Climbing Main
Best of the Best
Beta
Squamish
Central BC
Skaha
Northwest BC
BC Alpine
Rockies
Trip Reports
Photo Gallery
Links
|
|
 |
|
Ben on the roof fist crack
of Skallawag
|
We started up the climb, the soft and featured desert sandstone seeming somehow foreign after spending most of the winter aiding on smooth and solid granite. Ben started climbing, complaining about cold toes and numb fingers, and muttering about how nuts we were to be climbing in these temperatures and that back in Australia they wouldn’t think of climbing in anything less than 35 degree weather. Despite the inhuman (or at least unAustralian) conditions, Ben persevered and soon enough was leading the next pitch. Despite a propensity for dropping nuts and other gear (more on that later) Ben was soon up into the warm sunshine. Above, the climbing got easier and the routefinding more difficult but less important, as we simulclimbed 3 or 4 pitches to the base of the enormous right facing corner that is the top half of the route
A short exposed traverse led to the corner proper, with a delightful crack and featured walls. The crack was amazingly consistent in size, and soon our meager supply of 1.5 friends was exhausted. Fantastic stemming up the airy corner eventually led into a chimney and some steep moves to the belay. I took the next pitch as well, a short 5.9+ thin seam with two redundant bolts to a big loose block – hmm… better put that back where I found it before I drop it on my belayer – then a beautiful sharp crack to the belay. Or at least it should have been. For some reason I skipped the obvious crack in favor of the broken and loose corner, but it all worked out anyway. Ben took the next pitch, up the dihedral again, the walls now smooth and varnished with a fantastic Indian Creek style crack offering great finger locks. Better not blow the feet, those fingers would probably stay in the crack as the rest of you went sailing down! I took the last pitch, spending more time testing hollow flakes than climbing, but eventually we were both sitting in the sun on the summit slabs. A bit of exploring and we found the 2 raps for the descent, then endless slabs to the wash, and an hour of boulder-hopping returned us to the car from our first big day.
The next day we took it easy, sleeping in until 7am, then off to Calico Basin for some trad cragging. The rock quality ranged from questionable to appalling – there’s nothing quite like RP’s in soft sandstone or precariously perched 100kg loose flakes to make you think. But there was some good climbing too, most notably the roof fist crack of Skallawag, and the delightful bomber jams of Valentines Day. Oh, and Ben – true to form – dropped his belay device which became forever lost in the talus.
 |
|
Delightful stems and jams
on Valentines Day
|
Monday was another late start, but we were still on the road by 9am in search of Black Velvet Canyon. We managed to find it without incident, and my car took the abuse of the rough dirt back roads quite admirably. A brisk 45 minute hike led us to the base of the impeccable 500 metre wall (most routes only go to a ledge half way up). Our original plan was to hop on Prince of Darkness or maybe Dream of Wild Turkeys, but as we arrived at the wall there were two parties just starting up, one on each of our planned routes. Instead of sitting in the cold at the base, we decided to hop on the first pitch of Gobbler and wait to see which party was faster.
As we finished that pitch the other parties were both still low, so we decided to do the next pitch as well. Ben brought up a light rack, and just as he started the party above on DoWT bailed. Ok, let’s do this pitch and link it into DoWT! Do you have the topo? Uh, no. Know what gear we need? Not sure, this rack should be fine. Where does it go? I don’t know, somewhere up there I guess? So Ben started out making good progress through the delightful jamcrack at the bottom, slowing to a crawl as he wormed his way into the flaring offwidth crack above. Much grunting and squirming ensued, before a devilish grin crossed his face and some final thrashing and cursing brought him up and into the chimney. After much humming and hawing about which bolts to follow on the face above and if we had enough rope, Ben belayed from the top of the chimney. Soon enough it was my turn to suffer through the offwidth, and the devilish grin returned to Ben’s face. What are you smiling about? Oh just thinking about some magazine article, how offwidths are great because you get to watch the look on your seconds face as he struggles up it!
 |
|
Cutting loose on the roof
of Skallawag
|
Above we made an educated guess at which line of bolts was the right one, and I started out on the delightful crimpy wall. Steep, solid, always a reasonably good hold, but never a jug, the climbing was fantastic. Turns out we had chosen the right line, and soon we were in the big corner of DoWT, thankfully protected from the cold wind now funneling down the valley. Ben quickly dispatched the next pitch, running out the last half as we didn’t have much gear. For the pitch above, I opted for a thin face crack on the right instead of the wide groove in the corner. Grab the jug and pull, and repeat… and repeat. Wow, 10metres up, better get some gear! After the choss we had been climbing on the day before, it felt great to just grab and pull with wild abandon. At the top of the corner, a mess of stupidly placed bolts signaled a balancy traverse to a hanging belay. By the time Ben reached me, he was muttering about the cold again as the wind had picked up, so I took the next pitch as well. Thanks Ben! A full 60 metre pitch, no move harder than 5.9 and not many easier, every move requiring thought and trust in the small crimps which littered the wall, with no good rests. Bolts had seemed to have sprung up everywhere, old 1/4 inchers, some on the face, some beside perfect nuts placements in the crack. At one point it was just too much so I had to skip the bolts in favour of placing gear. Ben started up the final pitch, the same crack as in the previous pitch, but this time devoid of bolts. On the bolted face above he ran out of draws and had to borrow some from the party rapping Prince of Darkness. And then we were on top, enjoying a granola bar and a good ledge to sit on before contemplating the raps. Wind blown ropes kept getting stuck on the featured wall as we made our way from one cramped hanging belay station to the next, but finally we were pulling the ropes for the last time, and they managed to land in the only puddle visible in the entire canyon. At the car just after dark, then camp, dinner, sleep, and repeat.
 |
|
Ben on The Meister's Edge
|
Well, sort of. The next day was our quasi-rest day, so we headed to the Second Pullout for pictures and hard sport routes. We posed and flailed our way up The Meister’s Edge, resorting to all manor of devious tactics like pulling on draws and stepping in slings before finally admitting that we had met our match. We redeemed ourselves by climbing similarly graded but much easier generic sport routes before heading in to town for showers and beers and a new belay device for Ben. Back at camp, we lived it up into the wee hours of the night – about 11pm, before finally exhausting our supplies of cheap wine and hitting the sack in preparation for an early start the next day.
Yet again I was awake an hour before the alarm went off, probably because the tent was too squished and Ben kept elbowing me in the face. But at least it made it easier to be up and on the road early, into the loop road at 6:02, Pine Creek parking lot at 6:18, only one other vehicle in the parking lot! Hmm, will they be on our route (Chrimson Crysalis) or Chris and Aili’s (Cat in the Hat)? Ahh, but there written in the dirt on the side of the truck it says Black Dagger, perhaps we are both in the clear! So we settled into relaxed mode finishing sorting gear and were on the trail by quarter to seven. Despite a fine trail, we managed to get lost a couple times on the approach, reaching the base in just under an hour.
Just as we reached the top of the approach ramp our hopes of being first on the route were dashed as there was another party just starting to rack up. Well, maybe they’ll be fast. We sat down to wait while they organized themselves and started on the route. The leader, Em, made steady (in a somewhat glacial sense of the word) progress, stopping regularly to fiddle with big bros and extra large camalots. It kind of made me wonder weather our light rack of a few mid size cams and some nuts would be enough, but hey, the first pitch was Ben’s, and it was the widest one. So what did I have to worry about? At least I didn’t have to carry all that extra weight up on the approach! We sat around enjoying the warm sunshine at the base. Meanwhile, Em continued up the pitch, at one point getting a bit sketched in an awkward chimneyish bit a ways above her last piece and launching into far away the most impressive display of profanity I’ve ever heard from a woman of her age. WATCHMESHITFUCKFUCKI’MGONNAFALLFUCKJESUSCHRIST FUCKINGFUCKWATCHMEFUCKINGSHITFUCKFUCKFUCK. It seemed to work though and soon enough she was safely above and at the belay.
 |
|
Juniper Canyon
|
By 10 we were started on the route, giving the party above a 2 pitch head start. Ben took his time on the first pitch occasionally wandering onto the face in search of cracks which would take is small gear, I took the pitch above, ignoring the wide crack in the back of the chimney (as we had no wide gear) in favour of stemming and face climbing, ending up at a shared hanging belay with the party above. We let them get up a ways before I set off again. The steep wall was littered with jugs, most being solid, and had occasional well spaced bolts to supplement the crack. I settled into a steady rhythm linking the next two pitches: hit the hold once to see if it was solid, grab it, yard up, and repeat. Stopping every 7 or 8 metres to clip a bolt or fiddle some gear, the pitch flew by. Soon I reached a small ledge where Em and Bruce had decided to wait to let us through, and had even built us an anchor so we could be faster and not in each other’s way. Much appreciated - thanks a lot!
Above, more beautiful featured rock. Overhanging cracks hundreds of feet off the deck – and they are only 5.8! We swapped leads as the angle decreased, and the cracks were replaced with a wandering bolt line. Then only real excitement came as something started falling from up high. Rock! I yelled to warn the party below, then looked closer and realized it was Ben’s belay device, the very on he bought the night before!
Soon we had reached the dark rock at the top of the formation. I had heard this section described as chocolate granite, and it is an apt description. The dark brown rock is so solid that it is like nothing else I have seen at red rocks, split by delightful curving cracks and littered with small crimps. We linked the last two pitches and pulled over the top into glorious warm sunshine and a fantastic view in all directions. 2.30 and we were at the top! Not bad for a 1000’ route. And kind of nice to be able to enjoy a sunny summit without being rushed to descend.
We decided to hang out in the sunshine, as Em and Bruce were making good time only a couple pitches below and we didn’t want to make a mess rapping through. After half an hour though sun had slipped behind rainbow mountain and the wind picked up. By quarter to four we decided to rap anyway, as it was getting a bit too cold. Everything went well for the first 6 raps, despite Ben’s improvised setup twisting the rope badly. Just as we finished pulling the rope for the second last rap however, it caught on something. We both started pulling, flicking it, whatever, nothing seemed to move it. Well, we could climb back up there… or we could just wait for Em and Bruce to come down and free it.
We lazily waited at the cold hanging belay until Bruce reached the station above us. Wow!. Wow!. That’s amazing! Your rope’s tied itself in a knot through the rap rings! Apparently the horribly twisted rope had so much twist in it that as it flipped through the ring in tied itself in a not. But that was soon remedied, and we were at the base coiling ropes and drinking water and started on the descent. More wrong turns on the way down, and by the time we reached the car it was 7pm and there was a nice ticket waiting on my windshield. Oh well, that can go in the glove compartment beside the speeding ticket I got last fall.
Back to camp, pack up, pack up, pack up. 10pm, on the road. Stop for dinner. Back on the road. Fight the exhaustion, gotta get to Joshua Tree! No traffic, fun roads, just have to make sure I don’t fall asleep. Or how about you drive, Chris. That takes care of the problem.
 |
|
Bouldering in the Outback
on a snowy winter day
|
Hidden Valley Campground, 2am. Perfect, one spot left. Next day, lazy morning, into town for food, gas, water. Back at camp, good lunch. Then off to the Old Woman. Someone’s on Double Cross, so howsabout Dogleg. Hmm, can’t get off the ground. Can I get a spot someone? Oh, that’s right, 5.8 in JT is not the same as 5.8 at Red Rocks! Some more casual cragging and basking in the sun (and out of the wind), then time for dinner and the end of another day.
Next day dawns sort of cloudy and a tad brisk. Or as Ben saw it, fucking ridiculous, much too cold to climb. Ignoring his complaints, we head off to outhouse rock. Seeking out routes in the sun, I hop on Strawberry Jams while Chris climbs the chimney. I hang out up top to take pictures of Ben leading Strawberry Jams. But first I have to wait for Chris and Aili to finish their route. A bit windy up top, refreshingly cool. Ben meanwhile is complaining about the cold down below. Eventually everything is sorted and Ben starts up the route, whining about numb hands and he can’t feel the holds and what are we doing here anyway. It’s not that bad, really. Ben reaches the top, we rap down, Chris cleans the route, and it begins to snow. Ok, maybe it was a bit cold. The snow chases us off the big rocks, so we find some good bouldering instead, then head back to camp for lunch as the weather improves. After lunch, some climbing and posing on the rocks just behind the campsite, then off to flail our way up Hot Rocks, a fantastic steep and thin finger crack. A bit out of my league, so we drop a top rope on it. Fantastic just-barely-fingerlocks lead to the most incredible hand jam ever. Slightly overhanging, full bodyweight jams. Unable to resist, I cut the feet loose and dangle by one arm off the jam. Ben then gets on and makes a bit of a mess of the climb, leaving bits and pieces of his fingers which are falling apart (because of the cold, he says). Next day maybe we’ll come back and lead it
But the next day is completely void of ambition, so we leave it be and pack up, off to Indian Cove. Maybe it will be warmer there. No, still cold and cloudy and windy. Only difference is that it is swarming with guides and top roping clients and the rock is really sharp and painful and the routes are short and anyway we decide to call it a trip. Stop for pizza in 29 palms, then on the road for the long haul home.
Back home, it is warm and sunny. Warmer even than Joshua Tree maybe. At least Ben should be happy here.
