch: 0h27
- climbing: 4h07
- descent: 1h54
- average time to lead pitch: 25min
- average time to follow pitch: 13min
After failing to find Rundlehorn on Monday (argh!), I asked Justin for suggestions of climbs that he had done. One of his suggestions was Beautiful Century, a 7-pitch sport climb within my desired grade range. There was a bit of sandbagging with respect to the approach time. We're pretty spoiled with respect to approach times in Ontario; 1 hour-plus approaches seem to be standard in Alberta.
The approach to the area starts near the Francis Cooke Regional Class 3 Landfill. The obvious way is through the landfill, but there's an enclosing perimeter fence and you can see the actual path outside the fence. Fortunately, the landfill staff let us out the padlocked gate with wishes for a good hike. Saved us some backtracking.
Unlike for Rundlehorn, finding the base of the climb was only mildly challenging. (I'm pretty sure I got to within 200m of the base of Rundlehorn, but never figured out in which direction to take those 200m). After decreasing backpack weight by eating lunch, we started climbing at 1:15pm.
Random impressions:- probably have too much stuff in backpack.
- got to the first anchors and felt like I forgot how to climb: the first pitch is definitely sandbagged at 5.8 (slab, not quite enough hands) and then I had to remember how to set up the anchor.
- turns out that it was only the midpoint anchors for rappeling; you could go on to the real first anchors, but that makes a long pitch, especially with challenging terrain lower down. I'd recommend splitting into two pitches if it's been a while since climbing that kind of route.
- pitch 2 crux described as a no-hands mantle after a traverse. Justin found it out of character with the rest of the route (i.e. harder). It was, but I didn't find it that bad.
- except for pitch 4, the difficulty was homogeneous. I found the 5.8 pitches to be harder than the 5.9 pitches in general. The line wanders, but Justin points out that all lines in the Rockies wander if they're not just 5.3 scrambles.
- excellent Yamnuska views; route stayed in the shade for us. Didn't see any ticks.

-
20160517 111230631 goats behind dump
2696 visits
-
20160517 115928334 HDR kananaskis county
2015 visits
-
20160517 122111309 slabby
2005 visits
-
20160517 122636027 mp
3663 visits
-
20160517 124808704 HDR looking up at beautiful century
1988 visits
-
20160517 124818898 mp tying in
1978 visits
-
20160517 130355087 tiny flowers shot on lead
1929 visits
-
20160517 131426943 atop p1 half
2028 visits
-
20160517 131430436 forgot how to anchor
1958 visits
-
20160517 131433267 HDR easier terrain
1967 visits
-
20160517 133136521 mp hauling pack
2045 visits
-
20160517 135457130 looking across coire dubh
2457 visits
-
20160517 135500814 kananaskis again
1940 visits
-
20160517 140440639 HDR upcoming crux
2101 visits
-
20160517 143155256 steadily improving k county views
2163 visits
-
20160517 145133576 mp
2572 visits
-
20160517 150253937 HDR mp on lead
1639 visits
-
20160517 152036772 ready to follow pp 34
1680 visits
-
20160517 152701472 p3 anchors
1581 visits
-
20160517 153036094 plam
1655 visits
-
20160517 155258575 yam and bow
1660 visits
-
20160517 155300993 HDR looking down at base
1574 visits
-
20160517 163523788 black waterfall
1727 visits
-
20160517 163530784 lots of slab
1796 visits
-
20160517 164711455 mp near top
2061 visits
-
20160517 170455915 anchor
1744 visits
-
20160517 171037413 HDR more yam
1670 visits
-
20160517 171040124 alberta rock
1726 visits
-
20160517 172711375 HDR mp
1737 visits
-
20160517 173948647 HDR random anchor
1831 visits
-
20160517 174232463 HDR plam and half mp
2493 visits
-
20160517 174438171 HDR across the bow
1872 visits
-
20160517 174507440 yam
1733 visits
-
20160517 183514821 HDR kid goat perhaps
1647 visits
-
20160517 183522217 end of the class3 descent
1781 visits
-
20160517 191020087 keep out
1725 visits
-
20160517 191029261 landfill
1681 visits
-
20160517 191855250 back out
1830 visits