Multi-Pitch Climbing

A photo of Cascade Falls with a line drawn on for the Minihapa mulit pitch route.

What is multi-pitch climbing?

Multi-pitch routes are longer than 30 meters, sometimes hundreds of meters. A climber goes up to an anchor and then belays a second climber up to that anchor. Then one of them leads up, climbing a second pitch to a higher anchor, and belays the other climber up. In this way, they can climb many pitches up a big wall to the top of a long route. Then they either rappel down, completing many rappels, or walk down a hiking trail if one is available.

The route in the photo, marked with a yellow line, is called Minihapa. It climbs rock beside a beautiful waterfall on Cascade Mountain near the town of Banff. The route has four pitches. Climbers descend by walking along the ledge on the left side which joins a descent trail that takes them back to the bottom.

Multi-pitch climbs can be sport climbs, which are fully bolted with bolted anchors. For these routes, climbers need only bring quickdraws to clip the rope to the bolts and gear to build anchors, rappel and belay.

Multi-pitch climbs can also be traditional (“trad”) climbs which have few or no bolts. Climbers must bring and place their own protection gear (“pro”) such as cams and nuts. The leader places gear on the way up to the anchor and then the second cleans the gear on their way up.

Angela climbs a steep cliff on top rope with the forest far below.

Sport Multi-Pitch Routes

Routes we’ve climbed that are fully bolted with no need for trad gear are included here. Minihapa and Wheat Kings are both on Cascade Mountain near the town of Banff. Plutonian Shores is also near the town of Banff but it is on Sulphur Mountain. Detailed descriptions of the Approach are included in the Trip Reports below. Note that we did not quite complete Plutonian Shores.

Plutonian Shores

Wheat Kings

Minihapa and Battle of Seven Oaks

Trad Multi-Pitch Routes

Dan and I wanted to start climbing trad multi-pitch routes but we couldn’t find a lot of crags in the area with moderate trad pitches where we could hang a top rope to practice. We travelled to Joshua Tree in the spring of 2024 and practiced placing gear, leading on gear and building anchors. Click here for details about our trip:

Joshua Tree Rock Climbing

Some of the routes below have occasional bolts, particularly if a section is hard to protect with gear. These routes can be referred to as “Mixed” routes. Because they do require trad climbing skills, I have included them here.