Jim Brennan
Trad climber
Vancouver Canada
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They never let anyone on that rig even when it was Coast Mountain Sports.
Really true !
Park Royal Mall had endless handcracks between precast concrete planks in the parkades as well as the ground level stone work. Exceptionally painful though...
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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They never let anyone on that rig even when it was Coast Mountain Sports.
Really true !
Uh... Really False! They let me on it. And someone who was with me. Maybe one of my sons? Can't remember.
Automatic top belay rig was pretty freaky the first time I used it. Get to the top of the wall, and... and... and... Modern part of brain says it must be fine to just let go, but ancient remnant brain says NO!
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Jim Brennan
Trad climber
Vancouver Canada
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Really true was about the mall but I'm happy someone got to climb that wall at CMS. They closed it pretty quickly after building it.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 3, 2013 - 10:45pm PT
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What a shame! It's pretty tall!!
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Bruce Kay
Gym climber
BC
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one more thumbs up for the eatons wall. That thing is the gunsmoke traverse of a vancouver winter.
And the roof cracks! Too bad bouldering pads hadn't been invented then, although you'd really need quite a few. If I recall rightly, most of the column cracks were mostly just a little off size but there was one that was perfect hands up the columns, across the roof for fifteen feet, then you had to reverse it to get down safely.
We only got booted off occasionally when some pole up the butt west van bag would march straight to customer service to complain about the unseemly riff raff probably high on drugs and causing a public disturbance. It was a taste of what the Mundays were up against back in the thirties.
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harryhotdog
Social climber
north vancouver, B.C.
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There was also the church, Epiphany chapel on your way out to UBC along Chancellor blvd. It had a nice granite wall with the tell tale signs of rock climbers all across the wall. It was high also if you wanted to recreate soloing and safer too as the Lord was taking care of you.
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TheSoloClimber
Trad climber
Vancouver
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BK, where were these roof cracks you speak of?
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Tami
Social climber
Canada
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We need to dig up ol' Andy Spat and get him to replay his Eaton's Wall experience. Or was that Ed?
We tried climbing at the Eaton's wall when the store was open. Hahahaha. Security chased us off. Snicker, haha.
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Jim Brennan
Trad climber
Vancouver Canada
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Horse face Grace chased us off once. It was an honor:
The Minister of Frumpy Shoes and Handbag Whapping, G. McCarthy.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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We only got booted off occasionally when some pole up the butt west van bag would march straight to customer service to complain about the unseemly riff raff probably high on drugs and causing a public disturbance. It was a taste of what the Mundays were up against back in the thirties.
Don & Phyl bouldered on the Eaton's wall in the thirties?
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Tami
Social climber
Canada
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No, David.
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Bruce Kay
Gym climber
BC
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Phyl Munday had to cross the inlet and ride the tram up the north shore in her proper dress before finally changing into more useful mountaineering trunks so as not to offend the local Taliban.
I have heard that the Vancouver high society then were higher than kites so as to compensate for their close proximity to mother nature which in that era - and to an extent still is - was considered beneath a certain social status.
Huh, so that pole up the a*# was Grace McCarthy? Awesome!
solo - I'll take a page from Stinging nettle and leave the mystery and adventure of dodging the heat and pole-up-the- butts to your imagination and pleasure - enjoy the hunt! (bring tape)
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MH2
climber
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Did Don & Phyl have anything to do with Squamish? Were they West Vancouverites? Some old guy on the bus once told me that he knew one of them through some (alpine?) garden club.
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Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
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Did Don & Phyl have anything to do with Squamish? Were they West Vancouverites? Some old guy on the bus once told me that he knew one of them through some (alpine?) garden club.
They had nothing to do with climbing at Squamish. I never knew Don, but that definitely was not something that remotely interested Phyl. What was important to her (and probably him, too) was just being in the mountains. And that became especially true later in their lives.
They lived in North Vancouver, not far above the Upper Levels Highway, between Lonsdale and Mountain Highway. Small little house; it's probably gone by now. One of my prized possessions is a photo of Waddington taken by Don from the top of Munday on the first ascent in 1930; this photo hung above Phyl's fireplace for years.
I didn't know that Phyl was in the Alpine Garden Club, but it wouldn't surprise me at all. She loved flowers and gardens. She and Don had planned a book of photos featuring their flower photos, but Don's death intervened. The book never appeared, but around 1958 Home Oil produced a 16-page colour pamphlet containing many of Phyl's wildfower photos.
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Tami
Social climber
Canada
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Andy - The Mundays also had a place on Grouse Mtn - before they moved to Tempe Cresc in N Van. I never visited the house ( my mother knew Mrs Munday from Girl Guides ) but Googlemaps has 373 Tempe Cres there - most of the houses look pretty well established.
But Glenn got the rest of it bang-on.
My parents ( and those of Bruce Kay & Randy A among others.........) would take the ferry to Squamish & board the train there & go to Garibaldi Stn to head into Black Tusk meadows. The Chief was just a great big lump as far as they were concerned. Ask Anders..........but I don't think it was until the late '50's that anybody got around to ogling the thing as a climbing destination........
........although I once heard a story the Squamish Nation would launch canoes off the lower reaches of the Apron.
Yowszza!!!!
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Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
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The Chief was just a great big lump as far as they were concerned. Ask Anders..........but I don't think it was until the late '50's that anybody got around to ogling the thing as a climbing destination........
I just found out yesterday (courtesy of old diaries) that I spent considerable time in the Touch & Go Towers (west of Squam, across the river) before setting foot on the Chief. And that only happened because one day we went to Squamish and found the suspension bridge across the river was gone! So we turned to the Chief....
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Relic
Social climber
Vancouver, BC
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Wow that's crazy Tricouni. Bypassing the chief to canoe? to little cliffs?
Ohh, suspension bridge. I wish there was still one up there!
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harryhotdog
Social climber
north vancouver, B.C.
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When I was house hunting in 1990 we went to their house when it was up for sale. The scumbag realtor was touting that it was owned by some famous mountaineers and that some old 8mm film footage was found in the attic and that it would come with the purchase of the house.
I immediately got in touch with the BCMC about it and never did find out what became of the footage.
You were right about the house being small,it was tiny even by 1920 standards but why do need a big house when your true passion is the outdoors?I believe they built it themselves also.
Tricouni do you know anything about this film footage?
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 4, 2013 - 08:30pm PT
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that only happened because one day we went to Squamish and found the suspension bridge across the river was gone! So we turned to the Chief....
Did you miss this relic? ;)
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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My parents ( and those of Bruce Kay & Randy A among others.........) would take the ferry to Squamish & board the train there & go to Garibaldi Stn to head into Black Tusk meadows. The Chief was just a great big lump as far as they were concerned. Ask Anders..........but I don't think it was until the late '50's that anybody got around to ogling the thing as a climbing destination........
My ex-father-in-law was a climber. He was a Brit, who wound up as a prof at Oxford, but in his younger years he was a climber. Even did some early ascents in the Himalayas. But he did spend some time in the Northwest US/Southwest Canada, and told me stories about climbs of Mt Garibald that involved trains and boats, and wilderness. But for him, and others of his time, Squamish was just a town, and that big cliff above it wasn't anything at all.
I took him up on something on the Chief -- Sparrow, I think -- and he loved that. Don Serl and I also took him into the Waddington Range, and climbed some not-so-technical things with him. Funny trip, because there were several "old people" who were, then, exactly the age that Don and I are now.
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