Why call the area FREJYA?
While exploring the first rock climbing route on this face we were humbled. What an incredible gift this massive wall of solid limestone is!
Better Together is positioned about 450 meters to the east of the famous ‘From Nordegg With Love’. This double black via ferrata was the first development in the zone and we wanted to pay homage to its name. Frejya is the name of a Norse goddess of love and hopefully we can keep the love theme going up here. Get out there and enjoy the love!
Approach:
Park on the south side of the road as you would for the Via Ferrata From Nordegg with Love (52.104817, -116.431458). Cross the highway and follow the well established trail all the way up to the start of the Via Ferrata. There is a “Y” with a large rock stack on the trail. Stay right. (the left is the decent trail).
From there, traverse across the base of the wall rising for around 150 meters. At an old dead standing tree look left and scramble to a small bay with a belay bolt to its left (Pictured).
Beta
Pitch 1: 5.8, 32m
Trend left and up through moderate terrain
Image 1: Start of the climb – belay bolt, bottom right
Image 2: Looking down from P1 belay and across the valley at Starstruck Buttress
Pitch 2: 5.9, 35m
15 draws with a tricky last few moves!
Image: Climbing Pitch 2
Pitch 3: 5.7, 20m
Pitch 4: 5.10-, 32m
Clip bolt one then back clean it after clipping the second bolt. A super fun pitch!
Image 1: Looking up at P4
Image 2: Looking Down from the Pitch 4 Belay.
Pitch 5: 5.9-, 32m
Image 1: Pitch 5
Pitch 6, 5.10+, 33m
Steep moves ease off for a bit. Stay right if there are still two bolt lines when you climb the pitch. The slab climbing as you move right is ‘fantastic’.
Image 1: Start of Pitch 6
Image 2: Pitch 6
Pitch 7: 5.11-, 38m, 16 Draws
The Stopper Pitch: Consider clipping bolt two and back cleaning bolt one, pull down and don’t look back! This pitch will claim some of your DNA.
Image: Pitch 7, possibly the best pitch in the David Thompson Corridor?
Pitch 8: 5.9, 34m
Pitch 9: 5.6, 30m
Pitch 10:5.10-, 35m
Descent:
Bushwack roughly west, across the top of the plateau to a picnic table at the top of ‘From Nordegg With Love’ or rappel the route. We recently worked to establish a path down to the picnic table. Follow the indications of broken dead branches and cairns where we could find rocks. If you can’t find the table, you will end up at a small talus slope at the end of the trail of cairns. Follow the talus to the well marked decent from the Via Ferrata. Turn right (roughly west) and follow the decent trail. Keep left at any junctions and follow this trail down and across the base of Mt Ernst Ross, until you get back to the original large carins from the approach trail. turn right, and down to the highway.
Rappel Notes: The entire route can be repelled with a 70m rope. That said there needs to be a bit more work done to make the rappel from the stopper pitch work well. At this point it is an absolute rope stretcher requiring the building of an anchor and a long sling to stretch the connection. A dedicated rappel station is in the works.
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