Squamish Pt. 4 - Disobey Meteorology

At the finale of a dry weather period in Squamish Troy rolled into town after a 48 hr epic, driving his van from Montreal, to Regina, and then on to Squamish. We met up in the chief parking lot, and caught up on each others stories while gathering stoke for future opportunities to touch rock together on this legendary granite dome. 

showing off the setup

We then headed over to Chateau Walmart, where we parked our homes and had a beer in the nearby strip mall. Once finished we headed into Mags99 for some chimichangas for dinner. A live band gave us a pleasant surprise, as we happened to be eating there on cinco de mayo, and we listened to some great music all night. 

The next morning we headed to Zephyr Cafe in town for him to do a bit of work for his upcoming research, and I to do some writing on my blog. Although it was currently raining, Troy's stoke to be in Squamish overwhelmed the rule, "only climb rock if it dry," and we were soon driving over to the smoke bluffs to get on some rock. Mica got dropped off in town around this time too, and I picked her up and joined Troy, who was waiting patiently in the smoke bluffs parking lot. We charged in right away, and went straight for the neat and cool wall, as Troy seemed eager to get on the classic finger crack, "Flying Circus."

Troy "scrambling" (looks a lil' class 5 to me) to the belay ledge

We warmed up on cat's crack, to the left of it, a wonderful cruise-y crack with many good rests and straightforward handjamming. 

Mica on Cat Crack

Despite the intermittent spit of rain that was going on at the time, the whole rock itself felt quite dry, especially from within the crack, so the climbing felt super secure. Again, dry conditions is purely a mindset when trad climbing. Just stick ya hand in there ykno' - it's not gonna pop out. I was even impressed myself as to how much fun the climbing in the rain was. All the wet sections of the route did was ask for more focus and attentiveness towards the climbing, making for an even more captivating experience. And we got so much alone time with the rock!

We then moved on to the main event, "Flying Circus," a 5.10a finger crack that is described in the guide book to have "seen more falls than any other 5.10a in Squamish." Unfazed, Troy racked up and began. 

"Yo Troy give me your war face"

Mica praying to Troy for some reason (idk - I'm not a sport climber)

Cruising along, remarking about how bomber the gear looked, he got about 2/3rds of the way up, but in an awkward section where you have to move a good amount of your weight onto your feet, slipped on the polished slick granite and fell on a piece. 

Around the slippery section

Although he had now lost all of his self-worth (if you fail to flash a route, you are no longer a good person), he continued up to the top and set up a top rope for me and Mica to try. Mica headed up afterwards, but fell on the same polished section. I psyched myself up. I now had the opportunity to show my friends how epic of a crack climber I had become while living and climbing in Squamish. If I could move through the section that both of them slipped on, on top rope, then I would instantaneously become the best climber at McGill, as well as a legend. This was indisputable. I began. Feeling good and moving well through the early sections, I got to the crux. Without any hesitation I sunk in a ring lock, and moved my left hand into the upper crack and jammed my fingers into it. I let out a scream as I shifted my feet up, smearing on the polish, and then pulled myself through the crux and cruised up to the top. Smugly surveying my two partners below, I shouted "easy peasy," before letting out a great loud Hoo-Rah, announcing my superiority to the people of Squamish. 

Just kidding, as soon as I touched the crux I immediately slipped and fell 

ʅ〔´◡◝〕ʃ Self-worth now gone, I topped out, and lowered in shame. 

collective defeat

We then moved on to Penny Lane, an area none of us had ever been to, but had heard of it being filled with classics. Right away this blunt, smooth, powerful granite monolith presented itself before us. Showing off two laser-cut splitters:

Crime of the Century (5.11c) central right, Penny Lane (5.9) on the upper right

Troy got busy right away, and headed up Penny Lane, a notoriously stiff 5.9. 

Mica followed up behind:

Slhanay in the background

While waiting I chatted with a friendly local, who pointed out and named all the surrounding mountains and bluffs for me. Check out his brilliant way to keep his dog on leash while he was climbing above:

That pooch ain't going nowhere

I brought up the caboose, as well as a sweater for Troy who was getting very chilly, being whipped by wind and rained on at the upper ledge:

With Troy fleeced up, Mica got on with her rappel! What a view. The sherrif's badge on the Chief looked so prominent with the overcast weather. Man I love how the Chief looms over a carpet of dense green forest. In moody weather, when the trees turn a dark green in the rain and fog, the contrasting greys on this powerful granite looks spectacular.

After we rappelled down, Mica lead up this gnarly and wet corner, with a formidable roof which she bypassed with an athletic stem and overhanging reach. Unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the stemming but it was pretty badass. 

Intimidated by the climbing, and rather stoked to have a go at Crime of the Century instead, I opted to not follow up behind Mica but asked if she could clean the route so we could move over, where the local I was talking to before agreed to haul up our rope, to set up a top rope for us on the route. I had the first go, and ya it was hard. I had to really put my fingers through 30 meters of pain to get to the top of that. I took many falls on the first section, where I had to make a large reach off of a shitty fingerjam, to an okay pod. Somehow I pulled through it, and then entered more gruesome fingerjamming that I was able to move through cleanly, but with great exertion, getting me more and more pumped. Which led me to fall at the upper crux, where the crack thinned out and you had to move onto a slopey ledge. I honestly felt really proud just to be standing at the top of the climb. Lower on I thought I wouldn't be able to even get on the route. One day....

Mica grunted her way up the finger crack in a similar fashion. We certainly were in solidarity with the amount of hang-dogging we had done on the crack. Last but not least, Monsieur Troy mosey-ed up to the belay and tied in. Alright buddy try to do it a bit faster than we can! "Wait wtf," we both said as he began to flash the route, taking no falls. Just near the top he yells that he's gonna peel off, but he holds it together to top out with an impressive flash. I let him know that if he ever tells me he's gonna fall when near the top, just before he does an impressive flash of a route, I'll have to yell "off-belay" to give him that final motivation. He understands. The local I was chatting to before is somewhat impressed, but brings us back down to earth with a mention of how Marc-Andre Leclerc flashed this route in flip-flops back in the day. Man what a climber he was. 

With the rain picking up, and our stomach's growling we packed out and headed to get some sushi in town (I really wanted to eat some sushi while on the coast before I headed up to the central interior for work).

So many things are perfect in Squamish - just check out this chimney

Twas' a great feast. Afterwards, we settled into chateau walmart parking lot, drank some beers, played some harmonica, planned tmr, and hopped in bed. 

The next morning I whipped up some perogies, made a few pb&js, and embarked for shannon falls avec le crew. The plan was to do a 5 pitch classic, Skywalker (5.8), a name that gave me particular excitement thanks to my obsession with star wars and space when I was younger. Despite being sunday, we arrived to an empty parking lot thanks to questionable conditions: overcast and probably wet rock from the early morning's rain. Stoked to be alone on a Squamish classic, we frolicked through the dark coastal rainforest. We zig zagged through the hemlocks with wet green needles, the wide cedars, and the mighty douglas firs that filled the sky. We skipped along boulders interspersed between large nurse logs and covered in dripping moss and green lichens. We listened to the birds singing their morning songs against the backdrop of the powerful Shannon Falls. I let the clean smell of a wet forest fill my nose right up. It was magic. 

Eventually arriving at the base of the climb, we took a look at the first pitch, and ya... it was sopping wet. Reading the guidebook however, it described that the first pitch takes a long time to dry, and we figured that this first part was gonna be by far the worst. I opted for the first lead, cuz, idk. I was honestly pretty "climbed-out" at this point, having climbed so many days in a row prior, and maybe just wanted to get my lead over with, so that I could enjoy the rest of the climbing without having to focus too much, being on top rope.

It was about 5 meters of climbing on a super wet slab, that had a corner that would be nice to use, but unfortunately was covered in wet moss and slippery as hell. But all I had to do was use my reach to get to a friendly bolt about 5 meters up, and then traverse into the drier crack which I could protect on gear. 

Cool cedars growing in the cracks
 

Once in the upper crack, I reached a ledge where I would traverse right from into some face climbing on slab, where more friendly bolts were placed. After a few meters or so I entered another crack system, which I scarcely protected since the rope drag was so gnarly from this sharp change in rope angle from the traverse. At the top, just before I ran out of rope, I built an anchor and set up to belay both Troy and Mica up at the same time. Our plan was to just have the leader tie in at the mid point, and then the two other climbers tie in at the end, so that the leader could belay up both of them at the same time, with the climbers staggering their start by about 5 meters or so. This would save time and be a cool system to try out. Unfortunately for me, it was hard as F to belay the both of them at the same time. With all the rope drag there was a lot of force kinking the rope when I had set up the ATC in guide mode, so I changed my belay system to a redirect instead, but still I found it super difficult to take slack in just one of the climbing strands without taking from the other, while keeping a brake hand on both. In my efforts I was coiling up one of the strands super bad and it was jamming my ATC, so I had to quickly shout down to Troy to tell him to stop climbing for a sec while I readjusted, which I don't think he was too stoked on because he was midway up the wet slab, with enough slack to maybe hit the ground (just like 3m up tho), sorry dawg. I did the best I could and eventually pulled all the slack through and belayed them up to me. Troy took up the next pitch, a finger size corner, with blank slab on either side, which had been given a cruel grade of 5.8. As he started up, me and Mica casually chatted and soaked in the views.

Go get em' tiger

Chief first summit in background

It was to our surprise when our chatter was interrupted by exertive grunts above us. Shouldn't this be a cruise for our ropegun Troy? I mean, it's just a simple lil' 5.8 - right? Wrong. This was 5.8+. 

the finger crack being wet the whole way through didn't help either

I learned of the difficulty when I headed up at the caboose. Wearing the pack I gracefully "humphed" my way up the route, jamming toes in the finger crack, while stemming with my hands and my head in the corner. Epic pitch for sure. At the top, Mica racked up for her lead, which to both me and Troy's enjoyment, was also sopping wet - it just wouldn't be fair otherwise. She crushed it, and belayed us on up to a slabby ledge. From here was my next pitch. Za money pitch. It was a slabby traverse below a large block with interesting underclings. The slab was a lil more wet than I would've liked, but then again, dry conditions are but a mindset, while feet and hands are true. It was super beautiful, and I got on with it right away. 

let's dance

streeeetch

Straight leg goofin'

It was super weird climbing. I hadn't done something like that before. I had these hand jams in the undercling, which then turned into just gripping on to from the bottom as the crack widened, all while my legs were pretty much buckled to allow for the entirety of my feet to make contact with the wet rock. If you were fast enough, I bet you could do that entire pitch with a fluid wall run; the slab was a pretty soft angle. I got to the end and belayed my friends up who seemed to have quite an awesome time on the traverse. 

Mica Scampering up

Troy took up the last pitch, a cruise control slab that headed straight up to the anchors, me and Mica ran up behind once on belay. Now raining again, we headed back under the canopy for an incredible descent through the rich forest, a fitting farewell to the coast before I headed straight for Williams Lake once I got back to the parking lot. 

On our walk down we took a stop at the super classic, Klahanie Crack,  just to "have a look," but after appreciating its splitter perfection, admitted that there was no way we were gonna pass this beauty up. Again, despite this being a Sunday with warmish temps, just the little bit of rain must have turned people off, as there was not a soul to be seen on our entire day of climbing. Truly magic. Another reason why you should climb in the rain, particularly those intermittent showers, I mean just the start of Klahanie was wet, but the rest was dry as a bone. Perfect handjams for 27 meters, in a truly jaw dropping crack made this a super fun lead, even more so as there was not the usual line up of people waiting to climb this after you. 

We walked back to the parking lot after, said our goodbyes, and I thanked Mica for giving me a bunch of chicken fingers for my drive. 

I stopped at the gas station, filled up my tires to compensate for the abysmal mpg my old ranger gets, and began my 6 hr drive up to Williams Lake. It's a beautiful drive, deep river valleys, tons of rapids, cool limestone bluffs, and plenty of deer to keep you sharp. What an incredible time spent in Squamish. I love that place man. So many photos for me to stare at on my phone when things are slow, and so many memories to reminisce! 

Squamish Pt. 3 - Y'know... We might as well just go to the top of this thing

 Boy oh boy, did I get lucky with the weather while I was in Squamish! April in Squamish had been super wet, only a couple days of sunshine the whole month until I arrived. But when I did... I was treated to almost a week of straight sunshine and higher temps. Couldn't ask for better condies. Planning for the final day of this weather window before a week of straight rain that was forecasted, I really wanted to get on the chief. I mean, for years, every time I dropped down towards this little waterfront town on H99 after Murrin Park, this massive granite centrepiece had me in awe. But the thought of actually being on one of its upper walls seemed like a mere fantasy.

Photo cred: Ed Cooper

So the day before this final day of sunshine, I posted on the Squamish rock climbing facebook group explaining my level of experience and my ache to try to do a route on this wonderful granite dome. I got a couple of responses, but the one who stuck out was this dude named Patrick, who was a super strong sport climber (like 5.13s), who had been climbing for 9 years, but never really got into trad and was trying to get some mileage on gear. Stoked, because I felt like with him, if I ever needed to bail on a pitch or was too spooked to do something that looked difficult, I could probably just send him to ropegun the route for me :) 

The next morning we met at the parking lot for the apron (the central lower slab of granite on the chief, partially shrouded by firs in the photo above). We quickly chatted, he seemed super cool, and a hell of a lot more qualified to be on the chief than I. He told me about how all his friends were super intense climbers in Squamish who soloed the routes that we were interested in doing on the Chief, and thus had no interest in spending a whole day with him on an easy route where it was gonna take especially long since he was newish to placing gear and setting up multipitch systems. And therefore he had never actually been on the Chief in all of his 4 or so years of climbing in Squamish. It was interesting how our approaches to climbing couldn't have been more opposite. He spent 9 years climbing super hard and pushing his sport and bouldering grades to really impressive levels, never having played with a trad rack, whereas I was plugging gear just 4 months after learning how to lead climb. Regardless of how we had gotten to that parking lot, in the shared moment we were uber stoked, and so happy to be racking up for an adventure. We settled on doing the apron classic, Diedre - a pretty run out 6 pitch 5.8 trad climb, full of joyous friction slab climbing, laybacking on impressive flakes, and a cheeky boulder problem at the top. 

*taken from squamishrockguides.com

We racked up each with a standard rack from microcams to 2", a rack of nuts, lots of draws, a 63ish meter rope (which Troy graciously lent to me while he drove across the country from Montreal to meet me in Squamish, where he was spending his summer), and a few 120cm -240cm slings. I opted not to bring any water or food of my own, as this was just a 6 pitch route, probably taking 3 hrs or so, and didn't wanna overfill the backpack we were carrying up. Hiking up to the first pitch, we were alone with the most popular route on the chief, what a feeling when gazing at the 50 meters of sexy low angle friction slab that loomed above. 

I opted for this first pitch, which I had a bit of nerves for as the protection is undeniably sparse, but the climbing looked wicked easy. I began, moving up about 10 meters to the flake seen above, where I further went above to the tree growing in the crack, also pictured. I threw a sling around it and clipped in to as my first piece. I love a good bomber tree piece. Feels quite inventive. Once above this, there begins a 20 meter-ish run out on the slab until the next crack system. This didn't get in my head at all however, the climbing felt so secure that I was just having a ton of fun romping up the slab, in disbelief that I was finally climbing on the rock of my dreams. Arriving at the upper crack system, and finding out that it was pretty much just a traverse up these big ledges, I thought about just continuing the runout to the anchor, but rather placed a final "responsibility" piece, and then cruised up to the chains. I threw together the top rope anchor and belayed Patrick up to the ledge. He took on the next, shorter, but unprotected pitch across a slabby traverse. Pretty chill stuff, and I was quickly at the next belay station. From here, I offered him the chance at what was apparently the "money" pitch on the route, as the one he just lead was a little underwhelming. Pitch 3 offered 30 meters of lay backing on this cool dihedral, and then a cool bouldery move over a lip into the upper dihedral. He happily accepted.

stoked to be on the chief

Patrick on the upper section of p3

I followed behind, and once at the top, we both appreciated our bloody fingers from the sharp crack we were laybacking in. Knowing we would have to use them again in the upper cracks, we looked for a bandaid or climbing tape to patch em' up. Having just one bandaid and no tape, Patrick cut it in half to split between us. 

Thanks dude

I then began to soak in my next pitch. I felt great. It was 50 meters of sustained 5.8 laybacking up the corner, which normally might give me fright, knowing there was no ledge above to rest on during the entire climb, should I need to reset if something went wrong, but the climbing was going so well, and I had a lot of confidence. It seemed rightfully so, as I cruised up the crack no problem, having no moments of nerves, just the bliss of exposure being on this massive wall. Man that was a good pitch.

Patrick cruised up the fifth pitch, and left me with the final pitch. Remembering from the guidebook that this pitch was quite run out, and then ending with the crux move of the entire route, I was a little nerved. But then again, je suis un beast so far. F yah dude. I racked up, climbed the unprotected first 20m (EZ), plugged a couple small cams into a pretty meh slot, then climbed another 10m above that until I was right in front of a big bulgy wet rock that guarded bellygood ledge above (the top of the climb). The final boss. Alright buster, let's see what you got. I plugged a bomber #2 in the crack right next to the challenger, and got up in the rock's face. I reached my arms as far as I could over the bulge, and found a cheeky right handjam at the end of my reach, booyah. With my left, I pressed onto a perpendicular rock, and stepped into the wet crack to the right of the bulge. I lifted myself up with the handjam, and then reached for a root with my left hand. Making contact I yanked myself over and was on top! Tahdah! Looking for anchor placements, I felt annoyed that I only had my 120cm sling, as it couldn't fully wrap this thick cedar, so instead I girth hitched the one big one, and then added another girth hitched cedar into the system for redundancy, connecting with a third alpine sling.

Soon thereafter, Patrick was at the top and we were celebrating together. 

It took us about 3 hours, and honestly the difficulty of climbing was a little underwhelming. At the start of the day I had told Patrick that I would have to be back in Vancouver at 1pm for a teeth cleaning appointment that my mom had booked me. But feeling so good on the rock I knew that I just couldn't end the climbing just yet. So instead, halfway up the climb I had quickly asked my mom if she could cancel the appointment, assuring that I would instead get the cleaning done up in Williams Lake. Thankfully she understood that teeth are only sorta important, whereas climbing up the chief... I mean come on, that's something special. So the rest of my day was now freed up to climb more after Diedre. I proposed that we walk off, and then from the bottom do another apron classic, maybe banana peel. But slyly, he asked, "Y'know, we are already this far up... don't you think we might as well just head up to the top of this thing?" Hmmmmmm. Y'know Patrick, that ain't too bad of an idea... After much convincing, I was in. I was definitely intimidated, knowing that we were signing up for at least 8 more pitches, without food or water (he gave me a couple sips of his bottle, and a cliff bar at the top of diedre, but apart from that I was relying on the 4 pieces of pb and jam toast i had that morning at 8am), as well as limited gear (we had a rack up to 2" but some of the pitches above asked for gear up to 4'"), but I knew we could rappel back down to belly good ledge and walk off from there if need-be. Stoked for what lie ahead, we got underway. The journey began with boomstick crack, an epic looking flake with a super fun start. 

I opted to lead the first pitch, and had a blast tip-toeing on this thin flake, following it for a continuous 30 meters. Unfortunately I couldn't protect most of it, as the flake was wide enough off the wall that some bigger pro, or doubles on my 1" and 2" was needed. But I felt comfortable continuing to balance on the flake. We reset at the top, and coiled the rope to prepare for a 15 min hike through patches of forest on the ledges above the apron, leading up to the base of the Squamish buttress, which we would climb to ascend to the summit. It felt really cool to wander through cedars and hemlock, already 250 meters up in the air, to get to our next multipitch. On our way up we ran into a guy named Evan Beatty, who was cleaning up a route somewhere on the northwestern face of the Apron. He had suffered an injury a year ago and was now keen to put up new routes for folks to do while he was grounded. He also had just put up the FA of a cool new 2 pitch route that provides a more direct route up the Squamish Buttress from the lower approach, and then links into Butt Lite. 

Once at the base of the buttress however, we selected the most accessible (easiest) route to get to the summit from here, "Butt Lite," a 6/7 pitch 5.9 which had been established by Sonnie Trotter, Lydia Zamorano, and Ben Moon in 2010. Patrick took up the first pitch, which proved to be quite the rope stretcher because he linked the first two pitches by accident, skipping a tree anchor. In doing so, I had to simul climb with him for about 5 meters before he got to another tree anchor. Luckily he got there just before I had to do a bouldery move over a roof, which I was thankful to not have to do, knowing if I fell while simul climbing I'd likely pull him off the wall and whip our combined weight onto his last piece, if I didn't deck before then. Once anchor was set up I hurried up after him, and we continued on to the next two pitches, which consisted of simple but fun climbing up these flowy cracks, into consecutive shelfs, forming a shoulder to get onto the next ledge where I built a gear anchor to belay from for the final two pitches of real climbing. These next ones were the money pitches. Oh friggen boy. I knew the last pitch was the crux, and after 9 hours of no real sustenance, I offered up that pitch to my semi-pro sport climbing partner, Patrick. But I wasn't in the clear yet. No sir. I had a 5.9 finger crack pitch right in front of my eyes. But my oh my did it look magnificent. I climbed these large broken ledges that built on eachother one after the other, while I stared into the deep void of the south gulley below me. The exposure felt awesome. Because of the non linear climbing, and maybe a few awkward placements I made, the rope made a stiff zig-zag over one ledge, then straight horizontally to the base of the finger crack, creating a lot of rope drag. This did not feel ideal, as I had to change angles of rope movement to straight vertical into the crux of this pitch, that would create a kink to further pull me down towards the void while climbing. The crux looked awesome, a vertical finger crack combined with a flake, that you had to clamber up for 5 meters or so to then traverse with some face climbing on. Being pulled down by the rope drag, I hoisted myself up onto the wall, and sunk a bomber ringlock into the crack, following it up by plugging a bomber .5 at my chest. I found a sweet side pull flake with my right, and bumped to another left ringlock above, where I placed another piece before hoisting myself up to the upper jugs, where a very friendly bolt was placed to offer protection before starting the traverse. I banged that out as well, and continued on to more broken ledges until reaching the belay station. I was super proud of having lead that, and took some time soaking in the beautiful views of the steep and streaked walls on the other side of the south gulley before setting up the anchor.

The south gulley is friggen cool. Tightly packed douglas firs tower above its deep trough, and fill the gulley all the way up until it joins the summit ledges. Such a resilient tree. They sprouted up on any patch of ground it could, and give the chief its characteristic green fur.  

Patrick headed up my pitch, and then we took a moment in silence to appreciate the view, before he got ready for the final test of the chief. Everyone had described it as a pretty stiffly graded 5.9, having a tricky offwidth/chimney section that you had to move through. I wasn't worried at all however, knowing how strong of a climber Patrick was. So when to my surprise, I started hearing him grunting and cursing and sounding exertive, I snapped out of my daydreaming and started shouting motivation. I couldn't see him at this point, cus he was far above me on some incut ledge where the chimney lay, but I tried to encourage him with classic bluepointer's jargon. "You got it dude" "Just breathe" "Trust your feet" "That micronut looks friggen bomber man just keep climbing." He later told me how he had gotten stuck in the chimney, and had no protection directly below him (he had a piece at the base of the chimney, but would probably bounce into the void before his rope tensed up to take his weight, making for an exciting and scary whipper) because he didn't have a big enough piece for the bottom section. So he was kinda freaking out trying not to slip while trying to grab a piece from his harness blindly to then place into the deep crack that he was staring in to. He was looking for a #1 on his harness, but couldn't accurately identify it, and instead grabbed a legendary black totem, with which he shoved deep into the corner crack. Still in gnarly position, he fought to move his arm outside of the chimney to grab onto the slopey face, and threw a drop knee in for some stability, where he found that number 1 and placed it much higher. From here he was able to hoist himself out of the chimney, but mentioned to me that that pitch definitely had him pretty gripped. Even while I was seconding I could tell it was pretty full on. With a backpack on my back I had to wedge into the chimney and then fight to get back out, it was super physical, and such a rewarding way to "finish" the climb. 14 pitches later we were on the upper ledges, but with some class 5 scrambling in front, we continued to use the rope to get up to the final slabs that would take us to the summit. So 16 pitches completed, we were on a saddle somewhere between the first and second chief summit. Now 830pm, with dark approaching, we changed into our shoes, which for me meant my tevas, and started tryna get down. Neither of us had been anywhere but the first summit on the chief, so we figured we would follow what looked like a worn path around the backside of the first summit of the chief to rejoin the main trail. We continued on and on down this trail, moving cautiously down some exposed sections where I had to tug on roots to lower myself down steep terrain, all while cursing my tevas, who were especially useless as I was getting wicked swamp foot (sorry), and my wet feet were sliding all about in the sandals. Eventually we admitted that the trail was nonexistent, as we reached a final 20m cliff that was directly preventing us from rejoining the trail in the forest, where we saw the kind light of headlamps from dogwalkers who were hiking down. Now in the dark, with Patrick having a headlamp but I not (I thought we were just gonna do a quick 6 pitches okay), I knew I wasn't gonna try to downclimb this. So I chucked the rope around a massive cedar, threw my harness on, tied a couple knots, and rappelled down through the night and onto the forest floor. A fitting test for this big day. Once at the bottom I fireman belayed Patrick as he seconded, pulled the rope, and then coiled it ready to get the F back to my truck. Now I was starting to really get thirsty. And delusional. All I could think about my McDonald's order, and the taste of the water that I had in my truck. The sound of Olesen Creek did not help my dehydration. In my delusions, as well as in my lack of headlamp, I kept whipping my head around thinking I saw or heard some great predator lurking in the trees. After an agonizingly long trek down the trail, we arrived at the grand wall parking lot, and then walked along the highway to the apron parking lot. Arriving at my car 12 hours later from when we started (8am - 10pm) i chugged half my 4L water jug, devoured a pepperoni stick and speedily swapped gear with Patrick before saying farewell. 

Haggard

I drove straight to McDonald's, where I spent $25 on a proper feast: Quarter pounder with cheese, medium fries, oreo mcflurry, and two cheeseburgers. I ate it so fast holy cow. 

So pooped, so so pooped, and super sweaty, I collapsed in the back of my truck in the walmart parking lot, feeling like a hero, but sorta lonely. I was getting sentimental about how I wished I had done my first climb up the chief with either of my friends Troy or Mica, who were meeting me in Squamish the next day. I knew that I had to make the most of the weather window before I left Squamish, and that neither of them could have climbed that day, but I felt discontent knowing that I had no one to share the memory of this big burly day with. That is the nature of relying on facebook randoms to climb, as well as the nature of having a schedule of climbing everyday I suppose. My sentiment certainly exposed myself as not someone who was gonna be in the long run of climbing purely for pushing my own limits, or for climbing the burliest of climbs that are out there, but rather someone who revels in adventure shared with people I love to be around; those who I can sit down afterwards with to reflect on why we are now so exhausted. Oh the adventures to be had! Twas' a great first meet with the chief nonetheless.

Squamish Pt. 2: Chek-ing out

When living in Squamish, I came to understand the most gruesome days of all to be rest days. I mean how can one expect to sit down with family, make dinner plans with friends, or 'relax' and watch a movie, without images of splitter granite invading one's psyche? It was agonizing. Visions of laser-cut cracks and seams ripping through blank granite walls, I just need to jam my hands in it, ykno? 

I mean come tf on, don't you wanna stick you fingers in that thing?
(photo of Crime of the Century)

It's also hard, as I really wanted to keep my hands working and raw. I knew that as soon as I took a day without climbing, all the cuts and scrapes would start to be realized by my brain, and pain would develop. If you just never stop climbing, I feel like your body doesn't notice. 

Anyways, I suffered through my singular rest day after climbing in the bluffs with Rebecca, and headed out to Chekamus Canyon the next day to climb some sport with my friend Sam. I got there around noon, and waited for Sam, but unfortunately a motorcycle accident stopped the sea to sky highway traffic to a stand still. What was supposed to be a 1.5 hr drive for him, immediately turned into a 6 hour stall, as the poor guy had to get airlifted to a hospital - I hope he's alright. Sam toughed out the wait, and joined me at a campsite around evening, where I had just been reading and killing time, and we managed to get in a little bit of climbing before (and during) dark. We started off with Conroy's Castle wall, where Sam flashed his first two outdoor sport climbs!  

Great stuff 

View of the Tantalus Range from the top of CC

With dark approaching, we headed over to the Forgotten Wall, and I started up an overhung classic, Shaggy (5.9). Straightforward juggy climbing up to a platform, and then into an interesting and thoughtful transfer on top of a roof, made it a fun climb for the both of us. Now dusk, rather than heading back to camp, I fell victim to the allure of this super cool looking 10d sport climb called Bullet the Blue Car on the way back. It was described in the guide book as having a couple technical cruxes on awesome rock, and just looked exactly like something I would like. We quickly set up, and the pressure of beating full-on darkness and losing a quickdraw on a bail, had me moving speedily up to the first crux. I found a cheeky ring lock in a slot crack which felt great, but then you had to move into a gaston on a super weird elephant tusk rock feature, and in the process my feet slipped on the glacial polished granite and I took an exciting whip. Sam gave me a perfect catch, and I was back on the wall soon after. I think I took another fall after that, but then moved past the crux, and up to the roof, where I found another bomber ring lock just over the roof, and managed to pull myself up and above. Too dark for Sam to follow (sorry man), I quickly cleaned the route and we headed back to camp.

The next morning, we went for Frontside 180, a 10 pitch 5.7 sport climb up to the summit of Mt. Chek! Although Sam had never done a multi pitch (it was his second time climbing sport outdoors), he was a strong climber, and I trusted his judgement. We talked about the systems on the walk there, but still the plan was for me to lead the whole climb, with the option of him leading a few pitches if he felt comfortable with anchor building and belaying from above after learning and seeing the system from me on the first part of the climb. Although the guidebook lists the climb as ten pitches, many pitches were listed as just 20m in length, and with his seventy meter rope, I felt like we could easily link most of the climb. I started up the first pitch. Being that the climb is almost patronizingly bolted, where you could clip into one bolt, and then pretty much clip into the next bolt from the same stance, I skipped a lot of them, which definitely helped ease some rope drag. Still, as I cruised into the third pitch, it began to feel like Sam was trying to yank me back down to the ground with the amount of drag in the system. Luckily the climbing was super easy, so at each bolt I wanted to clip, I could use both hands to tug up enough slack to clip. At the anchors, I set up a sling, and pulled up rope. Our one screw up of the climb came right away, and a pretty bad one at that. A lack of communication made Sam thought he was on belay when I pulled up the rope, when he wasn't, but luckily he was on super easy terrain, and the amount of drag in the system probably would've allowed me to catch him with my hands pretty easy, but once I realized all the slack that was developing, I quickly shouted back down to get him to stop, and then prepared the most heinous belay of my young life. Always make sure comms are clear and sorted out beforehand! I was belaying from above on an alpine atc with eyelets so small that the device must only be compatible with double ropes, and in combination with the amount of rope drag in the system, I was getting rope burn from the amount of effort I had to put in to take up slack in his 9.5mm rope.

Fuck this ATC man

Once at the top, I linked the next three pitches again on lead, and got to a big ledge where we coiled the rope and moved to the start of the final "4" pitches. 

Sam in front of the Tantalus Range on the second ledge

Me and Sam practised anchor building on the ledge, and then I lead up pitch 7 and 8 in the rain (it had been intermittently showering the whole route really). On a good shelf, he ran over the multi pitch leading system we were using one more time, and then he lead the last two pitches to the summit! With some stylish run outs, and a bomber anchor, I was stoked that he got to lead on this long ass climb, and did so flawlessly! At the top we soaked in the summit, and started the descent. 

Obligatory summit selfie

pretty friggen cool huh?

Pretty pooped from the 3 hr adventure, we got back to our cars and split ways, enjoy the summer Sam! Had a lotta fun climbing and catching up with ya. 

I spent the night at Rebecca and Alex's where we had tasty burritos, and talked about books and music and all sorts of good stuff. Rebecca also presented me with a gift, one of the few Xiu Xiu vinyl records I don't have, "Xiu Xiu Plays the Music of Twin Peaks," great stuff! 

The next morning I headed back out to Chek, where I was meeting a dude I met off facebook to climb. We hiked in towards "The Main Event" wall, and introduced he each other. We started talking about work, and he told me that he was actually a christian pastor, quickly correcting that he was a "cool pastor." Feeling a little worried as to what spending day an entire day of climbing with him was gonna look like, but interested, I pressed a little bit to try to uncover a bit of his religious philosophy, and what kind of church he serviced. He told me of his belief that there was a great deal of "hypocrisy" in today's christianity that prevented the youth from having any interest in joining churches. I asked him if he could elaborate, and he did so, saying how the judgement and exclusivity exhibited by a lot of christians towards people is actually very un-christlike, as Jesus loved and accepted all, and that as a pastor, his main goal is to make his church as accessible as possible (reminder that this is me paraphrasing him, not my own words). 

Once arrived I started up a 10c, Kigijushi, which I couldn't get past the crux on ;/ coulda been nerves, coulda been just me overestimating my ability on the first climb of the day, but it just wasn't working out. I moved on to the 11a next to it, Dark Don't Lie, and managed to send it with his strong inspiration. This was my first 5.11a I had ever sent on lead, and was super stoked. He really pushed me, and I was thankful for his stoke. We then moved on to a different wall, Rock of the Ages, where I sent my second ever 5.11a on lead, Emotional Rescue, again thanks to his motivation and belief in me. Honestly he was a pretty fricken cool pastor. 

Pulling the crux on emotional rescue (5.11a)

Posing in front of the route

Super dude, I was very thankful with his level of respect on my own spirituality, never looking for any answers from me, and didn't try to invite me to any of his own events, despite how well we got along. His girlfriend is also a total badass, she is a semi-pro climber who taught him pretty much everything, and was travelling the world, currently living in Ecuador, just climbing. Also although he looks 30, he's actually in his 50s, which he attributes to being a no-sugar vegan and ultra marathon runner which was pretty cool. I would definitely climb with him again. 

Scared of taking a rest day, the next morning I met up with Rebecca, Alex, and Nick for one more climb in Chek Canyon! I was super looking forward to this climb, it was Rebecca's birthday, and I always have a great time messing around with the lot of them! 

We started again in Conroy's Castle, where Alex did his first top rope! I climbed up the route next to him to get some scenic shots:

Rebecca belaying Alex

Tantalus Range again in the background

Next we headed over to Forbidden Wall, where I was hoping to get another shot at Bullet the Blue Car. Twas' a good effort, but I again whipped on the crux, with Nick giving me a nice and soft catch. 

Nick and Rebecca ran up it in style afterwards, and Rebecca cleaned the anchor and we were ready to move on!

Driving to the lower crag (my proposition because I'm lazy)

At electric avenue, I spotted a super interesting bolted 5.8 crack called St. Elmo's Fire. A perfect opportunity to whip out the trad rack, as if I got spooked I could easily clip a bolt! Man this was great fun and practice.

I'm getting kicked out of the William's Lake LIbrary as it is closing so I'm gonna speed up this last bit. 

Rebecca's cousin Milena got on the crack afterwards in an impressive flash for her first roped up climb! Then, most exciting of all, Rebecca did her first lead on the nextdoor 10a slab! She cruised up, looking super confident, I hope it was a great bday!

Heading home

See y'all later!