Uploaded March 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago
Jeff, Hans, and I climbing Ghoster Coaster WI3+.
It is a pretty mellow walk from Canmore to this climb, and I think that you could do much more of it than we did with bikes. E-bikes are a plus. We ditched them pretty early on, but in retrospect we could have ridden them for much longer. Beta from Mountain Project:
mountainproject.com/route/114100349/ghoster-coaster
Description Suggest change
P1: Climb a step to another step and belay in Huge cave WI 3 60m
P2: Up large wall WI 3+ to another small step and ice ends at large block (55m)
P3: Walk up and climb one last 20m step of 2+.
Decent: rap off tree ring from P3, then double bolted belay station on P2 and P1. P1 DBB might be too high up to reach, so you might need to make a V-thread. There was also an anchor looped around a rock, but it shouldn't be trusted for rappel.
Park at Lady Mac trailhead. Walk through the canyon since the construction is now finished. There is a Y junction and you'll turn left from there. Will attach picture of what the junction looks like. We followed the Ghoster Coaster hiking trail on AllTrails and it took us to the right spot. It was a long hike. 2.5 hours, 5.93 km and 367m Elevation gain to reach to the base of P1.
P2 is the only full-length pitch of climbing. We used two 60m ropes for the rappels.
Location Suggest change
Approach takes about 1.5-2 hrs. Start from Cougar Creek parking area, walk up to a Y junction (45-60 mins walking), take a left at the junction and continue up the creek until the hoodoos on the left side (high on the bank), which took an additional 15 minutes. From there, walk up a drainage on the left side of the creek bed until you hit ice (another 20 mins).
Protection Suggest change
ice screws
Jeff, Hans, and I climbing Ghoster Coaster WI3+.
It is a pretty mellow walk from Canmore to this climb, and I think that you could do much more of it than we did with bikes. E-bikes are a plus. We ditched them pretty early on, but in retrospect we could have ridden them for much longer. Beta from Mountain Project:
mountainproject.com/route/114100349/ghoster-coaster
Description Suggest change
P1: Climb a step to another step and belay in Huge cave WI 3 60m
P2: Up large wall WI 3+ to another small step and ice ends at large block (55m)
P3: Walk up and climb one last 20m step of 2+.
Decent: rap off tree ring from P3, then double bolted belay station on P2 and P1. P1 DBB might be too high up to reach, so you might need to make a V-thread. There was also an anchor looped around a rock, but it shouldn't be trusted for rappel.
Park at Lady Mac trailhead. Walk through the canyon since the construction is now finished. There is a Y junction and you'll turn left from there. Will attach picture of what the junction looks like. We followed the Ghoster Coaster hiking trail on AllTrails and it took us to the right spot. It was a long hike. 2.5 hours, 5.93 km and 367m Elevation gain to reach to the base of P1.
P2 is the only full-length pitch of climbing. We used two 60m ropes for the rappels.
Location Suggest change
Approach takes about 1.5-2 hrs. Start from Cougar Creek parking area, walk up to a Y junction (45-60 mins walking), take a left at the junction and continue up the creek until the hoodoos on the left side (high on the bank), which took an additional 15 minutes. From there, walk up a drainage on the left side of the creek bed until you hit ice (another 20 mins).
Protection Suggest change
ice screws
