About Alan Kane

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• Born 1954 in Banff, Alberta, in the heart of the Canadian Rockies. My only recollections of my Banff years are: A black bear in a culvert down our street, and me throwing a tantrum on Banff Avenue. My mom threatened to leave me there so I quickly stopped misbehaving. Click here for Banff info. It's a nice town, but too commercial for my liking now.

• 1959 we moved west and I went to school in Golden, British Columbia, a beautiful little town situated between the Purcell Range and the Rocky Mountains. Good place to hike, explore and fish. Logging is a big industry  there, at least until they're out of trees...the new ski hill,  Kickinghorse Resort is great.

• Flew hang gliders off Mount Seven in Golden in the early seventies, jarred my back pretty hard. Tried skydiving twice; jarred my back worse. For a rundown of back remedies I've tried and suggestions, click here. Learned to play guitar; had fleeting visions of rock stardom(!) before coming to my senses.

• 1976-78 Attended Southern Alberta Institute of Technology in Calgary, Alberta, east of the Rockies, and studied Industrial Electronics. Was employed as computer maintenance tech in Calgary for various companies including the supposedly prestigious but poor-paying and now-defunct Digital Equipment Corporation. Began exploring more of the fabulous Rockies west of Calgary.

• Took mountaineering, ice- and rock-climbing climbing courses through the Canadian School of Mountaineering in Canmore, Alberta; joined the Alpine Club of Canada, went on climbing trips, occasionally even led one.

• Began documenting my ascents of peaks, particularly those that were relatively non-technical. Got married to Diana. Honeymooned in the European Alps, climbed Mount Blanc and other peaks while there. Kris Thorsteinsson and his future wife came along, Kris and I climbed together. (Heights bother Diana, you see. She and Debbie drank wine, hiked, and then drank more wine. It was the best honeymoon they'd ever been on.)

• Wrote Scrambles in the Canadian Rockies, published in 1991 by Rocky Mountain Books, one of the better guidebook publishers around. They don't publish plagiarized works like some other local publishers have done. An expanded edition of my book came out in 1999, which won an award at Banff Mountain Book Festival in November 1999.

• Haven't quit my day job; I still work as a Field Service Engineer for Leco Instruments, servicing and installing a variety of laboratory instrumentation for industry across Western Canada. I'm considering buying lottery tickets, though.

• Am currently boring people with my mediocre web page.

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