Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Scrubber
climber
Straight outta Squampton
|
|
Best Squamish slab shoes: The ones you believe in.
Over the years I've heard arguments from every side on this one. It all comes down to trusting the shoes you're in. Slab for me is comfy shoes, often with socks, definitely not in anything with a down-turned toe. (Maximum sole contact.)I've tried my tighter shoes on some routes like DITL, but find it terrifying.
How about listing your favorite slab route. Mine is Teetering on the Brink of Madness.
K
|
|
micro_marc
Gym climber
Squamish
|
|
It all depends on the individuals foot, technique, and preferences.
Katana Lace is my favourite for everything, mostly because it fits my foot like a glove and I like the balance between the 'dowturn' and the stiff platform. You can use them sport climbing in Chek, tech-ing your way up the Pet Wall, and front pointing up steep Squamish Slabs.
If you have a narrower foot the Muiras are phenomenal shoes, and the testerosas (sp?) are also unreal!
I know that 5.10 also makes excellent shoes, but they don't fit me well so I can't say much about them unfortunately.
As for a favorite slab route, I loved 'Dancing in the Light' but 'Local Boys do Good' is a close runner up with the knobs everywhere.
|
|
Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
|
|
Didn't the McNerthney Bro's do that first sometime in the late 70's - early 80's ?
No, I think it was Kitty and ??? Can't remember his name, but I believe he was killed not long after. I think his last name began with a "B" but I could be wrong. And maybe his first name was Mark?
How about listing your favorite slab route. Mine is Teetering on the Brink of Madness.
Mine too.
|
|
MH2
climber
|
|
I like Teetering, too, because it has a crack, because of the way it follows a winding channel through the smoothness above the crack, because of the runout section above that, and because of having done it with G. Smaill.
|
|
RyanD
climber
Squamish
|
|
Which one is teetering on the brink? Is it the arete left of diedre or the arete left of unfinished symphony?
Favorite slab route??? We are too blessed in Squamish with endless slab!
first ones that come to mind:
Local boys
Dancing in the light
White lightning
Banana peel
xenolith dance
this list could really go on and on, hopefully this spring there will be more favourites to add!
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
Boreal Ballets, resoled with C4, are still the cat's pyjamas for most climbing at Squamish, especially slab climbs.
|
|
hamish f
Social climber
squamish
|
|
o.k., one more solo story, then I'll stop.
About 25 years ago, when a house in squamish was 75,000 instead of 575,000 , I set out to climb angel's crest.
Always on the theme of "more adventure", I hadn't climbed it for a year or two. I had, however, got the scoop from Peter in joshua tree on avoiding the rappel.
Peter was great for those scoops. Some of the funnest climbing days I had were following him around joshua tree, trying to keep up. Of couse I'd sit some routes out, like the one behind the campground, named after some rolling stones song. I can't remember the name, but it was pretty tough.
I did get into trouble, sometimes, through poor decision making and bad route selection. Problem was Peter made all these routes look like they were 5.8, no matter how nasty it got up there.
One day we're walking out of the real hidden valley and he says he wants to go do the classic little butress climb down the way. I'd led that pitch before and remembered it to be pretty insecure. I agreed to the walk down there but I was going to be watching from the desert floor, nice and safe.
Of course he made the thing look like a walk-up so I start feeling the urge to participate. Dumb-ass. For a fairly smart kid, I couldn't believe how dumb I could be sometimes. At about the two-thirds height it became a little rounded and, how about that... insecure. Back and fourth I go, and I can't wrap my head around these friction moves. Peter has finished the pitch and is working his way down the gully beside the climb. He was perched on a boulder, watching me and saying a few prayers at the same time. We were used to that situation, what with him at the top of the scale and me, well, not. I eventually figured it out and padded through those rounded moves. When in doubt, sit it out.
Back to angel's crest. Sorry. I head up there one day for the big adventure; quite excited because I've got the scoop on how to skip the rappel.
I go up that nice crack and then I'm looking at some rather wet face moves. I climb up and feel the holds and reverse back down. Oh ya, that's wet. It seemed wet enough that downclimbing wasn't going to be an option; crank those few moves and we're committed. I'm committed, or should've been a long time ago. I forge ahead and before too long I'm up at the acrophobes. Smugger than smug, I remember Peter saying to skirt around to the right and grovel through at the lower level. I checked over there and it all seemed really loose and exposed. It looked terrifying, really. Maybe he had said go to the left? I explore out to the left and was met with the same troublems, loose, dirty, exposed. Yuck. I headed back over to the nice rock and re-assess the plan. I could call Peter on the cell, in california, but they hadn't been invented yet.
Eventually I lay over the edge of the rappel where I could get a good view of the area. It was actually quite a short rappel, but without a rope, well, not looking good. I looked over to the right and spotted a little potential down climb. Someone is watching over me up here.
I hung off a perfect ledge and kicked a few loose rocks out of the way. A little more prep and cleaning with my feet and soon enough I had a nice little downclimb. It was short and easy. I don't know where Peter went but he had those mountaineering skills, and I didn't. A few more pitches, nice facecrack, nice little chimney, and I was at the top. I kept doing that route for years, always using my little downclimb. Necessity breeds creativity.
Oh ya, I squeezed a couple of long words in there...
|
|
Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 1, 2012 - 01:11pm PT
|
Wow... Don't stop.. never stop!
|
|
bmacd
Boulder climber
100% Canadian
|
|
Does anyone know what Andrew Boyd likes to wear for climbing shoes ?
Teetering on the Brink, Yes I remember after a safety meeting in the Apron parking lot with Dean Hart and how much that line stood out like a sore thumb to me. I pointed it out to Dean and we agreed it was a must do.
We made the mistake of inviting Carl Austrom along on one of the scrubbing sessions. We were Horrified as we watched him pre-drill holes in the slab above the Grim Reaper crack during one of the scrubbing missions. He then announced on the day of the climb he was going up there, I was able to get time off and he had invited Jean MCrae along. Dean and Randy were unable to make it. Quite frankly Carl if you are reading this, I still think you are a complete f*#king as#@&%e.
It was supposed to be a Hart MacDonald Atkinson route, but it got Hijacked out from under us by an unethical bastard.
So I am certain the standard "ethic" for Carl Austrom was to pre drill holes on rappel and then claim to have "Placed bolts on lead" on all his slab routes. Some ethic eh ?
|
|
hamish f
Social climber
squamish
|
|
A.B. is constructing what will be one of the best bike trails in squampton. He deserves a lot of beer for his outstanding effort.
|
|
hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
|
|
hf
'troublems' a new word for me. an original, or a typo? good combo.
best shoes?
1. Zillertals
2. Kronhoffers
3. Any good mountain boot.
:-) H.
PS What kind of a name is Hamish?
|
|
hamish f
Social climber
squamish
|
|
oh brother, I'm so bad. One more solo-type story just because everyone needs a good laugh, what with all the snow around these days.
I know this is a particularily old story because I was particularily small at the time. There wasn't much of me to absorb stuff like wasp stings, etc..
Peter and I had been getting into the soloing a bit and were enjoying ourselves immensly. I was fourteen or fifteen, so it was around 1980. Peter was the senior achiever and I was in the back, trying to keep up.
On the apron, a new route had just been put up, st. vitis dance. We hadn't done it yet but we figured it was right up our alley, all hand cracks, so we blow off the rope.
Up around the two hundred foot zone, Peter unknowingly climbed over a wasp nest and then, unfortunately, dislodged it with his foot. There's me, little guy jamming hard, and suddenly the nest hits me. The inhabitants weren't very happy.
I'm frozen there, in the classic crack climbers postion, and I'm getting stung all over. Nothing much I can do except take it like a man, or boy, actually. I'm screeching because it feels like I'm getting shot in all parts of my body. There seemed to be loads of those angry killers underneath me so our only route was up. It was a bit of a rough go as I started to swell up all over. My one index finger was useless and same for one of my eyes. On we forged, really happy to get to the top of that one. We counted at least eleven stings and hiked down slowly, as I was down to one eye.
No climbing for a few days after that epic....lots of lemon juice and swimming in the lake at murrin.
Now I'll stop.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
The pitch on Angel's Crest above Angel Crack is often and annoyingly wet, and you can't tell until you get to it. It is possible, but not simple, to rappel into the gully from there, or maybe even climb down.
Bob McGown from Oregon was the first to explore what became Teetering, in the later 1970s. I don't know how far he got, but he was going to call it A Slice of Life.
|
|
thekidcormier
Trad climber
squamish, b.c.
|
|
Is it called a duet when you solo with a friend?
|
|
Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Mar 1, 2012 - 03:09pm PT
|
That's really funny. Especially because that is the most often used reason for not soloing. "I might get stung be a bee!". "Well Hamish Fraser had a whole wasps nest fall on him on St. Vitus and he survived!"
:)
|
|
Ghost
climber
A long way from where I started
|
|
Had the same thing happen to me. Soloing the first pitch of something on the north end of the Apron (had to be something with an easy first pitch, cuz I never soloed anything hard) behind Davey Jones. He got some wasps upset, and I was terrified they'd take it out on me. So I just froze in place and waited.
Eventually they went away, and I lived.
|
|
micro_marc
Gym climber
Squamish
|
|
Drew generally rocks the Testarossa's when he climbs/walks impossibly hard slabs.
I once missed the downclimb on the crest, ended up down climbing some unnerving chimney feature to the left of the rappel. Probably not my favorite climbing experience, but at least there were no wasps.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
Are attacks by wasps at Squamish, and in the coast ranges, increasing in frequency? That is, in relation to person-days in those environments?
Do modern route-cleaning practices lead to more encounters with wasps?
I've been attacked several times, and would not want to have that experience while climbing.
(Once I saw some climbers eliminate a wasp nest right in the middle of some climbs at Lighthouse Park. They poured white gas on the rock above, got the nest area nice and wet, then tossed a match on the drip well below and ran. Worked quite well, very spectacular as the nest exploded.)
|
|
Tricouni
Mountain climber
Vancouver
|
|
Are attacks by wasps at Squamish, and in the coast ranges, increasing in frequency? That is, in relation to person-days in those environments?
Don't know about Squamish, but in the Coast Mountains I don't think they are any worse than they ever were. Seems to vary from year to year.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
Hmm, and here I thought Hamish was just another way to say haggis.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!