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!