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brownie
Trad climber
squamish
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Speaking of hammers...
Squamish Photos, and a Story..
March, 2015
BBZZ’ing goes the alarm on my phone. I jolt upright. My bag is already packed so I focus on mixing an epic bowl of oatmeal and preparing the aero-press while the kettle warms up. As the coffee brews and the oatmeal soaks I use the empty minutes to lighten my load, then I enjoy a smoke with the warm cup of caffeine in the colorless pre-dawn cold of my back porch. Efficiency is key today, no time to waste.
Cormier pulls into the driveway, he already has his helmet on. I throw my bag in the truck and hop in after it and we accelerate onto quiet squamish streets. After we park on the dirt road below the Chief’s North Wall’s we lighten my backpack by a pipeload or two. Light is fast, fast is safe, as they say.
Our bags are not too heavy as we head up into the woods (our rack ends at a #1 camalot, a friend ensured us he had not encountered any cracks bigger then an 2 inches, so we ditched the big gear). The early morning light shows us the way to the base of the cliff, where an ancient fixed line greets us. Harnesses are plucked from bags and we scurry up the mossy rope. At the top a nice ledge is waiting for us, the beginning of the first pitch; the last time I was here it was miserable, three hours of cowering in a small alcove while a waterfall poured down my neck. My partner was at-least moving upwards and did not notice the cold till he reached the top of the pitch. Nearly hypothermic we had turned tail and shivered all the way home.
But now the weather is clear and the rock is dry. I feel relaxed and comfortable and a growing curiosity motivates me to go higher. I leave Luke at the belay as I start up easy ground towards a leaning corner system. The corner system is a mix of good cams and some expanding flakes, one of which I place our only #1 behind. The final 20 feet is a wild time, I place inverted cam-hooks straight up into an ever-thinning flake. Carefully I watch each piece as I wait it and jiggle it until I am happy with the way the steel is bending. Finally I realize how big of a fall I might take if one of the precarious placements pops and I hammer a stubby knife-blade into the thin seam to reach the anchor.
Luke cleans the pitch as I organize the gear. When he reaches the #1 he discovers the expanding flake has pinched the cam and will not release it. Now we have no gear bigger then a 3/4 inch crack, I look up at the looming white roofs and hope we will not be f*#ked somewhere higher up.
The second pitch has long run outs between bolts and requires a steady head. It is Luke's first time back in the aid stirrups in a long time. He carefully balances hooks on the good edges and walks his way into a high step of his etriers, crimping on edges for balance. I smoke cigarettes while he styles the technical crux of the route. As he nears the belay I realize he forgot the tagline, meaning he could not haul our bag. It is not that heavy though so I clean the pitch trailing the bag behind me while he waits. Once I get to the belay I hand him the lead end of the tag-line and he sets off into the traversing third pitch. It’s been 3 hours since we left the ground.
A horizontal crack leads him out left for 30 feet until the crack swoops downwards like a wing tip. As he begins moving down the wing-tip I watch him place his next piece, the cam expands behind the flake with his body-weight and suddenly he is swinging as the flake snaps and slowly but surely accelerates.
“ROOOOCCKK!!!” Luke begins yelling before the record player sized rock is 10 feet below him, I join in and we shout the alarm with urgency. There shouldn’t be anyone below us I think as I watch the flake spinning in the air. It impacts on the tongue of slab that sticks out from the base of the wall and shotguns into the woods. Then I hear screaming, some woman is screaming from where the f*#king rock just hit. Holy f*#k. What the f*#k?? Luke is still in the middle of his lead, no doubt shaken by the close call. In Yosemite: two years ago, a climber we had met had pulled a block off and it had ended in tragedy. I can only imagine what Luke is thinking as he swings in his etrier trying to figure out how to continue on. I scream down into the woods as the woman continues to shout and I can hear a man as well, my mind spins as I try to figure out who is down there and why? I remember telling my friend Hannah we would be on the wall today, maybe it is her and Andrew? I yell down the question. The man below responds and it is not Andrew but another Squamish local who I have met before, he informs us his climbing partner is ok. The block had erupted around them, one sizeable chunk of which had grazed the toque that was on the woman’s head. I could now make out her shouts, over and over, she was excitedly screaming “I’m alive!”.
Yikes.
Luke continues on, finding the supposedly easier terrain after the traverse confusing. I clean the pitch as quick as I can and join him at the belay ready to take over the lead. From above the traversing flake; Luke points out that one can look straight through the back of the massive wing. We can also see that the great white roofs are closer now and I start climbing before I can think about what I might find up there.
The pitch drags on, I play music from my phone and it’s tiny speaker gives some solace. I can hear Luke talking to the people who nearly got squished; they are climbing a free route out left, it’s as if nearly dying from rock fall was commonplace for these psychotic monkeys. Squamish people are awesome. I reach the first bulging roof and spot a bolt over the lip but cannot figure out how to reach it. Over and over I step from my nylon ladders and place my feet as high as I can in an attempt to reach around the lip but I can barely make the move no matter how I adjust my body position. Each time I make the reach I have to pull straight out on a fixed piton, a rusted old relic of the first ascent and I can see where time and water have eaten through the steel that is keeping me attached to the rock. I finally realize I am wasting time so I ask if Cormier has some tape to attach a carabiner onto the end of the hammer. He has a small roll of electrical tape that does the trick and with some luck I am able to clip the bolt. Now that I am over the first bulge the main roof stares into my soul and I make my way up to it and begin clipping gear towards the lip. I look down at Luke and the tagline arcs through the air 30 feet from the cliff until it swoops back to the belay.
(BigMikephoto)
The song ends on my phone and another begins, the atmosphere changes as well and my ridiculous position seems incredibly perfect. I savor the exposure before I pull onto the headwall and make some big reaches between rivets towards the anchor. I arrive as the late day sun wraps around the chief and colors my surroundings a deep orange. A few bolts lead off the belay so I climb till the rope runs out. I only make it 20 feet.
It is 5:30pm, climbing through the roofs has taken 3 hours. Luke cleans the roofs and by the time he arrives at the belay it is dark. Soon after I am lost, the route up till now had been obvious to follow and I begin to feel distraught as I search for the path onwards. The early stages of dehydration have set in and I try to settle my breathing and repair the dents in my mental armor. Upwards and onwards. The only way down is up. I repeat these silly mantras in my head and focus on making upward progress. Place a piece of gear, bounce test, weight it, search for next placement, repeat. I follow these steps until finally I reach the anchor below the last pitch. I pull up only 5 meters of rope before Luke shouts up that there’s no more to spare. Another 55 meter pitch? I am in awe and exhausted after seven hours of sustained and steep trickery.
I desperately haul the bag up towards me, my throat is dry and my tongue feels fat. I do not realize the bags are just below me and they slam into the web of nylon that is connecting us to the wall. I jerk to attention and begin digging in the bag for my water bottle, a half liter is all I have left and it vanishes in two gulps but my mouth is still like sandpaper. The nozzle of Luke’s platypus bladder pokes out of the open bag and I do not hesitate when I take a few sneaky sips, he must have more, I assume.
When Luke joins me at the belay he looks tired, there is one more pitch of climbing above us till we reach Sasquatch ledge. Luke’s lead. He digs out the hose to drink some water but he barely gets a sip before the flow stops. He pulls the bladder out and it is empty. He looks at me questioningly and asks if I drank it. I stammer a confession through a wave of overwhelming guilt. “Don’t you have more?” I ask in disbelief. “No.” he responds. I feel terrible, I thought he had reserves and I didn’t think I had finished the bladder.
“It’s kind of funny, don’t you think?” I ask Luke, thinking back to our ascent of the Leaning Tower when I had pulled a similar move in a similarly desperate situation. Though on the Tower we had found three gallon bottles of water at the summit, the odds of that happening again were slim.
“I don’t really see what’s funny” Luke responds with venom in his voice before climbing away from the belay and his greedy, selfish climbing partner. I am left in the dark with my thoughts as he consumes himself in the pitch. Soon I am drifting off, barely able to keep my eyes open. I position the rope under my head so when it comes tight it jerks me awake so I can feed out slack. The lights of Squamish twinkle far below and Orion’s Belt slowly appears above the Chief. I want to lay down on something flat. It feels like time has stopped, Luke is somewhere out of sight and I hope he can forgive me for my folly. Though at that moment he has forgotten about the water and is tenuously hooking around wide sections of crack that he has no gear for. The final easy pitch has turned into a halfway horror show for him. Thankfully, he perseveres.
“Lead line is fixed!” Luke finally yells down to me and I lower out the haulbag and begin ascending with some relief knowing the rope will lead me to the top. I reach the ledge exhausted to find Luke with a big sh#t-eating grin on his face, I apologize again as I pull up the rope and slump beside him. He passes me the flask of whiskey and I pack pipeloads while we reminisce about the craziness of the day. It is 1:30am, 18 hours since we began climbing. Sasquatch Ledge is only 15 feet wide and more of a long stretched out cave then a ledge, where we sit the roof is only 4 feet off the floor. Rather then try and get down in the dark we decide to take a nap till the sun comes up again so we spread our ropes over the soft dirt floor and fall into a deep dreamless sleep.
When I wake up I can not feel my feet and it feels as if I have stumps below my shins. I slap my calves and stamp around to push blood back into them while we smoke and sip whiskey for breakfast. The unrelenting thirst has dissipated over-night, as had the sting of my water pilfering; it was almost laughable now, almost.
The first 15 feet of the caveledge forced us to crawl on our hands and knees but soon we were scampering along with our backs scraping the roof. The ledge widened and it was possible to skirt the edge to avoid stooping, in the narrow sections we dragged our bags behind us. We continued like this for a few hundred feet until the ledge narrowed into nothing. My cold, tired brain was alarmed. Another ledge continued traversing left but it was 20 feet above us and a short steep wall blocked our path. Luke belayed me as I wandered to the narrow end of the ledge where a happy little bolt ladder was waiting to be discovered. In a stiff and achy sort of way I reached the next ledge and fixed the rope and continued onwards towards Angel’s Crest and our descent route. With some confusion we arrived at the rap-route into the North Gully –a notoriously loose area of the chief– and had a smoke about it, knowing now that we were getting close to level ground. Our combined knowledge and skills allowed us to safely and efficiently descend into the gully, a potentially hazardous zone for a tired wall climber. And soon we were leaving the talus scar of the gully for the soft brown earth of the forest. Our pace was steady and after a few minutes we could make out the road below. Then a voice called out through the trees and a big white dog came bounding up the trail. It was Luke’s dog Xia! And behind the dog was Aislinn, Luke’s lovely wifey. With espresso and breakfast wraps! We all sat in the middle of the trail and Luke and I busily burrowed into the hashbrowns and eggs all wrapped up in a tortilla. After a ciggie and some stories of the adventure the three of us and the dog wandered down to the road arriving at the truck, 28 hours after we left it the day before.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Difficult! Thanks for making the couch here feel so comfortable.
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Synchronicity
Trad climber
British Columbia, Canada
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Nice impromptu TR and photos! Really gets the wall stoke going again
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Nice work on Cowboys and Indians!
It was a toil fest on the FA but an awesome adventure.
The route name was inspired by the fact that we have a Sheriff's Badge on a Chief.
I had tried the route back in the early nineties and returned after a hiatus to complete it.
Fixed the first pitch then climbed to Sasquatch and rapped the route in two bivis.
What was really cool was having Greg Shannon (who did the FA of the original Badge route) and Steve Sutton (who did the 2nd ascent solo) and Steve's gal Angie unexpectedly meet me at the base with beers and help getting the mountain of gear back to the road.
I did the route again with Cozzy pretty much repeating Luke and Brownie's style climbing to Sasquatch in about 16-18 hours and spending the night before the heinous gully descent in the AM.
For what it's worth, in the finest Bridwell tradition several pitches were named.
The traversing 3rd pitch is The Scalping Party.
(Sounds like someone almost got scalped when Luke broke a piece off!)
The flakes up to the roof are The Flapjacks and the roof is the Reservation Overhang.
The final easier upper corners are Where the Buffalo Roam.
While we're on the subject of the Badge, hats off to Tony McLane for linking the Daily Planet through the roof to the upper original Badge route free at 12b for The Daily Universe.
Stellar effort Tony!
PB
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 8, 2015 - 11:45am PT
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
THIS!
Is what i come here for.
Excellent tale Kieran! Thanks for that! Even better in written form.
Thanks to Perry too for the FA recap!!
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RyanD
climber
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Yes, great stuff Brownie and Perry! The new free route up there looks amazing. Rumour has it there may be more to come in that area......
It's been awhile and I'm soaked enough here so may as well jump in and share/spray a brownie tale as well instead of being a total stain.
So here goes...
We walked up into the mountains a few weeks ago and climbed on top of a bunch of them.
Then we walked up and around and eventually down some mountain called Pelion until we eventually got to a trail as it got dark. We checked rations which consisted of a salami stump, a pouch of idahoan garlic mash and a 160mg lemon sativa cookie. We consumed in that order and zombie line danced our way down to my car that we had dropped at Sigurd creek trail a few days earlier.
We arrived around 135am and drank a beer then went to the dirty clown. I would not reccomend the filet O fish.
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MH2
Boulder climber
Andy Cairns
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Wooly!
Such composure!
More on-again-off-again (trail?) nonsense:
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RyanD
climber
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Tami,nononono not one day.
Although now knowing where to go I could see how with a bit of preparation it could be done if one was keen and had minimal respect for their joints.
We crossed the river in the afternoon wed via the cable and sauntered up to a bivy on the E ridge of Alpha. Our plan was to wake up early and sleep somewhere on the N ridge of tantalus then cruise down to mags. Anyways, it got real cold. And I forgot to bring the coffee, so it took us a bit to get going the next morning. Alpha was quick, getting off took a bit longer than expected. We slogged around to the E ridge of Serratus and climbed that then decide to chill and sleep at red tit col and go for a big day the next day, which we did. Climbing Dione and Tantalus then descending the N ridge and getting lost following goat trails down the E face before crossing the glacier at the Zenith col then lots of up down until we found a bushwack tunnel that led us up to the SE? Shoulder of Pelion, we basically wandered up and around that thing for a few hours until we finally saw Osa and the drainage that leads to the Morraine that identifies the Sigurd trail. We arrived at my car about 60hrs after we got dropped off on the road by the cable.
We climbed on the rock a lot instead of glacier travel although there were some mandatory crossings and a few moats to deal with, the main one being that under the entire E face of Dione which was extremely undercut. We ended up doing a 150m or so traverse on rock in the moat to the start of the route which worked out well, same for getting down and past the witches tooth and onto Tantalus.
The Sigurd trail seemed to have recently had some work done and is very (possibly too?) well marked.
This was my first alpine route in BC and it was super fun, it was a bit of a toil at one point, but I'm glad we walked in and out of the mountains as well. It made for a nice adventure :-)
Will be looking to chopper in and go sport climbing on Dione next time, yuk yuk
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supafly
Trad climber
vancouver, bc
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Sep 13, 2015 - 12:39pm PT
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Does anyone know the deal with the rescue helo out today?
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RyanD
climber
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Sep 13, 2015 - 01:00pm PT
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Thanks Tami for the kind words, much appreciated-it was a really great experience. I don't have any more pics since we had a good flow going and redline batteries on our phones the last day. Kieran might have a few, if he see this maybe he'll post up.
Sorry I missed u guys last night, but Bmacd and a few other hooligans were still about at least when I showed up so we still had a blast, even though I'm scared to go out alone at night now :-)
Can u guys believe how many ppl live in the chief parking lot nowadays lol??!
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Sep 13, 2015 - 09:25pm PT
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Extermination Unit Call-Out!!!!!
We were up on Gobsmacking Wall today (yes, if you leave Psyche Ledge early, instead of staying and doing drugs until the small hours of the morning, you can climb the next day) and found one of the Great New Climbs has been taken over by the Vermin Of The Universe.
Nasty little f*#kers with vicious stingers.
Not sure what the name of the climb is -- I think it's Cross-eyed on the wall immediately left of Chewbacca. Crux is written up as exiting the chimney, but right now the real crux is hanging on after you've made the exit move and sunk your hand deep into the jam that should bring you relief.
Which it probably did do in the past, but now what you sink your hand into is a wasp's nest.
So if any of you Sqaumptonites happens to be looking for a good deed to do (you know, to balance all the stupid sh#t you've been doing lately), tie a can of Wasp Death to your harness and get up there.
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TacomaDome
Trad climber
Tacoma, WA
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Sep 15, 2015 - 08:43am PT
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Made a super quick trip to Squamish this past weekend, weather was fantastic. Made it to the Papoose, can't believe we have never visited this crag, super quick approach and you can knock out a few multi pitch routes.
There were a couple parties on hairpin, so we warmed up on the first 2 pitches of centerfold, excellent! Hard warmup and it took me a few tries to get the first pitch crux. No pics.
After we rapped from the 2nd pitch of centerfold hairpin was open for the taking. It was a nice climb.
Then we wanted to run up mushroom to end the day at the papoose, but for some reason missed the obvious crack and went up mercury vapor instead. Oh well, it was fun.
Didn't get much done on day 2, just a couple of routes in murrin park.
Why do you have to be such a long drive away squamish? Wish I could play on your stone more often!
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Jstod
Trad climber
North Vancouver
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Sep 15, 2015 - 09:10am PT
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Thought some of you would find this short video interesting:
[Click to View YouTube Video]
A drive from H.Bay to Squamish in 1966, condensed to about 4.5 minutes. Some highlights include quick glimpses of Comic Rocks and Murrin Park, and of course the Chief.
I grew up in Lions Bay and remember the wooden bridges but the Britannia Beach mining chutes were mostly gone by my time.
Apologies if this has already been posted!
JS
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Jstod
Trad climber
North Vancouver
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Sep 15, 2015 - 11:25am PT
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Cool Tami.
My first memories are from the early 80's, so a little after yours :). I grew up on the same street as the Wade's, whose sons fell victims to the massive debris torrent that came down Alberta creek around that time.
As a side note, you and I've actually met and I've been in your home! Our mutual friend Chris was staying with you and Phil and I picked him up/dropped him off at your place before and after several ski trips to the central coast ranges :)
Hope you're well!
Julian
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 19, 2015 - 05:37pm PT
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Last weekend was super fun. I managed to get out with Tami for a couple pitches. Phil joined us too, and it was a grand afternoon.
We met up and burgers, and it's namesake was free, so I jumped on it. I've climbed burgers and fries many times since my injury, but i hadn't led it yet.
With Tami on the brake, I felt confident, and promptly cruised the route.
Tami pulling the rope through.
Climbing is sooooooo boooooring.. ;)
She absolutely cruised Burgers and Fries, 5.7
Original Tami customized Fire's
After we went over to bilbo baggins, and i managed to convince Tami to lead it!
She cruised it too.
Tami and Phil, chillin at burgers right.
On the way back to the parking lot, Tami wanted to check out Red Nails 11c
Then I suggested we hit up scrubbers new route.
Tami on Kris Wild's new parking lot contribution
Tami getting some.
It was great to hang with Tami and Phil again, and tie in with Tami finally!!
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Sep 20, 2015 - 02:24pm PT
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Holy scheisse!
I've never seen it pour down any harder than it's doing right now.
Get out of the creek beds and batten the hatches.
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Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
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Sep 20, 2015 - 02:37pm PT
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I've never seen it pour down any harder than it's doing right now.
Wow. A look at the radar says it isn't going to stop anytime soon, either.
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TacomaDome
Trad climber
Tacoma, WA
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Sep 21, 2015 - 04:04pm PT
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Hey Mike, that parking lot contribution is the big newly cleaned open book in boulder gully? I've been wondering about that thing. What's it go at?
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 21, 2015 - 09:56pm PT
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Ryand- Thanks for that tantalizing tale my friend. Your eye continues to impress me. I'd love to see more of your work.. ;)
Aaron- Yes. I have no idea what Kris named it. It's really fun and can't be more than 5.7. It's longer than 35m, so you can lower your partner then rap to the midway station, or swing over to the triage anchor and tr that.
The Papoose is super fun hey? Hairpin is such a rad route. The second pitch was my first 10a onsight in Squamish. Next time do Centrefold to the top. ;) and do Hanging Gardens too on the far left.
Mushroom is rad, you have to wander down past Mercury Vapour to get to it though.. ;)
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Oct 4, 2015 - 09:05am PT
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Wooohooo!!! Squamish alpine start!!!!!
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SuperTopo on the Web
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Let us know!