It was the summer of 2008; I was 21 and standing in the hot sun, sifting through a hodge-podge pile of cams and nuts that lay in a tangled heap in Chris Brazeau’s driveway. “Braz,” Canada’s undercover mountain master, was about to show me the Bugaboos for the first time. I was giddy with excitement.
Driving in, we passed a roaring creek that paralleled the washboard logging road. Looking back, I can easily say that there is little that compares with that first glimpse of Marmolada spire, or the feeling of stumbling upon a perfect cirque of mint granite spires. Braz, a quiet, wide-smiling, alpine charger, knew all the tricks. He wrapped his car in chicken wire to prevent a porcupine attack, ferreted out a few barley beverages to stash…