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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2015 - 08:29am PT
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Saugy sent me this recently.
I do believe this my first ever shirtless selfie... Lol
Don Saugy Photo
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2015 - 09:23am PT
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No guesses yet??
Does this help?
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Aug 22, 2015 - 09:58am PT
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Looks like Center Street or route to the right?
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maurop
Gym climber
B-dot
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Aug 22, 2015 - 10:04am PT
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My guess is also Center Street, or maybe the 5.9 route (baby lizard??). The other 10a with 10b extension (behind the climber in BM first post from the other night) is also an exciting route, especially the traverse at the top.
Tami, scary stuff. I was reading the other day about environmental sustainability (broadly defined) and using natural interest vs natural capital. Same basic economic principals that apply to neoliberalism. Interesting parallells that few people think about....
Climbed Hanging Gardens the other night. Had a good laugh at Big Mike's writeup. Solid route, but filling in with debris. I did a little gardening, but for such a great route, it's weird it doesn't get talked about or climbed that often. Need to go back for the red point, but the cruxes are't as bad as they look.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2015 - 10:16am PT
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You gents got it!! Heather was a few feet from the onsight!!
Perry are you available for Psyche ledge this year?? I am looking forward to it.
Maurop, Hanging Gardens never made the book unfortunately! I think that's why it suffered. I laughed at my writeup too. Luke is a powerful motivator.... :)
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Chief
climber
The NW edge of The Hudson Bay
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Aug 22, 2015 - 11:05am PT
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Big Mike,
Thanks for the timely reminder of the Annual Psyche Ledge gathering on Sept 12.
We'll have to brace ourselves for the withering disapproval of the egregiously territorial pebble wrestlers as they've made it clear, many of them think that area is their turf.
Amazing how the former center of the Squamish climbing universe is relegated to obscurity.
That's why I think the annual gathering is important.
I'll freshen up the Psyche Ledge thread while I'm at it.
Regards,
PB
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2015 - 10:34pm PT
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Whoo hoo! Psyche ledge party and climbing with Tami and Phil!!
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 22, 2015 - 11:56pm PT
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Center Street Bump
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 10:14am PT
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Here's a couple more bangers from Center Street
Vertical pano
Stretch bird's eye view. I think i need some stilts.
I know a lot of you hate this reverse magazine angle, but hey, they can't all be the same....
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Rolfr
Trad climber
La Quinta and Penticton BC
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Aug 23, 2015 - 03:13pm PT
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There sure seems to be alot of route cleaning beside Centre Street, very white rock, must be acid rain. The bluffs seem to get whiter every year.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 03:36pm PT
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Nope. Hevy did a real nice job opening up crag x again.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 05:48pm PT
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Red nails is a classic now Tami. High Quality 11c. It was even pictured in the new guide. The bluffs are way more popular now-a-days. All this cleaning has opened up some nice old climbs and made it much easier to get away from the crowds..
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Rolfr
Trad climber
La Quinta and Penticton BC
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Aug 23, 2015 - 07:00pm PT
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Good on Heavy, send him down to Free and Easy crag and Island in the Sky, some really unpopular climbs down there. "This, That and the other Thing" is worth a rescrub, or is that whole area now on private property?
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 23, 2015 - 08:27pm PT
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I'm not sure where the line is on that one Rolf. I don't think so, but again i'm unsure. I know The Zip definitely is. Island In the Sky has a few lines that look worth scrubbing tho..
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Aug 24, 2015 - 07:35pm PT
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It was Star Chek Tami, that's Highway 99. Best of luck to them, I posted it on squamishclimbing.com too.
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hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
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Aug 24, 2015 - 11:06pm PT
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Place thumb on picnic table. Strike hard with piton hammer.
Oh, wait.....nobody has a pin hammer these days.
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Big Mike
Trad climber
BC
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Topic Author's Reply - Sep 4, 2015 - 08:28am PT
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Aid climbers typically still carry hammers Hamish.. Freeclimbers generally don't but i bet in the alpine lots do...
The mountains foretold the changing of the seasons again this morning...
I am going to default to my optimistic attitude for this winter. There are so many factors in play right now, who knows what's going to happen!
http://cliffmass.blogspot.ca/2015/09/godzilla-el-nino-versus-blob-who-will.html?m=1
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hamie
Social climber
Thekoots
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BM, I haven't carried a hammer in the alpine for several decades, and I doubt if many others do today. [I still have one for placing bolts and anchors.] If you don't have a hammer, use a big rock or a brick, but be careful. Remember it's their thumb and not your fingers which is the target.
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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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