Photo: Sign near Radison Hot-Springs BC
As summer comes to an end and the new school year begins
it’s time to look back at the goals we’ve all achieved and all the good times
had over the last couple months. This summer has been really great in so many
ways meeting new people, traveling, seeing family and being able to adventure
gaining so many amazing memories.
This post is about only one month of the summer and what an
unbelievable month it has been. August 1st I met Santiago Espinosa,
my buddy and climbing partner in Squamish BC to start a month long road trip
through British Columbia and Alberta. Along the way we climbed in and around
Squamish, the Bugaboos, Lake Louise, Banff, Canmore and the Valhalla mountain
range chasing after a bunch of classic climbs that we’ve been dreaming of doing for the last year. We managed to get 21 climbing days in with a total of
approximately 5500 meters of vertical climbing and many kilometers of hiking
into the backcountry. Because we went to so many different areas we were able
to climb many different types of rock with grades ranging from 5.6 to 5.12a,
sport and trad from single pitch to 36 pitches, craging areas to long alpine routes,
which gave us a very diverse experience.
Squamish is one of my favorite places to climb in the world
because of its amazing crack climbing and classic routes, all close to town. The iconic Squamish Chief is the inspiration for many climbers from
around the world to come climb in this area and it never disappoints. Well in
Squamish we managed to climb a few classic routes up the Chief like the
Ultimate Everything, Rock on, Squamish Buttress, Butt Light,
Boomstick Crack, Over The Rainbow and Banana Peel. Also managed to get on
Angels Crest earlier in the summer, which is highly recommended.
One afternoon sitting back at camp after a failed day of
climbing I came up with a pretty cool plan. It went something like this:
Me- (rum in hand): Man we should try to do two laps up the chief
one day...
Santi- (Beer in hand): Yeah, that will be cool..
Me- (sip of rum): We should try it tomorrow.
Santi- Challenge accepeted.
Me- Its gonna be legend... wait for it...
11hours after we started climbing...
Me- Dary.. LEGENDARY!..
The goal of the day was to see how fast and efficiently we could
climb and preform the different multi-pitch systems. The routes we took were
Over The Rainbow to Boomstick crack to the Ultimate Everything then ran down
the hikers trail back to the bottom and did Banana Peel, Boomstick crack and
Butt light.
Photo: Some of the climbing gear
Our next stop on the trip was the Bugaboos which we were really
excited about as we had heard a lot about it but had never been. Unlike
Squamish, the Bugaboos are not easily accessible and require an approach hike
of about 5 km horizontal and with a 1000meter elevation gain to reach the base
camp. From the base camp all the huge granite spires can be climbed as a day
trip. The hike up to the base camp is no joke though; it is a tough painful
hike with all your climbing gear, glacier travel gear, 6 days of food and
general camping gear on your back.
Photo: my 30kg backpack in front of my car which has chicken wire around it to stop the rodents from eating my break lines.
Photo: Sunrise on the second day.
Photo: Glacier travel
Our first day in the Bugaboos we decided to take it easy in order to warm
up to the alpine setting after being spoiled in Squamish with the easily
accessible climbing. We decided to solo climb Pigeon Spire which is a classic
and must do climb; up a really amazing ridge feature thats about 500meters in length. The
summit is 3156 meters high. It is one of the further away spires from the base
camp and you have to climb up a large steep icy call and across a glacier to access it.
Photo: Approaching Pigeon Spire via the glacier
Photo: Santago traversing way above the clouds in the early morning.
Photo: Santiago repelling off the summit
Photo: Climbing back down the route
Photo: Standing on the summit taking it all in
The second day out in the Bugaboos was one to remember and for
me was the crux of the trip mentally. In every dynamic sport you have to expect
and be prepared mentally and physically for the unexpected and alpine climbing
is as dynamic as it gets. You have to have the skill set to be able to get
yourself out of situations that you might find yourself in and be able to keep
calm in order to make good decisions. In the mountains there is no get out of
jail free card, your decision-making affects you instantaneously and small
mistakes can be fatal.
Our goal was to climb a classic route called Snowpatch on
Snowpatch spire, which is 19pitches summiting at 3084 meters. A seemingly simple
approach and relatively easy route for our abilities but it is never so simple
in the mountains.
Photo: Snowpatch Spire view from base camp
We woke up at 4am and that’s when the first taste of the days complications
would start. Felt sick from the water I was drinking in camp and had my first
nosebleed in as long as I can remember. The water in camp was also not working and
so cold breakfasts and a hike up to a lake to get water made us leave camp later than
planned. Finally left camp at about 5:30am on the approach to Climb Snowpatch spire, which was
simple, we could see the ‘right’ gully we were to climb up. What we didn’t
realize is that we were on the wrong side of the gully and were headed to a
very exposed cliff with no pro or repel options. After climbing up a large ice
ramp we got to a point were we had to get onto the rock. I decided to go first,
stepped over the large gap between the ice ramp and rock face and started
climbing. Pretty soon after I started climbing the realization that there was
no turning around set in. I also noticed that for a classic route there was a
lot of loose rock and boulders that I was pulling off but I knew going down was
impossible at this point. A few meters later I couldn’t
go up any further and was stuck. My climbing partner untied from the rope because if I had fallen he would be dragged with me. My heart beating out of my chest, shaking and
mentally fried and only 100meters off the glacier below I didn’t know what to
do.
A few minutes went by as I thought of my options, which were
either fall or keep going up and decided that I just got to commit and keep
going. I managed to get my head back into the game and went for the moves I
thought were impossible earlier. Found a small foot chip which I got about 5mm of my
mountaineering boot on, found some small hand holds and just went for it. The sweat poring down my face I was so relieved I pulled the move and
moving over to a safer location to belay my partner up was such a good feeling. 4 more pitches of loose
sketchy scary climbing continued after that before reaching the base of the
climb. It took us 6 hours to get to the base of the climb which was meant to
take 2 hours so we decided that our brains were to fried to continue and turned
around repelling off the other side of the gully where the proper approach was.
After our failed climb the day before we decided we could
not leave without a second, more educated attempt on the summit of Snowpatch.
We now knew the proper approach and were more prepared. We left camp a bit
later and managed to safely get to the base of the climb. By 12pm we were 4
pitches from the top and were feeling smooth and fast. Everything was perfect but
maybe too perfect it seemed. As we reached the top of the climb route finding
became extremely complicated and we ended up getting off route. It took us 4
hours to do the last section and was getting late. After a struggle to reach
the top off route we finally made it and had no time to celebrate the achievement.
It was late and we still have about 9 repels to do and a steep ice gully to descend.
Photo: Snowpatch Spire from the proper approach
Photo: Repelling off the summit of Snowpatch Spire
On the descent of Snowpatch Spire about 3 repels down as we
reached the next anchor station and began to pull our rope down for the next
repel pretty much the most feared thing in repelling happened, our rope got
stuck in a crack. At this point there was no time to be wasted and I started
leading up the repel route to retrieve the rope. After freeing the rope once
again and re-rapping the pitch we were finally on our way again. We finally
made it back to camp at 10pm and were exhausted.
We learnt a lot in the Bugaboos about what can go wrong and
how to over come the challenges involved when alpine climbing. We were able to
use many skills that we had learnt over the years of climbing and felt
confident in keeping ourselves safe well out in such an unforgiving environment.
I am excited to return to the Bugaboos next year more prepared and educated
about the area.
Photo: Santiago leading one of the pitches
Our next stop on the trip was Lake Louis, Banff and Canmore
which are all relatively close to one another. We got on some amazing routes
and summited some very cool peaks including the Grand Sentinel and Ha Ling.
Photo: Just chilling
Photo: Santiago on the approach to The Grand Sentinel his favourite climb
Photo: The Grand Sentinal, we climbed up the pillar twice that day up two different routes.
Photo: A view of Canmore from Ha Ling
Photo: Santiago being stocked on our climb
Photo: Summit of The Grand Sentinel
Unfortunately we did not get many pictures of our climbs at Lake Louise and around the rockies but we had a great time with many amazing adventures along the way. After the rockies we decided to make one more stop in the Valhalla mountain range in order to climb Mt Gimli.
Photo: Mt Gimli
Over all we had an amazing trip and this climbing season has been really successful. Although the trip is over i will still be climbing for the next couple of weeks and then will prepare for the ice climbing season, stay tuned for more blog posts later in the year, hope you enjoyed reading some of our adventures.
