An Awesome Week.

So the past 8 days were pretty sweet, I ended up spending a few days ice climbing around Lillooet and then this past weekend in Revelstoke trying my best to learn how to ski. I had only expected to make a day trip to Lillooet but after swinging my tools for an afternoon I booked a room and ended up staying five. All five days were awesome, conditions were quite good and I manage to climb several great routes I had never been on before. The three days skiing were also really fun, by the third day I was feeling substantially more comfortable but there were embarrassing moments. Perhaps having disproportionately long limbs would help explain why I found strapping even longer boards to my feet and then moving downhill at high speeds so awkward at times. The worst situation I found myself in all week was slowly sliding down the hill on my face, skis pointing uphill behind me, while children skied past effortlessly. I’m sure the people riding the lift directly above me while all this took place were enjoying themselves at that moment… not me.

Anyways, last Saturday woke up at 4am to drive to Marble Canyon, near Cache Creek, with my buddy Matt and his friend Steven who was going to be climbing ice for his first time. Matt also took me ice climbing for my first time when I was 15 and I was psyched, so it was cool to see him continuing to introduce others to the sport. Steven was psyched too, and killed it, climbing very intuitively despite it being his first day on ice tools. It was good to spend a whole afternoon climbing around on fat ice getting a feel for my new tools, a pair of DMM apex’s. Afterwards we crashed at a motel in Lillooet but Matt and Steven had to head home in the morning. I decided to book the room for another couple nights and had my friends drop me off on the Duffey Lake road near a route called ‘Sychronicity’.

I had never climbed ‘Synchronicity’ before knew it is considered one of the classics on the Duffey. It had appeared to be in nice shape on the drive up the previous day so I thought it could make for a good solo adventure. I walked in following some tracks and in an hour found myself at the ice and preparing to climb. I brought a rope to rappel, some cord to build threads, a couple screws and began cruising up the first easy pitches. The ice was good and the climbing went quickly and I shortly found myself below the final tier of the route. The ice on the left hand side looked good and was quite vertical so I decided to climb there rather than on the ramps to the right. As expected the climbing was great and the placements very secure, the position was also great with the valley floor a long ways down. At the very top of the route I climbed a delicate hollow tube which was more engaging then any of the more sustained ground below, but I found myself at the top of the route and rappelled back into the amphitheater below. ‘Synchronicity’ had not taken long and I had most of the day left, so I decided to climb another great looking route to the left called ‘Synchrotron’. The climbing was really fun, and being in a great head space after climbing one route already allowed me to move very fast. On the way down I noticed that the back of a beautiful pillar on the alternate ‘Mother’ finish looked to be in reasonable conditions so I soloed that as well. The climbing and position were phenomenal on the back of the steep pillar and at the top I found a narrow hole in the ice and squeezed through back onto the front to finish! After rapping back to the very bottom and hiking down to the creek I notice a frozen ice bridge spanning the river which allowed for a quick hike up to the road on the other side. Overall this was one of the sweetest ice climbing days I have had, soloing long moderate routes in a great setting! But I just realized how long that all took to type….. I seriously need to work on being concise so I don’t end up sitting on my computer ALL day.

                                      Steep ground on Synchronicity's upper tier.

                              The back of the 'Mother' pillar looking nice and fun!

                                   Soloing in behind the 'Mother' pillar.

                                          Super psyched on a rad solo day!

So the next two days I met up with my friends Francis and Lee and we climbed some nice lines in the Bridge River Canyon. The first day we climbed a route called Silk Degrees that doesn't form often. The first pitch was not touching down so we climbed moderate loose rock to the right and traversed back onto the ice for the 2^nd pitch. After finishing Silk Degrees we continued up a gulley and climbed ‘Silk Worm’ right to the top of the canyon wall. It started snowing and got dark as we tried to find the descent and spent some time in a narrow gulley searching for anchors while getting bombed by spindrift. It was a quick reminder of what ice climbing is all about, adventure! After much down climbing and some raps we were back at the creek crossing and the car.

The next day we drove back into the Bridge river and plugged up the hillside to a small basin housing two rarely formed columns. The right hand line called ‘A Four Dressed up as Six’ looked to be in a good shape so we climbed that. It was beautiful! Not a long pitch, but steep and technical climbing with decent gear. Above that, we continued up the hillside then traversed back into the gulley below a classic route called ‘Capricorn’.  The crux pitch was long and much steeper than in appeared from below, with some funky ice on the vertical sections, totally awesome! We rapped the ice and managed to walk through the woods back to the car without having to rappel. Another amazing day that went perfectly smoothly!

                                      Leading 'A Four Dressed up as Six'

                                               Lee approaching 'Capricorn'

Lee and Francis had to get back to work in the city, but on Wednesday Chris Geisler drove to Lillooet and picked me up at the Motel, after a breakfast stop in town we cruised back up the Duffey to try an unclimbed route left of Synchronicity. I had noticed this hanging dagger feature earlier in the season and thought that it may be possible to drytool the rock to the right to reach the ice. We really had no idea what to expect, so Chris packed the hand drill and a few short bolts just in case. We crossed the ice bridge I had found on my solo mission a few days earlier and soon found ourselves at the base of the route. We ran up 3 moderate pitches of ice and mixed steps then began planning our attack to get to the hanging dagger.

I began drytooling up some very loose features on a slab, not hard climbing but insecure with absolute shit protection for the first 20m or so. I made my way to a steeper alcove with some better pro, and after a bit of thrutching around I found a sideways nut I could lean out on and bust out the hand drill. I had never hand drilled a bolt before, and it was ardous… especially using the hammer on the back of my ice tool. Chris laughed while I spent the better part of 45 minutes pecking away with the drill. Eventually I got the bolt in and fired the crux traverse to the ice, good hooking on slightly overhanging rock with an insecure crux move right at the point where a fall could become bad again! Once on the ice I ran up to a belay ledge then Chris led straight through to the top of the ice! It was so rad to put up this new route on our first try and for it all to go relatively smoothly. I will never forget my first hand drilled bolt either. We called our route ‘Duplicity’ (WI4, M6 R) as it two main pitches contrast each other a lot. The first being runout mixed climbing with some very loose rock, and the second being beautiful moderate ice climbing.

                                         Leading the crux pitch of 'Duplicity'

                                   Chris leading the last pitch of 'Duplicity'

Here's a video Chris took while I was hand drilling... https://vimeo.com/59009455

The next day I was off to Revelstoke with my friend Brette to attempt skiing for the first time. Brette is a bad-ass skier and I felt bad while she waited patiently for me as I fell on my face, lost skis, crashed into trees and whatnot. But after the three days I felt I improved quite a bit, not great by any means, but I could get down the hill without falling so I was psyched…. I could really see how skiing is an incredibly valuable skill to have dialed for bigger mountain adventures. I think I am going to stick with it and try to improve my skills so I can get into ski mountaineering in the future! Just imagine skiing into a sick route, soloing it, and then shredding a gnarly chute on the way out or something along those lines. The only thing missing is a base jump off the summit!

Anyways, I’m done talking now, definitely don’t want to type anymore. But it looks like Squamish is going to have some bomb weather for rock climbing next week, so the adventures don’t have to stop anytime soon! Psyched.

          Poser Marc still smiling, blissfully unaware of the face plant soon to come.

Some Winter Adventures

Well... I've been meaning to update for a while but every time I sit down to write something I decide to wait until I return from that 'next adventure' so I have more to write about. Blah blah blah, just more excuses for being lazy. But anyways, I really have been having a tonne of fun since I last posted so I may as well say something about what I have been up to these past couple months.

It rained a lot in Squamish in November and December and there was not a whole lot of action around town as is typical of Squamish this time of year. But on one particularly clear and dry day in November I took a spin up to the Smoke Bluffs to check out a line called 'Smashing Windows' that I had tried earlier in the year only to get shut down by dicey smears and warm temperatures. Friction was excellent that day and I quickly unlocked the radical slabby sequence on the lower arete and sent the route on my third lead attempt. All I can say is what a sweet route. As soon as you leave the ground it's game on for the steep lower section and linking the crux in one go is a memorable experience!

Paul Mcsorley posted this shot of me on 'Smashing Windows' on facebook. So I stole it from there, thanks Paul!

After 'Smashing Windows' it rained... a lot... again... so I spent some time keeping myself sane by climbing in the gyms of Vancouver. Good times were had. There were some faceplants, spinning holds, I got in trouble for wearing street shoes on the mats and tried to find natural pro by tying off holds.

After a few weeks of tweaking out my tendons I decided to tone it down a little and check out a mellower zone called Helmcken Falls in the interior of B.C.

Helmcken is a 450ft waterfall in the interior of B.C, and spray from the waterfall blows back into the huge overhanging cave behind the falls and freezes to the rock creating 'alien like' ice sculptures. Will Gadd and Tim Emmett first explored the possibility of climbing these overhanging ice features and established the route 'Spray On' which was later extended to the top of the wall last year by Emmett and Klemen Premrl. Their route 'Spray On... Top' is more or less regarded as the wildest looking mixed climb in the universe, overhanging nearly as much as it is tall.

Chris Geisler spent some time climbing at Helmcken last winter and was psyched to go back, and I was psyched to check it out. So we drove straight from Vancouver to the falls and spent a couple days, along with Josh Lavigne, trying to establish another line in the cave. Unfortunately conditions were not quite ideal for climbing as the cone that usually develops at the base of the falls was not there to contain some of the wind/spray, so we were dealing with continuous high winds followed by raging spray and falling ice. We only climbed one short pitch of wildly steep ice features before deciding to high tail it out of there and wait for more settled conditions.

Can you say 'WOW'? Welcome to Helmcken Falls... Chris Geisler photo.

Although we didn't manage to climb a whole lot I am absolutely amped on our little adventure and cannot wait to get back ASAP. Hopefully we find the cave to be in safer conditions and can get some more climbing  done. I love this place and am more than happy to spend my time and $$$ to climb here in the winter. I can't imagine a more radical place to climb ice/mixed and the potential for new routes is endless. But there is a disclaimer.. this place is dangerous. You have to be in full alpine mode, always aware of what is happening around you, the objective hazard in some areas is some ways comparable to hanging out in a village with a sniper.

Here's some more photos to show how amazing this place is!

This last weekend was beautiful and very chilly here in Squamish, and great times were had chasing the sunshine with good friends. Conditions were perfect for climbing hard slabs, so I spent some time working on a new project of mine in the Smoke Bluffs. I did all the moves, and linked most of the climb clean but got shut down going for the send. Now my tips are cut up and bloody from pulling on razor sharp crystals. But this little route I am working on climbs really well, some very tricky and precise moves. But also dynamic and powerful on minuscule holds. It feels harder than any of the other slabs I have climbed in Squamish, but who knows? Maybe I'm reading the moves wrong? Always hard to tell with this kind of climbing. Looking forward to many more attempts in the near future, I am sure it will take a bit of work to get this thing done but will be well worth the effort. PSYCHED!

Exciting Eye Catching Title...

Well it has been 4 months since my last post, proving once again that I may be one of the least consistent bloggers alive. I've been pretty busy, climbing, working, keeping up with life, and a little bit of this...

and getting stoked for things like this:

 I will mention that I turned 20 last month and I also fully decked out my stairwell/foyer into a relatively sweet little living space, complete with artwork and trippy tapestries and whatnot. No more messy stairwell dwelling.

On the climbing side of things, the weather was SICK this fall and I wish I had been able to climb a bit more, but they days I got in were fantastic and I'll share some photos because pictures say 1,000 words... and I sure don't want to type that many words.

Alpine bad-ass Colin Haley following the Golden Throat Charmer. A stunning Croft/Fraser testpiece from the 80's. 

And here is a telephoto shot of us from the parking lot courtesy of Bruce Maconald. Cheers Bruce!

Here is my friend Brette cruising 'The Daily Planet', easily one of the funnest corners in all of Squamish... and Squamish has MANY fun corners.

This typically damp Smoke Bluffs classic finally dried up enough to climb this Fall, here is my friend Chris leading 'Elephantiasis'

More recently, we finally got some cold dry weather. These days are pure gold for climbing in the Smoke Bluffs, the rock just gets so sticky and things that feel impossible most of the year suddenly feel 'not that bad'.
The other day I managed to finish a slab at Penny Lane dubbed 'The Moth', I had tried it a year or two ago and got utterly shut down by the crux bulge at the top, but feeling psyhed and with excellent conditions, the line went down on my third attempt in two days. The route was given 13+ by the first ascentionist and certainly felt like 5.impossible+++ when I first tried it. But everything came together really well for the send and the entire thing felt smooth and super enjoyable. It's amazing the difference having really good conditions can make.

Now I have a couple new unclimbed projects in the bluffs, a desperate face at Easter Island and a beautiful open slab at Penny Lane. I rapped the latter of the two in the rain with a set of hooks this afternoon and found enough positive crystals that I believe I may be able to bolt it on lead, which would be fun to try. Looking forward to some more dry weather, and hopefully another post relatively soon... for real this time.

Peace!

Genius Loci

So the weather has improved dramatically since the last post I made, and there has been a lot of action around town. People have been crushing, locals and visitors alike, and I could probably write quite a bit about it. But right now I'm only going to talk about one particular climb because its sunny and I should be out climbing...

The first day the sun arrived I headed back up the quick drying 'Genius Loci' after work with my friend Brad Gobright. I had written off climbing for the day, as I had felt pretty drained and tired at work that day. I had also decided that evening time was not a suitable time to try the route, as the lower two slab pitches would be baking in the full sun, but we headed up anyways and things went fairly smoothly. I almost fell a couple time on the first pitch, and had to change beta on the fly at the last crux, but I made it to the belay ledge without pitching off. The only fall of the day came on the second pitch surprisingly, but I pulled the rope and led it clean second go. We finished the route just as it got dark and made the quick rappels to the ground.

The whole route is amazing, it takes a wandering line linking improbable features and eventually ends on the Sword pitch of the Grand Wall route. I think the final pitch would be a spectacular way to link the 'Left Side' into the Grand Wall as well. It climbs an exposed line, linking the 'Grinning Weasel" into 'The Sword' an is one of the raddest pitches I've climbed in town. Also, if anyone doesn't know the story behind 'Genius Loci' a team of local legends, including Hamish Fraser, established the route in 1991 placing all the bolts on lead. The route has character, like the first ascent party, and as expected it was a great experience to climb it.

We didn't bring a camera, so there aren't any pics to post, but I'll see if I can find one off the web..

This believe this is a shot of Greg Foweraker (leading) and Hamish Fraser on pitch 4, which climbs a traversing dyke over to the Left Side of the split pillar.

Also, the Squamish Mountain Festival came to town, and put on the Flashed Dyno comp again. A fun little even held at the Squamish Adventure Center. The mens category was big this year, and there seemed to be a tonne of strong indoor/competitive climbers around. Somehow lankiness prevailed and I juuuuuust managed to scrape 1st place based on fall count, winning a nice new crash pad for the house.

But the real action was on the ladies side, Canadian national team member Elise Sethna broke a world record! Here's a vid of that... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxtotQfSNww&feature=youtu.be

Hoping to get on something cool this weekend, so maybe I'll have something to write about soon... peace.

The Dreaded First Blog Post...

So after two years of living and climbing in Squamish I have decided to start a blog sharing some of my thoughts and adventures. I am new to this so bear with me, I will try and keep things interesting and entertaining but I can't make any promises. Anyhow I will try and get things going here...

So right now I am living in a house with three of my best friends and climbing buddies where I rent the stairwell and front entrance space for 180$/month. My bed at the moment is a queen size air mattress inflated inside a 3ft/8ft room that folds up on each side and swallows you whole when you lay down on it. It may not be the most glamorous sleeping arrangement however rent is cheap and I use my money for more important things such as beer, ice cream, cookies, and sometimes rock climbing.

 Here is a shot of my stairwell below, as you can see I did not bother cleaning it before sharing a photo. I want this blog to accurately portray who I am... I am not a person who keeps his stairwell tidy.

Living with you best friends is pretty rad. Sometimes there are minor disagreements about who is responsible for the dishes in the sink, or why I have my entire wardrobe strewn about on the living room floor, but all around I think we get on pretty well here. Here's a shot of my roomies and myself hanging out in Smith Rock, Oregon. We look pretty fly for Canadians eh?

Right to left... Richie, Tyler, Luke and myself.

As far as actual climbing goes, things have been pretty damp around Squamish so far this year, but this is about to change... I hope. There actually have been many dry days and climbing has been going well. My project I have been working on the North Walls of the Chief for a while is approx 5/6 complete. Every pitch goes free, I just need a solid dry weekend day to climb the route from the ground. It's a beautiful line and I can't wait to finish it, more on this soon hopefully.

I managed to squeeze out a couple amazing after work sessions on the Chief last week as well. This time trying a possibly unrepeated line on the Grand Wall called 'Genius Loci'. Hamish Fraser and friends put up this testpiece route in 1991 in ground up style, drilling the protection bolts on lead. The route is of amazing quality, with fun and varied climbing ranging from desperate friction to steep pumpy crack climbing. The climb has a lot of character and you certainly have to 'go for it' through most of the crux sections which makes for an engaging climbing experience. Again, more on this soon I hope...

Here's a shot of me heading up pitch 1. I found myself dealing with missing bolt hangers and some dirty holds on this pitch, which kept things interesting.

Jason Kruk photo.

That's it for now, hopefully the weather will change for the better so I can get back on these routes and have something to follow this post up with. Ciao!