I tried to climb Hoka Hey a couple of years ago and it went just about as badly as a day can go without anyone being injured or killed.

It's not a bad route, we just had a day where the universe was against us. First, we were stalked by a murderously horny grouse that decided that its single goal in life was to horribly maim us. We tried to leave the area but it just hounded us. It was a running battle between three adults and a forest chicken that probably weighed no more than five pounds and yet absolutely inexplicably shrugged off our uh, 'increasingly assertive' attempts to suggest it leave us alone. We finally managed to dissuade it without injuring it, but it was an eye opening reminder that bears aren't the only animals whose territory you need to be aware of.

We escaped the murder bird and got to the bottom of the climb. As we were gearing up we witnessed huge rockfall come crashing down the corner system that comprises the bottom half of the route (obvious lesson of the day, this is not a route to do early in the season). If we'd been on route it absolutely would have been fatal. Somehow, that demonic forest chicken saved our lives by delaying us for an hour.

So that's how the first attempt went. Attempt #2 was pretty much guaranteed to go better.

Hoka Hey is a beautiful climb on Mt. Cory that actually crosses the iconic crack that splits the face. The route is mixed and has bolted stations so we brought a light rack of cams to augment the fixed pro, . 9 pitches and graded 5.8+, you might figure it would be a super mellow day out but I sure wouldn't want to be a 5.8 leader on that route. It's sustained for the grade and the moves are non-obvious in places. A bit of a burly day compared to other multipitch routes at the grade in the area, but it's tons of fun. Check the full pitch by pitch description on TABVAR.

Hoka Hey Approach

Christine and I drove out from Calgary early Saturday morning and drove out to the Muleshoe Parking lot about 5-6km up the road from the Bow Valley Parkway turnoff west of Banff. Since my first attempt, a few friends of mine had climbed the route and the reports were all the same. Super fun, super sustained, seriously hard for the grade. I mean, people who I know happily climb mixed 10s on a regular basis were coming back commenting it wasn't a gimme.