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If you close your eyes and imagine the perfect climbing area, something with steep, hard limestone climbs, long multi-pitch alpine walls, endless cliffs to stare at and dream, Canmore is what you’re picturing. It is the epicenter for hard sport, ice and alpine climbers in Canada (even the Alpine Club of Canada’s headquarters are in Canmore). At their doorstep, lie 10,000-foot mountains, with thousand-foot steep cliffs everywhere, some chossy and some not. The guidebooks are a testament to the endless pitches, steep and dry, long and technical, run out and wild. If you want to climb the Canadian Rockies, Canmore has it all.

Canmore Climbing
Canmore, with the Three Sisters mountains in the background, is a classic mountain town full of equally classic climbing options

Endless climbing options in Canmore and the surrounding area

In my mind, all the climbing between Lake Louise and Canmore can be lumped into the same area, since it all resides within Banff National Park. Staying in Canmore, you can get up early and be climbing on the incredible Grand Sentinel, or jamming on the newly bolted Apollo route on Mt. Hector, or even climbing the super steep sport routes at Bataan.

Classics are plentiful, like Eeyore’s Tail (5.8, 10 pitches), or the East Ridge of Mount Temple (5.7), an alpine classic, and the hard 5.14, 15-pitch bolted route, The Shining on Mount Lewis, with the hard line up the Diamond Face. Truly, there are too many classics to even list. If you’re planning a guided rock climbing tour in the Canadian Rockies, give Canmore a go.

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