Bonjour mes amis, after an exciting summer in the Cariboo, I'm back in La Belle Province. And my, my, my, has this fall ever been full of outdoor tripping. From the end of August, up until today (November 4th), there has been but one weekend where I haven't gone out climbing. Here's a few highlights:
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| Cooking dogs on the party ledge at Montagne D'Argent |
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| Troy posing in front of a cliff we were hiking towards to climb some remote splitters |
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| Me and Troy on top of those same cliffs |
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| Myself on the most desperate fist crack I have yet tried (D'Argent) |
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| Emi heading up "Mercedes" at Montagne du Tranchant |
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| Daisy ready to fire her first trad lead |
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| MOC trip up The Eaglet Spire (NH) |
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| Myself leading Sceptre at Val David |
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| Aleix surfing on the St. Lawrence |
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| Me and Daisy on the MOC intro rock trip |
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| Le gang ready to head to the MOC house after a Halloween climb at Tranchant |
What this particular blurb focuses on is not any of the trips above however, but rather my journey down to the land of the free. A surreal place. A place where eagles outnumber humans 3:1, where seatbelts are nothing more than decoration, and where "Dream On" was performed by Aerosmith for the first time. Yes, that's right, I'm talking about New Hampshire.
It begins in Montreal on the Thursday morning before Fall reading week, where I am preparing for one of the greatest gear carries of my young life. Included is two crash pads, my 60L backpack filled to the brim with climbing gear and tripping stuff for a week in NH, a lifejacket, wetsuit, and my 30L backpack on the front filled with my trad rack and other gear. All of this would have to be biked down from upper Mile End to the MOC office to either be returned or stored so that as soon as I finished my last class on campus, I could grab everything from the office and jump into Troy's van to head off to North Conway.
Getting out of my respiratory physiology class at 6pm I ran down to the MOC office to throw my gear in Troy's van and hit the road. Man we were psyched. Blasting hardcore music we beamed along H10 heading east as the sun winded down. We crossed the border without hindrance, and having made it into the red white and blue I found it only appropriate to que up "Free-Bird" and crank the stereo. In this moment I longed for my '02 Ford Ranger. I smiled to myself thinking how that 3L V6 engine would roar on these open American roads. Euphoric to be back in its birthplace, sucking in that clean, liberated air and humming along to the guitar solos that make up the latter half of "Free Bird." My, my, my... what a truck. Big props to whoever in America invented freedom, that shit is pretty badass. We rolled in to the North Conway Walmart parking lot at around 10pm, and hunkered down soon after.
Poorly rested from sleeping in the somewhat cramped and slanted van, we crawled out of our sleeping bags at 6am to make some instant coffee. For breakfast sandwiches and a bit of lunch we headed over to Big Dave's Bagels, they were very very good.
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| This imitation is indeed how people from NH sound. It's a very interesting accent. My first thoughts were that everyone sounded like those Italian people in New York who yell at each other in the streets and in the delis (as seen on TV). There are exceptions, but this remains to be somewhat true. |
Arriving at Cathedral Ledge (just outside of the town of North Conway) at 06:30 we were incredibly stoked to start climbing. The parking lot was empty, the ambient temperature not too low, and stunning granite stood before us. Troy started organizing the rack and our day bag while I dug for my personal gear. Hmmmm now where did I put my harness? Under the rope? At the bottom of my overnight pack? Under a seat? Blaise.... you fool. Fuck, I remembered then that during my gear carry down to campus I had stuffed my harness into one of the crash pads to save space in my overnight pack. I was so close to setting a reminder in my phone to grab it out of the pad before I left. But no, "I'm gonna remember." Adding insult, I not only forgot my harness in Montreal but I also somehow left my 'buckie' (helmet) too. Feeling pretty stupid, I looked up when the outdoor gear store (IME) would be opening to regrettably buy a harness and buckie for the trip. Not until 10AM. Fuck. We would undeniably be missing the best hours of climbing that might be had on this entire trip. Is there anything we could still do? I refused to go bouldering. Not with the walls taunting us above. The realization came fast. I knew what must be done. I looked up a how-to on the ol' faithful rope harness, and clicked the first youtube video I saw. It was safe to climb with, but pretty uncomfortable. Comfort wasn't of my concern though, we had to get on the classics before anyone else.
We hiked up to the base of thin air, a classic 5.6 multipitch on a large black and white streaked face. Troy started up, and I asked him politely that if he were to take a big ol' whip, to please imagine myself being asphyxiated below by the rope harness constricting around my abdomen. If he could then take his weight off of the rope as soon as possible, I would be very grateful. I led the middle pitches, and it did feel quite silly to have all this trad gear slung across my shoulders with anchor gear clipped onto my short's belt loops. Things were getting pretty traditional.
We walked off, and were back down at the van at 09:45 to drive over to IME to grab a proper harness and a buckie so that I could get comfortable to do more difficult climbing.
Heading in to the store I went straight to the consignment section, but quickly learned that they didn't sell used harnesses. Fair enough. I grabbed a cheap but comfortable-looking Petzl harness, and found a $30 used ski helmet (which I figured might be useful for learning how to ski again this winter - and it seemed nonsensical to own multiple climbing helmets). Before we knew it we were back at the crag, and ready to climb more rock. The ski helmet was pretty goofy, especially with insulated ear muffs that while keeping my ears very cozy, left me a little hard of hearing. We hiked up to the lower left walls, and eyed up a two pitch 5.7 called "Funhouse."
I linked both pitches into one, and yea it was fun! Crack climbing is just such a friggen blast, and the rock at Cathedral is incredible. It is very alike to the aesthetics of coastal granite in Squamish. A place where large walls remain featureless from the endless rain and storms that sweep in to the Howe Sound and hammer these walls, leaving just splitter cracks and blank slabs. Although being quite far from the coast, maybe the notoriously stormy weather in this area of NH replicates this familiar coastal effect?
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| Colorful Maples and Pine |
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| A tasteful assortment of cams in my anchor |
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| On top of Funhouse, and walking onto the Barber Wall ledge |
On the Barber Wall ledge we were presented with many tasty looking cracks to top out with. We scrambled right to take a look at a climb that Troy had a bit of history with, "The Book of Solemnity." On his last trip to NH, Troy had a crack at the book, but was turned away by the slabby crux below the roof. It looked stunning. Nothing on this ledge could compare. In an angled corner, a thin seam runs between two featureless faces, all the way up to a short roof where you must trust your feet as the seam closes to allow nothing inside but the tips of fingers. Beyond the roof, you follow this same seam, laybacking and finger jamming all the way up to the top for 50 more meters.
We then turned to a 5.8 climb called black lung just left of the book. On mountain project this climb was famous for the amount of ground falls taken on it. There was supposedly an awkward crux about 1/3 of the way up the climb where people who've just cruised through the lower sections opt not to place any gear below the move, and then being surprised by the difficulty of the move, will launch off the climb to either deck on the ground or take a gnarly headfirst plunge. Wheeeeee! Looking from the bottom, the gear looks great, and it's really hard to understand why you wouldn't protect the crux. Troy fired on up it and when he got below the crux he sure enough found some bomber protection below it before continuing up the climb.
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| "Hey Blaise I kinda wanna deck right now" "go for it dude" |
The granite on this part of the Barber Wall is very interesting. It truly does look like you are climbing over a massive lung, with the bottom of its lobe being that roof - arched perfectly to accommodate the dome of the diaphragm below. Troy linked this climb into the final pitches of another, "Upper Refuse." I followed him up and lead the final pitch to get us on top of the ledge.
We walked off right and through the trees to get back to the base. Through the intermittent spit of rain that had been on and off all day, we spotted a laser-cut finger crack snaking up this face and were immediately intrigued. Troy had heard of this climb. A classic 5.9 called "They Died Laughing." Man it looked fun, lots of finger-locking and just enough places to jam your toes and feet into for it not to look that desperate. Troy had a go on er' first (i was a little nervy 😣).
From here we walked towards the base of the Prow, where we eyed up the jewel of the day: "Recompense." A 3-pitch 5.9 that went straight up one of the proudest features of Cathedral. Troy had done this climb the year before, and had told me all about how the third pitch might've been the best bit of layback and handjam climbing he's ever done. It looked incredible. Smearing feet on clean white granite as you layback up a steep dihedral. Man oh man did I wanna get up there. It was getting late and the clouds above were spitting, but it had been doing so all day without dumping any real precip, so I paid no mind.
All racked up, I began meandering up the initial series of blocks and crack systems. I quickly noticed that the rock felt a little more slick than the areas we were climbing in earlier, but the protection was pretty good so I continued unfazed. Not far from the top the climbing started to steepen, and I was quickly being asked to make what I thought were some pretty stiff moves for a 5.7. Right on time, the poofy grey clouds we had been under all day became obscured by a dark heavy cloud mass filling the sky. It began to pour. Within minutes I was plugging cams in seeping cracks, smearing on a slick slab, and feeling poised to peel off at any moment. I managed to grunt through a desperate series of moves move to get on top of a large ledge, where I thought the belay for the second pitch was. It went without saying that we'd be bailing, and I felt so incredibly grateful to have dragged a second 70m rope up with me to be able to rappel with in case the weather turned (the first pitch was 60m or so, so with just one rope I would've had to do two rappels and leave gear in an intermediate anchor). At chest level were two rusty pitons wedged in to the crack from who knows how long ago. I wasn't stoked to bail off of them, but these were the cards I was dealt. I also can't deny that I was eager to get back down and out of the downpour for which I am very poorly dressed for (cotton t shirt and khaki shorts), so I tied the ropes together, fed em through the pitons, and threw the ends down to the ground. I cautiously rappelled back down to Troy, and although bummed that Recompense would be off the tick list for at least a few days, we were stoked to head back to a warm van and have a beer.
Troy started pulling his green rope down, while I packed our gear up. After some tugs, Troy confirmed with me that the green rope was the one to pull (you have to pull on a specific one when doing a double rope rappel), "Yah man, without a doubt."
I joined in on tugging the rope, but fuck, I think it was stuck. There's not much that could make things shittier right now. Both of us were exhausted from a 12 hour day of climbing. We were starving, completely soaked and cold, and it was just about to be dark. We tied in to the bottom of the green rope and started jumping both of our weight onto it to see if we could get this thing the hell out of whatever its stuck in. We tried to pull on the other end to lift the knot (primary suspect) out of whatever crack or piton it might've gotten sucked in to, but that end wouldn't budge either. We were so ready to get out of there that we were jumping on this rope with our bodyweight, stretching it out as best we could by leaping over a 5 foot ledge. It didn't matter to us then that if the rope freed while we were over the ledge there wasn't anything to prevent us from tumbling onto the forest floor below. We just wanted so badly to get out of there. I cursed my yellow rope over and over again. It was all its fault, this I knew. The evil thing had gotten me in so much trouble ever since I bought it over the summer. It's cruel ability to tie knots on its own accord is second to no rope I've ever tied in to. I've seen the thing weave advanced knots before my very eyes as I tried to pull it through the anchors above after a rappel. I've had a perfectly dressed alpine butterfly be sucked in to my belay device as Troy was leading above me earlier this year. Who taught it how to do that? On that same trip the bastard got stuck on a rappel and Troy had to climb the pitch again on another rope just to get it back. Damn you Black Diamond. DAMN YOU!
With no hope of freeing the rope from whatever its stuck in from below, Troy suited up to ascend all 60 meters of the pitch. He devised a system of two prusik knots, one for his harness, and one as a foot stirrup. With the slings in place he began trying to shimmy up. It wasn't working very well. The dyneema sling he was using for the lower prusik wouldn't bite very well, and he kept sliding without much progress. He eventually switched to an ATC to replace the lower prusik, but still had no progress. We just weren't prepared to be doing this right now. We needed more cord, and proper raingear, and the frustrations were beginning to sink in. The ropes weren't coming down tonight. They just weren't.
"Troy, hear me out man. What if we just... leave the ropes? We can head back to the van, dry off, warm up, go to the bar, and then talk out a plan of attack for the next morning. We'll be back before anyone notices that there are two bright green and yellow ropes hanging from half way up the face of cathedral. Who the hell is gonna be climbing tomorrow anyway? It'll probably still be dumping."
In agreement that this recovery just wasn't gonna happen tonight, we did as suggested. Never had either of us ever abandoned something like a rope on the wall. I couldn't deny that it felt pretty embarrassing. I imagined what the local climbing scene would think of us if they found out that a couple of silly chaps from Canada got stormed on up on the ledge and had to bail home without either of their ropes. What a defeat. At the bar, Troy empathized with how scared and cold his rope must be, getting blown about by the wind on a stormy night all alone. But I didn't care for mine. Maybe that'll teach it to not get stuck on every multipitch. Damn thing.
We woke up the next morning poorly rested and still a little damp, but as promised, we suited up in rain gear to get underway and save these pesky ropes. At the parking lot we crawled out of the van and hiked up to the base of the wall. It was still raining, and clearly had been doing so uninterrupted throughout the night. All the cracks were sopping wet, and the ropes completely soaked through. With Troy having done pretty well all of the rope-saving shenanigans in the past, I figured it was about damn time I stepped up to the plate. Before he finished setting up the rope-ascension system, I interrupted to volunteer myself as our savior. He didn't protest, this wasn't gonna be very fun.
As a reminder, our ropes got stuck on something after my rappel. So currently we have two 70m ropes tied together and hanging from two pitons 60m above the platform which we are standing on. The ends are on the ground next to us. What our system consists of is two prusiks tied with cord around the bottom of both ropes. The lower prusik knot is connected to a long sling that I'll be using as a foot stirrup to step in to and stand up on. The top prusik is connected to my belay loop on my harness, which I will shimmy up on the rope when I stand up in the stirrup. On top of this I've got two systems backing me up. First, because the ropes are sopping wet and we worried the prusiks might be slippy, I have a super-munter hitch clipped directly to my harness with rope about 5 meters or so below the prusiks. This is useful in the case that the prusiks begin to slip uncontrollably, feeding through the slack until the munterhitch is loaded and it should catch me. The second system was put in place to protect me from the potentially fatal consequence of the pitons above ripping out. This system is a third rope which I'm tied in to directly to be lead belayed on by Troy, requiring me to place the odd piece of gear every now and then such that if the pitons rip, I'll be caught on my gear. Some may call this overkill, but when you've got the time and the means to do it, why not protect yourself from death?
I start the ascent. The movement is very repetitive. Step up in the leg loop to load the lower prusik, shimmy the harness prusik as high as you can reach, sit into the harness, freeing the leg-loop prusik, and shimmy that lower one all the way up to the harness prusik. Repeat. Pull slack through the munter hitch every 5 meters or so. Plug a piece of gear when ya feel like it. As straightforward as this may sound, the movements are very awkward, and with the complex terrain requiring me to constantly be navigating around features on the rock, it was slow going.
Overall, this whole stuck-rope fiasco was incredibly annoying, but I've gotta say, I actually had a pretty good time ascending the ropes. The weather was in a very coastal mood. Heavy rainclouds blanketed the valley from above, while fog filled it below. A strong wind ran through, and the leaves of the deciduous forest below me danced in its gust. For moments there, looking at the slimy lichens coating the wall and feeling the rain blowing onto my fingers and face, I felt like I was on Vancouver Island, standing on a rocky intertidal shore and watching the whitecaps. These were good feelings. I didn't mind the cold or the wet then.
After about 1.5 hours of ascending the rope I reach the pitons. Lo and behold, the ends of both ropes have wrapped around the connecting knot to form a super knot which was wedged into a crack just above the lip of the final ledge. This fuckery was typical of my rope, but not of Troy's. I felt guilty, it was clear that during the time they were tied together, my rope had taught the other how to tie knots on its own and become as unhinged as itself. I'm sorry man.
I freed the knot and rappelled back down. From the bottom we timidly pulled the ropes, but thankfully they didn't get stuck again, landing in a coil on the ground in front of us. We celebrated, so grateful to be done with that and free to head to a cafe to get warm and relax. I reach for the end of the rope to start coiling them and get on our way, but before I can, I notice something. I freeze. Somehow, perfectly atop the neat stack of rope that has just fallen down in front of us, sits a dead mouse.
Yes, the rope had killed. You have already caused so much grief and frustration, but no, this wasn't enough, you needed to murder. Why? Why yellow black diamond rope? Why have you done this? I honestly cannot explain how exactly the mouse a) died and b) landed perfectly on top of our rope (it could've only come down with it), but I cannot deny it as anything other than an omen, foreboding my future should I continue to rely on it. Fuck man. Truly frightened, we threw the evil thing in our bag and scurried on down to the van.
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| scrambling up to the base of recompense |
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| The ropes stuck on the wall |
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| Harness prusik |
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| Bringing the ropes home |
That afternoon we drove a couple hours to a town in southeastern NH, where we'd be staying with Troy's good friend at their family home. Tucked in a serene pine and deciduous forest, and bordered by a number of lakes, they lived in my dream home. This friend's family had built the house about a decade ago. A massive solar panel out front provided the home with electricity. In the den their fireplace was stocked with logs from trees they fell every few years or so, and seasoned in their shed out back. They even had a DIY hot tub heated by a good ol' propane tank stove!
We said goodbye later that day and drove back towards North Conway to meet our friends Daisy, Patrick, Jihan and Phia who were also coming down from Montreal. Conditions were still wet and so our plan was to do a bit of climbing at Sundown Ledge, a crag that some locals told me and Troy could be climbed on even during the rain. It was great to see them and be in NH all together; just hanging out in a new and exciting place to climb rock, great stuff. I certainly wasn't in much of a mood to climb, so I mostly hung out at the base and caught up with the others on the start of the reading week. While I sat around eating donuts, Daisy bagged another lead on trad gear!
Before long it was getting dark, and folks started packing up to head down to the nearby campsite where we'd be sleeping for the night. But just before I joined in on the clean up, I became very inspired by a finger-sized roof crack that had been teasing me all day. Spiked with a newfound energy, in harmony with Troy who was also eager to give it a go before we leave, I put a headlamp on and started racking up. Troy tells me it's a 5.9 in the guidebook, which is just at my onsight limit when trad climbing: perfect.
Man I love roof cracks. I mean cmon, dangling off of fingerjams? On gear?? Yahoo! Before I knew it, I've plugged two great pieces as high as I can from underneath this roof, and started jamming my way towards the lip. I make a long right handed reach to slot an awesome fingerlock above the lip, and from this position I plug a pretty good #2 to protect the exposed move of pulling over the lip. From this same lock, I pull my body up and over the roof to make a reach with my left arm. This hand flails about looking for something to grab a hold of, but without a crack in sight I have to settle for a less appealing sloper to pull my lower torso over the lip. It's a little desperate, but before I know it I'm standing on top of the roof feeling pretty damn good about it. Troy congratulates me from below,
"Nice buddy, that looked pretty smooth for your first 5.10a."
That son of a gun, this wasn't a 5.9... it was a 10a! He told me the gear looked good and that he knew I could pull the roof, so the heathen swindled me into thinking it was a 5.9. Well good thing for that, cuz if I had known it was a 10a I would've certainly backed off, but the moves felt well within my ability. I guess a good ol' sandbag is good every now and then if it reminds you that you're stronger than ya think. Thanks Troy.
I cruised through the upper slab to the top, and lowered, stoked to have climbed a new grade on gear. Troy fired it after me, and we cleaned up to meet the crew at the campsite. It was a very merry night. We ate ramen, drank a lot of wine, and cooked many dogs by the fire.
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| Daisy |
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| Patrick |
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| Jihan and Phia (in background) |
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| Troy |
We stumbled out of tents the next morning, wine-dizzy and sleepy. My stomach roared, upset with myself for eating an unholy amount of hot dogs the night before. But no need to bear that in mind, we had lots of climbing to do. We were going back to Cathedral!
The plan was to climb something on the lower left walls to get up to the barber wall, where we would do some single pitch cragging for the rest of the day. Three teams were formed: Ji and Phia, who were heading off right on their own mission to climb upper refuse; Troy and Patrick, who would be climbing up funhouse to get to the barber wall; and me and Daisy, who had plans to go up a climb called Bombardment to do the same. Bombardment looked awesome. Two pitches, starting with a single gear placement on a short finger crack, followed by a bolted slab, and finishing with a beautiful arching handcrack. Daisy would lead the first pitch, and I the second. She got after it. When she arrived on the slab it took some time to stare at the blank granite and figure out where the hell you could put your feet. Eventually she figured it out and padded her way up to belay me on a tree. Arriving at the same slab start, I thought it was my time to shine. This was my kind of climbing... right? Smearing feet on microscopic crystals while slapping the humps of the slab, I mean it doesn't get much more like Squamish granite than that. Well, I was wrong. This was not my time to shine. I hang-dogged the absolute piss out of that slab. I offer myself some relief as my shoes were still wet from getting downpoured on during the Recompense fiasco, but it felt like I had never climbed a slab before in my life. It was so desperate. I ended up having to pull on quickdraws and then dyno-ing to the lip just to make it to Daisy. Nice lead dude, that shit would not have been pretty if I had gone up there first. On the bright side, I get to crack climb now. Above me lay a beautiful splitter hand crack that arched like a sceptre cleanly through the stone. Fuck yahhhh. I grabbed all the gear we had that was hand-sized, and started on up.
Wham, bam, hyeeggh, whambam, handjam after handjam I pulled myself up the crack, it felt so good. The end was interesting. As you entered the part of the crack that arched left, you have to delicately slip your toes into the slanted crack and move your hands up onto the face, padding along to get to the final vertical crack segment. Very exposed! I topped out on the ledge and belayed Daisy up on another tree.
We walked around the ledge under the barber wall until we met up with Patrick and Troy who were eyeing up some tasty looking cracks. Troy decided on Chicken Delight, a beauty finger crack that ran diagonal up to the top of the wall. It looked like a ton of fun and the gear looked straightforward apart from the top-out, where the crack closes up and the final moves are protected by a single shiny bolt. This wast the first time I had seen a bolt on a traditional climb in NH so far. It looked so out of place with the ethics in NH being as stern as they are. There really are no bolts anywhere that trad gear could sufficiently protect a climber, and often not even where gear cannot (insisting you "just don't fall"). But then again, the bolt didn't matter as prior to our embarkment, and in accordance with these ethics, me and Troy had made a vow to not clip a single bolt while on our trip.
Oh! Was the gear getting thin? Are ya getting gripped? Is there a bolt right in front of your nose? Too bad buster! Run er' out.
We would be purely traditional. Neither of us even brought any sport climbing draws, it just wasn't in the cards.
Troy started on up. He was making quick work yet the climbing did look athletic. Finger lock after finger lock he made his way up the wall, ever nearing that bolt. The moves began to get more and more physical and it looked like things for ol' Troy were getting a little desperate. The feet flailing a little more than usual, the reaches getting further and further until he lay just below the bolt. Would he clip it? Would he forsake our vow? The final section asks you to leave the crack and clip the bolt to then make a fully extended reach to a large feature marking the top of the ledge. That large feature could be a number of different kinds of hold, one could not be certain. From below it looked like a greasy ol' sloper, and in his pump-enduced stress -aware that after making the great reach if the thing was indeed that sloper, he'd peel off and whip onto his gear below- he took out an alpine draw and clipped the bolt. I watched in horror. Distraught. Although I fully understood his reasoning, Troy had just sport climbed - for which, I could never forgive.
Me and the others all had a go on top rope, it was a great climb. Enough so that I decided to lead it. I racked up and began. Finding myself half way up the climb I made a long stretch of my foot to a lateral chip, and when weighting it my foot slipped, falling onto one of my .75 cams. Dayum, that was unexpected. But the gear held! I still wasn't stoked on the placement as it was a touch shallow, so I backed it up with a nut before trying the move again. I got past it, but ya these moves sure were burly. This chicken packed a punch! At the bolt I was pumped, I desperately wanted to clip it to protect the last move and avoid the consequent whipper onto my gear below, but as I reached to the back of my harness for a draw, I caught my eyes in the reflection of its shining silver.
"Blaise, why are you afraid? Have you no trust in your ability? All your life you've been clipping bolts (metaphor), but soon those bolts may run out. Will you have the composure to execute then? Will you rise to the occasion?" (introspection).
Yes, yes I will. I whisper to myself, "Sport climbing is neither," before skipping the bolt and making the long reach to the dish above. It goes. FUCK YEAAAA. I slap the anchor and lower on down, bathing in virtue.
Sillyness aside, there is no way I woulda had the guts to skip that bolt if I hadn't toproped it first and learnt that the final hold was not a sloper but rather a pretty good dish. Troy remains one helluva trad climber, he leads pretty well all the real hard stuff when we're climbing together - but that doesn't mean I won't take this moment here to bask in my glory heheh
The crew then moved over left to check out a 10a finger/hand crack called nutcracker. It looked real burly. Troy took a big whip on gear near the top out, exciting stuff, but I didn't feel a need to climb anymore. I opted to instead save my skin and soak in the intermittent sun. We really were in a special spot. From this part of the wall you could look just over yonder to the beautiful long slabs of another climbing area called Whitehorse Ledge. This large dome is covered in long undulating ripples of granite, a friction slab paradise, very alike to the apron of the chief. Pretty well all the routes on Whitehorse are notorious for having head-spinning run outs. I had really wanted to do one of the long multipitches up the slabs, but with our packed schedule it wasn't likely. Troy wasn't stoked on the idea either, having done a route on Whitehorse on a previous trip where despite the gear being listed as "generally good," ended up having a 30 meter run out. Death-defying stuff. Well it sure is pretty to look at from the Barber Wall.
This was definitely my kind of cragging. 60m above the forest floor, admiring the colorful forests and blue lakes below while cheering your friends along on some tricky cracks. Jolly good fun. A couple hours before sundown we packed up, and I rigged a double rope rappel to get down to the forest floor in one trip. When we got back to the cars Ji and Phia were still underway with their day of climbing, but me and Troy had to head off so we bid adieu to Patrick and Daisy and drove off in the van. A bientôt!
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| The top of Cathedral Ledge peeking out from behind the trees |
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| Le gang |
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| Chicken Delight (left slanting crack) |
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| Troy high up on the chicken (the bolt just above his helmet) |
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| Me! also on the chicken |
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| Daisy on Nutcracker |
What me and Troy had to head off to, was for the in depth planning of our main objective of this entire trip. Yep, you guessed it, a link up of the two classic multi-pitch routes on Cannon Cliff: Moby Grape and The Whitney Gilman Ridge, in the same day. Either route would be a great accomplishment, probably taking a party the entire day, but not for these blokes, we wanted to fire them back to back, from dawn to dusk - oh boy! If successful, this would be the first ascent of such by two Montreal students who were originally from BC and Sask (I don't think this has ever happened before). A historic ascent. To talk business, we headed to Dairy Queen. I got a triple cheeseburger, and for Troy: tendies. The meals were delightful. Out of the corner of my eye, a poster caught my attention.
"Yo Troy, it says over there that the first DQ in Canada was opened in Estevan, Saskatchewan."
"NO FUCKING WAY"
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Troy couldn't believe that the word "Saskatchewan" was in print anywhere in the state of New Hampshire, he needed photo evidence. |
Enough fussing about, we needed to figure out how we were gonna do the double. We drove over to Starbucks for a more astute environment, and to charge our phones and walkie-talkies.
A little about the climbs:
1. Moby Grape (5.8 PG13 - 7/8 pitches)
- takes arguably the proudest line up cannon cliff
- considered an alpine climb: the cliff is very much exfoliating, large blocks of granite are continuously falling off, the weather systems come in fast and unpredictably
- no bolted anchors apart from those above the first pitch
- many of the pitches are over 40m, you would need to bring two ropes to bail off of the climb without losing your entire rack (although you would still lose a shit ton of gear)
- the climb begins with a famous splitter hand crack, Reppy's Crack
- the fourth pitch includes climbing on the legendary "Finger of Fate"
2. The Whitney Gilman Ridge (5.7 - 6 pitches)
- ascends a unique, razorsharp ridge
- requires a lot of routefinding, many different ways to get up top
- "there is no 5.7 more exposed than the WG" - mtn proj description
- no bolted belays, all gear anchors
Being the harder and longer of the two routes, we wanted to climb Moby Grape first, while fresh. We'd leave the parking lot at 5AM to begin the 30/40 minute ascent, fire Moby, and then get on the descent trail heading rightwards from the top of the climb. Upon asking some of the employees at IME how we could best link the two climbs, they told us that at almost exactly 2500 ft of elevation on this descent trail, there is a sneaky climber's trail that breaks off of a switchback to take you right back to the base of the walls, rather than all the way down to the parking lot.
We gave ourselves a cut off time to get back to the base of the walls after completing Moby Grape. If Moby took long enough that we only arrived at this boulderfield at 2pm or later, we would not carry on with the plan to do the Whitney Gilman, it just wouldn't provide enough time to comfortably finish the climbing before total dark. But, if we arrived before our cut-off, we'd continue on this trail that snaked under the cliff all the way to the other end of the cliff (30-45 mins or so), where the Whitney G began. We'd then fire this route (with ease), probably finishing just before sundown and then taking the descent trail in the dark back to the van. Wham bam, simple as that. From here, we would go to the nearby tavern to boast to uninterested strangers and make merry.
Quick note about the forecast: we seemed to be in fortune, despite the heavy two days of rain that began our trip, conditions had been clear and windy (perfect drying conditions) for these past two days, and were further supposed to be overcast yet dry for our big day!
Everything is falling in to place. Our devices are charged, we're feeling well rested, the plan is dialed, we'll be giving ourselves enough time by starting at 5AM - man, I think we're gonna do this thing. We set out from Starbucks to drive the hour up towards Cannon Cliff's parking lot. Arriving just before 10pm, we huddle in the van to choose what trad gear to bring. It's a delicate process of trying to find that perfect selection that'll give us enough gear to protect us when we need, but not be overkill and weigh us down on a full day on the wall. It's another thing I love about long days of trad climbing, the constant risk analysis - even before you get anywhere near the climb! We packed a couple sandwiches, a lot of bars, some fruit, and stuffed in an extra down puffy jacket and fleece into our bag. I hung my climbing shoes from the roof of the van hoping they would finally dry. The leather was still soaked-through from our first day in NH. The alarm was set for 04:30 and I hit the hay dreaming about how pleasant it would be to climb without wet toes, man that'd be luxury.
The next morning, to our great surprise, we were well rested and psyched to hop out of our sleeping bags. Troy started the coffee, and I got our gear in order. I remembered to grab my shoes (still wet) and at 05:00 we were already walking along the bike path looking for "a large boulder on our right, and a sign to our left," where afterwards we were told there'd be a small approach trail breaking right to take us into the bush and up to the boulderfield. After about 10 minutes of walking we saw a big boulder, but didn't see a sign, so kept on going. 5 minutes later we realized that had to have been the boulder in question, so we doubled back and sure enough found a sign across from the boulder, which we must've blown by in the dark. Next to this boulder was a narrow clearing in the brush with no evidence of foot travel due to the fall litter covering the ground. We headed on up, but it didn't take long to abandon our effort of staying on this trail. Trying to find a foot path buried by leaves and in the dark was pretty futile: the bushwack began. From satellite maps I knew that as long as we headed in the cliff's general direction, we'd eventually exit the canopy and enter the open boulder field. Sure enough we did, and from here began to scramble through the large rockfall debris that makes up this wide talus field. Some blocks looked frighteningly fresh. We bushwacked one last time through a dense patch of alder that served as a final barrier to the walls, but eventually made it directly below the cliff at 06:00. With a cliff a mile long, one would think you would have a hard time finding the precise start of this climb, but not if the first pitch is a laser-cut splitter hand crack! Before long, Reppy's clean 50m slice through the rock caught our eyes. A first pitch doesn't get much more dramatic than that.
While Troy grabbed all the hand-sized stuff we had, I made decisions on the pack. Standing at the base we were feeling pretty warm. Hell, if the sun wasn't even out yet and we were already this hot, do we really need to bring this extra fleece with us? It's kinda heavy, why don't we just leave it at the base of the climb to grab on the way to the Whitney G! I mean it's not as though we just hiked for an hour through a steep scree field, and that's why we were suddenly hot and sweaty 😑. Alongside the fleece we stashed half of the bars and 1L of water in a shrub.
Alright, all set to climb, quick walkie check? Wait. Fuck. Where are the walkies? Dude, they're in the car. Wonderful. Well we weren't going all the way back now, guess we'll have to go old school: rope tugs. We agreed that when the leader has made it to the top of the pitch, set up an anchor, and put the follower on belay, only then will they give three rhythmic tugs on the rope for the follower to know they are safe to start climbing. Establishing this kind of communication is essential, as on climbs like these, it's not infrequent that after a wandering 60m pitch with a windy backdrop, you have no ability to establish verbal communication. None at all, no matter how loud you yell. With our comms in place, Troy got underway on Reppy's.
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| Reppy's at dawn |
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| Sumac shrub (a little hard to tell but lmk if you think it's something else!) |
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| Sunrise |
With the backpack strapped across my torso, the crack gloves on tight, my shoes fastened, it was time to start sinking these handjams. Boom, boom, boom. Booooomber handjams. Hell, I'd dare one of these house-sized blocks to come hurtling down on me right now. Sure, it might cleave off my torso, but good look ripping my hands and feet out of this crack, I'm fuckin' in there. So secure! Far enough along the pitch my feet sure did start to hurt. I wouldn't say my shoes are the best for trad climbing, being as soft as they are repetitive footjamming starts to become quite painful. Towards the top I noticed a group of two dudes below walking up the boulderfield towards to the base of Reppy's - it looked as though we wouldn't be completely alone on the climb. I can only imagine how annoyed they might be heading up to do Moby on a random cold, overcast Tuesday morning at 6AM, just to find two other climbers on top of the first pitch. Sorry fellas.
At the top of Reppy's I quickly grabbed the rest of the trad gear and threw em on my rack for the next pitch. Troy put me on lead belay while I did this, and I was leading not even 2 minutes after arriving to the ledge: butter. Starting with ledgy-mantle style climbing I didn't place much gear until entering a short chimney. On which I had two options: 1) chimney climbing all the way up it, or 2) at about 2/3rds of the way grab a face hold and pull myself onto some easy but delicate slab moves to get on top. I opted for the second as pulling out from the chimney looked a little weird. As psyched as I was, I didn't think very hard about protection before committing to this chimney. In other words, I didn't place anything. All of a sudden I was pulling myself onto the face with some delicate foot placements, trying not to think about the fact that I would fully deck onto the ledge below should I slip. It didn't feel all that intelligent, but ykno, it was only gonna be a problem if I fell, so I didn't. 😉. The ledgy terrain turned into a thin finger crack arching left and then right up through a blank slab. Fun stuff, I followed it as it meandered, until I was directly below a wild feature called 'The Triangular Roof.' Some said that getting over this roof was the crux of the route, but if you haven't forgotten: I've been practicing my roof-crack climbing! I placed a bomber #2 as high as I could reach in the roof, and then extended my arm up and over the lip to sink a delicious thumbs-down hand jam: aka a jug. I pulled my body up with this hand until I could reach above with my right hand to sink another great jam. At this point I could swing my feet up to press against the lip of the crack and give me the security to bump my hands a bit higher. It felt more burly than it did desperate, but my oh my was it exposed making such an airy move 300 feet above the ground. I built my belay on the first ledge above the roof, and gave three rhythmic rope-tugs to Troy to let him know it was his turn to climb.
Arriving at the ledge we quickly swapped leads, and Troy soon began questing on the flake system above. This pitch offered many tempting routes to end up below the mythic 'Finger of Fate,' but Troy opted for a blocky dihedral that headed rightwards above the flake. 40 meters later I got the tugs and prepared to get underway. The climbing was quite elegant - slipping your toes in the thin space between the flake and the wall, following its arch - whimsical stuff. I met up with Troy on a large ledge beside an abstract roof covered in brilliant green lichens, the Finger loomed overhead.
This was it, it was time to face my fate. It's such an incredibly improbably feature on the wall. A granite shard 10 foot tall connected to the wall only at its base and with a side profile shaped like a curling finger. To get there, I had to attentively traverse along 'The Sceptre,' a very odd undercling that really was just a massive disconnected flake. I traversed past the base of the finger until I was below a ramp-looking thing that would take me up to a hand traverse on which I would progressively bump my hands along until I was right on the tip of the finger. I began, bumping hand after hand until it got steep enough for me to swing a leg up to heel hook with. A couple meters in I pulled myself up onto the sloped ledge that I was traversing on so that I could ask Troy a question. Being right up close and unable to see the overall shape of what I was climbing anymore, I suddenly became certain that I wasn't on the finger.
"Dude, am I on the finger?"
"Yea."
"Are you sure? It feels like I'm too far right and not actually traversing along the edge of the finger."
"Blaise I can see that you are about to be on the tip of the finger if you keep on traversing the way you are"
"Nah... really? This doesn't look right"
Troy: 😑
Alright I'm probably on the finger. I lean back onto the face and continue hand traversing and heel hooking. It felt pretty epic. I wanted to keep bumping so that I could gloriously heel hook the tip of the finger, but about a meter before I was in such a position, I took a look at my last piece of gear 5 meters below, and got scared at the thought of getting tired and punting off, slamming onto the ramp below and then rolling off the sceptre. So instead, I pulled myself back onto the sloped ledge to waddle on my belly like a seal along its edge until I could stand up, on top of the finger. Pretty heroic. Once standing on top, you are asked to step up on thin feet to make a long reach to a jug, which although pretty easy is a pretty screw-your-head-on-tight kinda move, as if you were to botch it you'd slide and eject over the edge of the finger, to then bodyslam onto the ramp and be launched off the sceptre into the abyss, before being caught on the rope. It would look absurd, and probably make me instagram famous, but yaaaa... that would suck. I made the move, and then placed a well desired cam before doing the final 2 meter traverse to get to the belay ledge. Troy joined me not long after, it was now his turn to be on the sharp end.
Troy was up next for a long walking traverse out left to the base of a seeping section of face climbing referred to as the "boulder problem." When he squared up below the seeping rock, I expected a routine gear placement to prevent the horrific whip he'd take should he pitch off of it, but the ol' boy just went for it. Should he slip now, he'll fall past the ledge he walked along, and then swing a full 15 meters like a pendulum, being caught directly on my gear anchor (shit's bomber though 😉). It'd be big. After climbing up on this crack for about 2 meters, he didn't find the gear placements he was expecting, and appreciated that these moves were sorta hard and wet, so he downclimbed back to the ledge to place some protection. Very nice. He continued past the boulder problem and into the slab portion above, until reaching another grassy ledge where he built his belay.
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| Triangle roof above |
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| Troy questing on the flake |
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| Troy belaying amid some pretty cosmic terrain features |
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| Myself hand-traversing the finger |
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| Troy hoping to get on @whippermedia |
Meeting Troy on this ledge, we began analyzing where the next pitch lay. My next pitch what was referred to as "The Cave." It was described to begin under the left side of a huge fallen pillar. We couldn't figure where this fallen pillar was which they referred to, but I could see the obvious cave above and figured I'd just aim for that and avoid anything super wet along the way, simple enough. We moved the belay onto the far right side of the ledge, as I spotted some easier terrain that I could then traverse all the way back left on to get under the cave, rather than taking the intended route straight up, which was sopping wet. I started up quite nonchalantly, this section was described online as "fun" and relatively "easy." Little did I know that I had just started what would be the most bullshit pitch of my life - the epic was underway.
I traversed left on the low angle slab until it broke off, leaving me to decide between making an exposed stretch over the gap to get onto a thin ledge which I could then foot traverse up towards the cave with, or take the more direct route to the cave on some difficult slab moves. I opted for the exposed, but easier foot traverse. After making the stretch over the gap I balanced my feet on this ledge and starting shimmying along upwards. I suddenly got real spooked looking at my last piece of gear being quite a ways before the gap I just jumped. Now if I were to lose balance and fall I'd being slamming back into the right wall of the gap. I tried to see if I could reach above this wall that I was currently balancing against, but the slabby features above were not anymore appealing. I had no choice but to commit to shimmying my feet up this ledge-ramp thing. At my feet there was a thin seam, and as gripped as I was I felt a need to plug some protection in it hoping that it would prevent me from slamming into the wall below me. The only thing that could fit was a blue alien microcam, the smallest thing I had in my rack. It was set so poorly as well that the thing truly was just for decoration, it wasn't gonna hold a whip. To further add to the list, its lateral position created an almost 90 degree change in rope angle when I climbed above, and would thus contribute to some truly heinous rope drag when I got near the top. An irrational and fainthearted decision sure, but I just needed some kind of pro below me to keep on going, sometimes that's just how it is. I delicately moved up the ledge until I had reach the steep segment. From here I was grateful to place another piece, and then climb up until I was directly under a massive roof which I would have to traverse underneath, heading left to be directly below the cave.
From the belay we imagined I'd just be able to use an undercling in the roof to shimmy my way across, but when I got there I found the edge under the roof to be slopey and incredibly wet. C'mon. Well, I tried to traverse over, placing a pretty good .75 deep below the undercling and using small foot chips, but eventually the chips ran out, and I was staring at a blank slab of soaked granite, nowhere for my feet to go and not much for hands either. Just beyond this patch of slab there was a small sumac shrub growing in a mossy crack. Already fed up with this wet mess, I said F it and grabbed the cam I had just placed in my right hand to try to extend my left arm as far as I could to grab ahold of the shrub. It was just out of reach. CMON! I sat there for a couple minutes, crouched under the roof and thinking how tf I was gonna get past this wet, blank slab. There'd be a high likelihood that I slip off and slide onto my gear should I try to delicately traverse across. An alternative approach would be to grab ahold of the cam, and then launch myself like Spiderman over the wet and onto this bush. I have an impressive natural jumping ability, so I said fuck it and yelled down to Troy to watch me, before leaping towards this bush, arms outstretched to grab a hold of its stem. I catch a couple branches in each hand to pull myself up and luckily the berry bush doesn't rip out of the crack before I'm standing on top of it. Nice.
Okay. I've made it to the base of the large cave, formed by an impressive pillar leaning into a corner. The intended route up to the top of the fallen pillar is a hand crack that runs right up the corner, from which you can then stretch over from to get on top of the pillar. But guess what! The crack is friggen soaked. Woohoo! A wet but splitter hand crack I would probably still climb, but a corner crack that requires me to stem on the slick wall, was not something I was stoked to do. I instead opted to climb the chimney between the leaning pillar and the wall of the cave that's about 4 feet offset from the back of the pillar. It didn't look hard, but I wouldn't be able to place any protection until I got out of the chimney (ie, on top of the pillar), which was about 7 meters in length. Kinda spooky, but I know how to climb a friggen chimney. I set myself up, my back on the pillar and feet up high on the opposing wall, and I start my rhythmic movements upwards: get feet high, put palms down besides you, use the friction to move your back higher, get feet high again, repeat. The movements are not effortful, but the higher I got, the more I began to feel the rope drag pulling me down, and the more I had to correct for my wet feet slipping off the crystals I was placing them on. I did not want to fall near the top of this chimney, with no pro below, losing my footing and sliding down would suck. It'd suck really bad. I finally got level with the top of this pillar and had to pull on a crimp above me to sit my butt on top of its rounded edge. Still hunched, as I was only on top of the pillar and not out of the cave, I placed a cam in a seam behind me and a nut in a thin crack above me. I was pretty fired up at this point. I cursed at how wet my feet were. I cursed at the rope drag that made it feel like Troy was trying to yank me down. Was the rope stuck in the roof somewhere? Could this collosal drag really all be from that stupid microcam? I cursed the uncomfortable hunched position I was in. I cursed how I didn't have any idea where to go next.
In the route description you are directed to make "a move right" to get out of the corner from my position. What the fuck does that mean? Were they referring to reaching for the sharp incut hold directly behind my head and around the wall of the cave? That would require me to hyperextend my left shoulder behind my body to blindly reach 3 feet for this thing, and then trust that once I swing onto it there will be more holds above to continue onwards. FFS, I don't see anything else I guess. I do so, and cut my feet as I swing around, grabbing another sharp jug with my right hand. I'm hanging from just my hands all while the drag is trying to yank me down to the ground, and I desperately swing a high foot up to stabilize my body somewhat. From here I pull myself onto the face and belly flop onto a ledge above. In what sick, stupid world did some 40 year old trad climber campus out of a cave and call that a meager 5.7? Damn you. Damn you to hell. I do not know if I have justifiably described how much of a fuck-around that pitch was. Just in the process of writing this I've gotten myself all fired up having to relive every moment, I simply cannot express enough how dreadful this stupid cave was. Now I'm all upset in this library, listening to Minecraft music in an effort to cool off and continue writing.
After building the belay, I pull up the rest of the slack in the rope until Troy is tight. This normally would take no more than a minute, but with the rope drag requiring me to pull with both hands and strongly heave just to move it a foot, it took me 5 full minutes to get to Troy. Belaying Troy up, I began to notice an extraordinarily low storm cell beginning to fill the South end of the valley. Fuck it looked ugly. Minute by minute it blew towards us. Was it seriously going to hit us? What happened to the no-precipitation until 2pm forecast? You can't be serious. I had already become quite cold throughout the day wearing just a thin shell jacket, cotton shirt, no gloves, and thin jogger's pants, please don't make it worse. Before long, Troy flopped onto the same ledge and confirmed my fears; his weather app had just announced that there would be a 100% chance of rain in the next ten minutes, and to expect 30 mm. No no no no. We needed to get off Moby, ASAP. To try and rappel back down now would not be pretty. First of all, it would need us to rig at least 8 full rappels, which could take 2 or so hours. And secondly, it'd cost something around $300, as every anchor we rappelled off of would have to be made of gear that we'd never get back. Down wasn't an option, to bail, we'd have to go up. Well Troy, it's time for some heroics. We'd be in the midst of whatever this storm was gonna look like any minute now, and although there was 80m of climbing left to do, Troy was gonna have to get to the top of this damn cliff in one long push, there was no time for any more stopping. He took every cam we had, and with a brave face, he nodded down towards me before embarking on his quest. I whispered "godspeed" under my breath, but no god could save us now. Alls we had was a lone Sask boy who wore glasses and played the drums for a hardcore band. Sometimes, that's all ya need.
I hoped this would be one of those times.
Before long, his red puffy disappeared from my sight, and I was left with but the rhythmic tugs of the rope to confirm his existence. The storm came in fast. I don't remember any transition. One moment we were in the clear, and we were socked in in the next. My world shrunk down to 20 ft of visibility in any direction. Fat raindrops slapped my face, soaking my clothes. This rain soon turned to hail, and the swirly winds sent frozen stones in every direction, pelting my face and hands and giving me shivers. Please Troy, I beg you, get to the top of this thing. I was in no state to do any more leading. If I had to do any more steep climbing while on gear, I'd either punt out of a crack or slip off a slab. Which ever way it happened, I'd be decking. That's just the way it was.
Troy was ever nearing the end of the rope, 10 more meters, 5 more, just 1... Bam. He had climbed all 70m, and now wouldn't be able to move any higher. I just hope he figured that part out. As you see, there can be many reasons why while leading you might all of a sudden be halted in your climbing: the rope getting stuck in a crack below, the drag becoming so heinous that you can't even move anymore (particularly possible if you've just been climbing for 50+ meters), or maybe something weird happened on the belayer's end and they can't pay out the rope any more. Not to mention it's very difficult to quantify how long you've been climbing for. With the rope taught, I prayed that Troy would soon figure he's at the end of the 70m, build an anchor, and give me the tugs to head on up. I waited, and waited, and waited, shivering in the storm. I was starting to get really cold and really wet. Cmon Troy, figure it out. I yelled out to him as loud as I could, but my voice just blew in the wind, there was no possibility for communication. Some 15 minutes must've past since he reached the end of the rope. I've been softly holding the rope ever since, feeling for just the slightest rhythmic reverberation as a sign, but receiving nothing. Surely he had built an anchor by now? Surely he had me on belay? There must be too much rope in the system for a tug to be able to propagate that far and felt on the other end. I was gonna have to make a decision. We had to get out of here. Ykno what? Fuck it, I am on belay. Sometimes you just gotta trust your partner.
I began disassembling the anchor I was currently belaying off of to start climbing. While doing so, I hear a man freaking out in the chimney below me. I had completely forgotten about the party below us. Man, if our situation was dire, I would not wanna be those guys right now. I trembled at the thought of doing that chimney with hail blowing into the cave and water dripping down from above. But at least they had much better gear on than we did. All gortexed up, they wouldn't be in as much a rush to get out of the storm as we. Just before I started climbing, the guy flopped onto his belly on my belay ledge, exhausted.
"What the hell kind of 5.7 was that?"
"I don't know man, I don't even know."
I gave him one last look and then raised my fist in solidarity: may us both get the hell off this cliff.
I climbed a meter, then two, then three, but the slack lay out before me, unchanging, resolute. Please Troy, please have me on belay, please take up the slack. Just as the thoughts of what it meant if I wasn't actually on belay right now while climbing began to race through my head, I noticed a quiver in the loop of slack. Then another. And another! Holy shit, the slack was being taken up. Troy! You son of a gun! I am on belay! Good lord am I lucky to be climbing with a guide. I knew he'd figure it out. Now let's just hope he's made it to the top of the climb.
I follow his line of cams upwards. My fingers completely numb, I have no idea what I'm holding most the time. Good hold? Bad hold? Who the heck knows. Let's just pretend it's a good one and hope my feet are solid enough to support me should my fingers slide off. The rules of rock climbing have disappeared at this point. I'm lunging to grab ahold of cams to pull myself over the now icy slab sections, I'm stepping deep into the puddles formed in the crack, who cares if these shoes never dry. I'm racking all the gear I collect as-is, a horrible mess but whatever, we'll sort it back at the van.
I had no idea how long I had been climbing for, and there was no end in sight. The only section I remember well is a spooky foot traverse along a thin crack saturated with water. Ugly stuff. This climbing felt so hopeless, being socked in I had no idea if I was near the summit or if the rope continued on above me for 30 more meters. The climbing was beginning to ease in angle at least, maybe I was beginning to round onto the top? Pulling myself over a block and onto a large ledge I spy in its corner a man in a red puffy, soaked-through, and belaying in a fetal position. There he was. Damn is it ever good to see you mon ami.
I was left with just 20 more meters or so of 4th class scrambling, and with everything as wet as it was, there was no way we were gonna do that without a rope. I grabbed some pieces of gear romped on up, until I got to a spot where we could comfortably untie and start looking for the descent trail. I built the belay and brought Troy up.
Troy beginning the push to the summit before the storm sets in
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| The visibility just 5 minutes later |
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| Myself arriving at Troy's belay ledge |
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| Sleet collecting on the summit |
Click the above link for a video of Troy describing the conditions from his belay spot ^
We looked around for obvious signs of a trail, or the helicopter pad that we had been told to aim for when beginning our descent, but with the current visibility and our deluded minds, we weren't having much luck. Needing to get out of the sleet and wind before I got any colder, we just committed to a very questionable looking "trail" that dove right into the patches of juvenile balsam fir covering the shoulders of the cliff. We recognized this wasn't the broad, obvious trail that had been described in the route beta, but if we just aimed for the parking lot we'd have to intersect it eventually.
Our "trail" soon deteriorated into the dense bushwack that it always was gonna be. Pushing through all these wet branches that blocked our way only further soaked our bodies, but getting down became priority. The ground was steep, and focus was required to not trip and tumble down the wet slope. Troy filled me in on his side of the epic as we trudged on down:
He climbed as fast as he could on that last pitch to beat the storm, but before long he too was socked in. Things got pretty dire when he reached the pooling foot traverse that I mentioned earlier. Cold and haggered, he thought about just building the gear anchor here to belay me up to finish the last 30m of climbing. Thankfully he didn't, because if I had climbed up that last pitch only to find him having stopped halfway up to hand me the rack to finish off the lead, I honestly think I'd only have the patience to clove myself into the anchor before I tried to kill him. I was in no state to do any more proper climbing. When he had just reached the large ledge that he ended up belaying on, he felt the rope taughten up to prevent him from climbing any further. He couldn't believe that he had climbed a full 70m. There was just no way. Having been on autopilot for the past 30 minutes or so, just plugging away in a storm, distance must've become very abstract. He built the anchor anyways and put me on belay in case I started to climb while he paused to think it out. He tugged the rope upwards as best he could to give me the signal, unaware if I received it or not. He continued to try to pull up slack periodically in the event that I had started climbing, but after 15 minutes with no change in rope tension, his doubt that he had climbed the full 70m only grew. He began plans to fix the rope on the anchor above, and begin a single strand rappel back down the climb to free the rope from whatever it must've been stuck in. But just before he began to rig it up he attempted a final pull-up of slack, and for nothing short of a miracle, it worked. I had figured out I was probably on belay, and had begun climbing; he wouldn't have to rappel back down the climb. He told me it was one of the greatest moments of his life.
Downward we went, cursing ourselves for having left that fleece and the food at the base of the climb. I desperately could've used that fleece when I was freezing up on the wall, and now we would have to take a 45 minute detour to leave the descent trail (once we found it) and head back towards the base of the wall rather than continuing straight down to the parking lot. Luckily Troy had downloaded the area map on AllTrails, so we were able to continually reorient our bushwack to eventually join the correct descent trail. We had done so much bushwacking that day that the descent trail felt like a full-on highway once we found it. At 2500 ft we saw a tight climber's trail breaking left at the bend on one of the switchbacks, and took it to get back to the base of Reppy's. The weather had begun to turn for the better, and when collecting our gear we had a short snack and water break in appreciation of how we hadn't consumed anything throughout that entire day.
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| "Here buddy. have a snickers, you earned it" -Troy |
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| Thanks man |
Whitney G was very much off the itinerary at this point, we were just stoked to have made it off the climb safely. It was nice to know that even despite the fuckery we made it back to this point at 1:30pm, before our cutoff point, and in theory still would've had time to continue. Another time I suppose.
Satiated, but still cold and wet, we headed back through the boulder field and into the forest to return to the van. In the parking lot I breathed a sigh of relief and ripped all my soaked cotton clothes off in front of the onlooking tourists. I replaced them with heavenly fuzzy socks, and a cozy fleece. We waited in the parking lot for the other climbers who were below us on Moby to confirm they made it off safe, and before long we saw two haggard dudes stumbling down the road to join us in the lot. Man they looked rough - I could only imagine what we looked like right now. We talked for a minute or two and shared some laughs about how dire that situation was. The guy who I had met on the ledge chuckled as he told us about how close he was to asking for us to drop down our rope when we got to the top for them to ascend up with, but he was able to aid climb up that final pitch instead.
Alright, let's get the hell out of this State. These two Northern boys had been thrashed hard enough in this damned part of the country. Thank you sm for reading!
Post-trip update:
Directly after this trip me and Troy fell into deep lethargic illnesses. For Troy, its persisted until this very day (Nov. 23rd). Something in us had changed, neither would ever be the same. Moby Grape was eternal.
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| Never again |
