Bugs photo TR: (long) sorry dial-uppers....

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grover

Social climber

Akanada

Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 24, 2007 - 07:20pm PT

"Hey JR, feel like a trip into the Bugs?"

"Ya sure, never been"

"Your gonna love it man, was in the East creek basin
under the Howsers last year and it looks like you could get in from the west no sweat"

"The west huh? how long for the approach"

"6....8 hours tops... scoped it out last week"

"Sweet.........!"

After work we leave Castlegar B.C, 2.5 hrs on pavement, then 2 more on logging roads and we arrive at Rory Creek.

Day 1:
How do ya like your eggs Johnny?

An hour in and the defunked logging road turns into an Alder-Bashing-Fest.
Rory Creek bridge......

Above the Alders and into an old burn.

After the burn up the burn, we reach a ridge used for Heli-hiking with the Bugs finally in view.

At this point my 6-8 hour guesstimate was proven wrong. Nothin an hour nap wouldn't cure. From this spot we had to descend close to a 1000 ft then back up to the col in the center of the photo.

Only to see!!!!!!!!

13 hours in and we call it a day. Nothing like soft meadow grass under yer back after a long haul.

Day 2:
Breakfast...then this for dessert!

3.5 hours later and we make it to camp, and the bivy boulder is all ours.

A little bit of food.....

Then the other dessert.....

Day 3:
We cast off to the Howsers east side.

Passing the Howser/Pigeon col.

There she be, Kains 19frickin16 line up the North Howser, (center of photo). He guided 4 folks up it in 20 hours horse to horse, back when there was not even a trail leading to the present day hut.

Almost at the schrund......

Pitch 2, looking north at the Vowell range. Kains line was melted out, so we veer out left onto the north ridge line of the central Howser.

A few more pitches and we make it to the south ridge of the north Howser. The 2 adjoining peaks are Crossed Fish Tower and Little Snowpatch.
"Hey Johnny did you hear that thunder?"

This is what the Central/South Howsers look like before being engulfed in snow and massive lightning.

The storm starts to circle us, so we book it for the summit.
As we top-out, sh#t hits the fan with heavy snow and lightning strikes every few seconds. We backtrack a bit, get off the ridge proper and strip-off all hardware, stash it under a boulder and hunker down.
There is way too much electricity in the air to chance a descent so we give the fireworks an hour to fizzle out.
When the time comes we avoid searching for the proper descent, and head back a pitch to look for a slung horn and biner draped over the ridge. We barely
spot it with all the new snow, tie our 2 cords together and waste no time rapping off.

A few raps in, showing my elated state of not being on the ridge any longer.

4 raps later we are just over the schrund, SWEET... only to find our stiff cords stuck after 2 pulls. Not so sweet.
We try everything and after a long time we cut 30ft off each end in fear of being buried by the growing snowpack.

A salute to the rope stealing gods.......
Visibility is now next to nil. With the help of 1-2 seconds windows the next 6 hours are spent trying to find the col. With the new snow too light to dig, we find a small rock cave at the glaciers edge and excavate for an hour.
Our night is a long one without bivy gear in our tiny cave. With knees to our chests we spend most of the night catching drips of our condensed breathe in a bottle. Yummy!!!

Day 4:
The storm lingers for yet another day. This morning is a replay of yesterdays low-vis game of see-and-run!

After 4 hours of searching for a way off the glacier we stagger back into camp.

Within minutes the skies open up........

After sympathy burritos and BEER!!!!!! from Coloradans Bruce and Chris we crash in an extra food tent with snoring Alaskan Mike.

Day 5:

With ropes chopped and feet numb our time here is over.

We wish the lads good-luck on freeing their new line up the Minaret and head down towards East Creek.....

To speed things up we strapped on some heli-skiing markers but the wax was all wrong.

JR tried his luck with the good ole alpine tuck....

and I failed to link even one tele-turn.

I think I see the car from here!!!

Hour 9 and things get a little hazy.......
Finally at the rig after 10.5 hours, stoked, but only because we found our creek stashed........

....BEER.........

.....to pour over our battered......

.....for the ride home.

paganmonkeyboy

Trad climber

the blighted lands of hatu

Feb 24, 2007 - 07:24pm PT

sweeeeeeeeet...thanks for sharing !

Duke-

Trad climber

SF, aka: Dirkastan

Feb 24, 2007 - 07:32pm PT

Thanks, I needed that. I am sitting in an old research office, freezing, waiting for more hail. What a wonderful T.R., and a plesant distraction.
-Dirka

Ed Hartouni

Trad climber

Livermore, CA

Feb 24, 2007 - 07:33pm PT

excellent... a typical trip to Canada, and the 'Bugs... love it there!

thanks for the picture beta of the route... wanted to do that one for a long time...

J. Werlin

climber

Cedaredge

Feb 24, 2007 - 08:05pm PT

Great TR! Thanks for posting.

Neil

Gym climber

Here and there

Feb 24, 2007 - 08:33pm PT

That was sweeeeet! I want to go!

I'm wondering how All Along the Watchtower would go for someone with no skills or talent like me. Might have to find out this summer. Maybe I can find some skills first.

punjab

Trad climber

oregon

Feb 24, 2007 - 08:36pm PT

nice!!!!

thanks.

Rocky5000

Trad climber

Falls Church, VA

Feb 24, 2007 - 11:16pm PT

Superb. The climbing gods like to play with us, and they make us pay full freight for pics like that. But it's worth it.

LuckyPink

climber

the last bivy

Feb 25, 2007 - 12:52am PT

my HEROS!! great climb and thank god you posted

Rick A

climber

Boulder, Colorado

Feb 25, 2007 - 12:06pm PT

Wow, the approach to the Howsers, the hard way. Nice work.

BadInfluence

Mountain climber

Dak side

Feb 25, 2007 - 02:28pm PT

wow great TR! I know I met the guy w/ the whiskey bottle before, just can't remember where.

LuckyPink

climber

the last bivy

Feb 25, 2007 - 07:56pm PT

bump for the first page, this is such a great tr

climber

The City of Lost Angels

Feb 25, 2007 - 10:13pm PT

Grover--You guys are da bomb! I'm sitting here sweatin' and freezin' all at the same time with those photos. And those were some major good photos!

Awesome TR and I'm glad you two made it out with all fingers and toes.

golsen

Social climber

kennewick, wa

Feb 26, 2007 - 12:31pm PT

Bump. Great TR, thanks man.

This is also an attempt to keep a very worthy topic up front instead of the lame ass troll feeds going on....

Josh Higgins

Trad climber

San Diego

Feb 26, 2007 - 01:03pm PT

One of the best Photo TR's I've seen! Great pics, and captions. It's great to see two guys loving life in the face of adversity. I'm probably headed there this summer with a friend and this makes me drool! Thank you. This is what the SuperTopo forum is all about!

Josh