Banff Rock Updates Here is some beta on a new route completed in the early spring this year on the wall to the left of Cascade Falls. It is to the left of the old route 'Arches Typical' from Murray Toft's old Banff rockguidebook. It goes up the cliff to the left of this route just before you hike past another deep cut in the mountain. Basically, it goes above that wild arching north-facing slab near the end of the entire outcrop. From the road it looks weedy but when on it there is no vegetation on the route, only convenient belays and is excellent waterworn rock. "Mountaineers Coil"-5.6 FA-Greg Cornell and Gavin Macrae, Spring 2000 Hike up to 'Arches Typical'and before entering its obvious gulley, hike up and left about 100 meters to an obvious yellow open-book corner with a tree on top;about 50m before that wild north-facing slab. Pitch 1: climb the nice, open-book to the tree and continue up a crack moving into the waterworn gully-runnel-feature and up on beautiful rock to a small tree belay on the left. (about 45m, 5.6) Pitch 2: traverse right under an awkward bulge back into the same gulley-runnel (crux) and climb straight up a steep slabbed corner to easier angled rock and eventually a belay off a big tree at the top left of the bay. (about 40-45m, 5.6) Pitch 3: climb up the crack above a bit then move left onto the easier buttress and keep going until traversing far left to a small tree belay overlooking the wild, arching north-facing slab talked about earlier. (30-35m, 5.5) The exposure down from the belay is freaky!** The plan was to take the route from the treed bay, straight up the above wicked crack but it became very full of vegetation and if gardened would make a beautiful laybacking pitch, plus would make a variation of half the route as the 4th pitch would continue up the gulley-yet, our 4th pitch is interesting and very exposed.** Pitch 4: from the small tree belay, climb up following the crest of the drop off with good pro, staying on obvious ramp features that get smaller and smaller the higher you get, always staying on the crest above the exposed dropoff until the ramps get only foot-sized (always keeping left). At this point you should be under some ugly orange rock and a massive rainforest sized tree. Move left past the orange rock (loose), now very exposed, and up to the tree for a belay. (5.6, 50m) DESCENT: This is what you came for, as the descent is as fun as the ascent. If you use the easy descent used in Toft's guidebook well, O.K., but if you have time here is a descent that is wild. (We would have liked to have used the old descent but with snow everywhere we couldn't find any signs of a trail if one even exists). So we stumbled onto this baby....I call this the Macrae Descent as I pat Gavin on the back for being an excellent explorer in piecing this together into something interesting, and hand-jugging up the rope 30m when the ropes didn't touch in the process and had to be re-worked. From the big tree belay simul-scramble left into the forest. Then hike up through the forest past a gorgeous boulder field and down the other side following the edge of the upper cliff band, now going downhill. Where things start to get peter out, move out east and scramble down to a huge tree on the edge of a big cliff. IF YOU DON'T SEE SLING AROUND THIS BIG TREE DON'T ATTEMPT THIS AS THIS TREE IS THE KEY TO SUCCESS, unless or into some adventure or if you hate to rap!! If you don't see this tree, hike back up and try to navigate the old guidebook descent. So now you have scrambled or short-rapped to the big slung tree. Feel free to leave more sling behind. 1.) Rap a full 50m to a wide scree ledge. This cliff is very steep and would be a 5.10 retreat up! 2.) Hike down the big scree ledge to the last smaller tree (with sling) at the slopes termination above a cascading drop. Rap climbers left about 30-40m to the only tree on the dropoff and can be seen from this ledge. When you rap you will be moving left a lot on ledges and your saviour from a huge swing is the well-planned rock outcrop your rope will fit snuggly into and is a sweet piece of pro! 3.) You should now be at the exposed tree overlooking the ground below and overlooking the Trans-Canada and directly above the old buffalo paddock as this is the yellow cliff easily seen from the highway facing south. Rap from two fixed knifeblades backed up with sling to the tree, feel free to resling.This is the best part.... rap straight down and after about 20m you will slowly drift away from the wall and by the time you touch the scree slope below, you will be suspended about 15m from the wall!! This rap is about 49m. Hike the down and catch an excellent trail around north to the airstrip. Greg Cornell (gerg4@hotmail.com)