The Grand Wall, 5.11a A0

Climbing the Grand Wall was the culmination of our experience in Squamish.  We started out climbing the very slabby Apron routes and started working our way up to harder, longer, and steeper climbs.  After being in Squamish nearly three weeks, we decided that it was time to tackle a bigger challenge.

The Grand Wall is hard to miss, climbing up the beautiful face of the Chief.  It is easy to pick out two of the most classic pitches, The Split Pillar and the Sword by looking up at the wall from the road.  At 5.11, the climb was a harder multi pitch than either of us had attempted before, and it was sustained at the grade, unlike some of the other climbs we had done like the Squamish Buttress which goes at 5.10c, but only has one pitch at that grade and the rest at 5.7.  We decided to gun it, and left the tag line at home so we had no option of retreat.

The Topo

5 Stars, oh yea!

The night before the climb we got tons of beta from our friend Andy who has climbed the Grand Wall at least four times.  He filled us in on all the important details and we went to bed psyched!  We woke up early the next morning, grabbed the gear that we had racked the night before and hiked to the base.  As we arrived at the bottom of the climb, two other parties showed up behind us.  Luckily they were awesome people that entertained me at all the belay stations. 

The first pitch is a 5.7 R, which means there is a lot of space between your pieces of protection.  It is a bolted dike that goes for 42 meters and has all of THREE bolts.  We linked this pitch with the next 5.9 pitch which is also slightly runout.  The next pitch is an awesome traverse that goes at 5.10b.  The movement was really cool and at the end of the traverse you aid up a short bolt ladder. 

Looking down at the runout slab pitch

 The first three pitches went by really fast!  We were already far off the ground, and even better, we were at the base of the split pillar!  The split pillar is an awesome splitter (who would’ve guessed) that started at tight hands (for me.  Rattly fingers for people with fat hands), went to hands, off hands, turny cups, fists and then a bit of offwidth at the top.  Eric styled the pitch perfectly.  I had to lay back some of the wider parts but eventually made it to the next belay.

The Split Pillar

Eric styles it

The sword is a really thin finger crack with a tricky bulge in it (crux of the route).  At the top is another bolt ladder.  Eric cruised this pitch also and brought me up to the belay at the base of Perry’s Layback.  Perry’s is a huge offwidth crack, which is thankfully bolted (or we would have had to drag a bunch of #4s and #5s up).  The face that you smear on while you lieback is fairly smooth and given that it was a right facing corner and my right shoe was totally blown out, I had to pull on a few draws for this pitch.
  

A nice view

After this pitch, we were only two pitches from the top!  Eric was feeling a little tired (understandably so) so I led the next pitch, which was a very technical face climb.  It was a little more runout than I feel is ideal, but I inched my way up, feeling my shoes crumbling away beneath me.  After clipping the last bolt, there is a reachy 5.10 move, which involves you making it up a blank bulge to a mediocre jug.  The only problem is that there are no footholds or handholds to get you there, so if you aren’t 6 feet tall, you basically have to dyno.  I did some creative sideways aid climbing and somehow made it to the top of the pitch. 

My very sad shoes

The last pitch features an undercling traverse around a flake and then easier climbing to the top.  I was feeling pretty gassed when I went to follow this.  The undercling traverse again featured a smooth surface with no holds where you had to smear your feet.  Darn shoes need some rubber!  As I was traversing out I was thinking about how it would be really inconvenient to fall.  I was about to hit the corner of the flake when my right foot slipped off the wall and I went boink!  I looked up in dismay to see the flake 15 feet above me, and nothing but smooth polished wall in between.  Rats!  I had to climb up the rope and really hope I didn’t fall in order to get back into the flake.  Eventually I was at the top!

Woo!

We were both super psyched on the awesome climbing we had just completed.  The Grand Wall was super varied, and featured every type of climbing at a sustained grade and at high quality.  It was AWESOME!  Eric climbed it in excellent style, onsighting it, and I was psyched to get to the top with just a little gear pulling.  Although we had finished the climb, we were not down yet.  We had to traverse the Bellygood Ledge which is a very narrow walkway above a sheer drop off—scary!  Fortunately we made it safely back to the ground. 

Bellygood Ledge 

Drop off!

Climbing the Grand Wall left us really satisfied, and with our food nearly gone, our  campsite taken from us (we might have forgotten to pay for the last few days), and rain in the forecast, we decided that it would soon be time to leave.  The next day we decided to go out for one last boulder session.  Instead of sending some projects, I got a new one and worked it til it was almost dark.  Eric had put in a few goes on Mantra (V8) and decided to try a few more times.  As the darkness crept in he took off his shoes and threw in the towel.  While packing up, he noticed that the crux hold should be held like a pinch, not a sloper, and put his shoes on for one last go.  He stuck the crux!  As he was going for the top he made the unfortunate realization that the top hold was a sloper, not a jug, and came flying off the boulder and onto a rock.  No!  He twisted his ankle pretty badly and had to hobble out of the forest.  It was a bummer kind of way to end the trip but he is in good spirits and his ankle is feeling much better. 

We hit the road back home, feeling lucky to have gotten in so many classic climbs and to have experienced such great weather (no rain!  Unheard of for a trip to Squamish).  Today we’ll head to SLO to see the puppies (update on Star- second Vet’s opinion was that she did not need surgery), and we will await our next adventure!   

Adventures in the Forest

We have now been adventuring on rocks in and above the forest for two weeks.  It has been glorious!  The climbing here is so unique- the boulders are set amongst the huge trees of the peaceful forest.  Everything is green and moss and lichen covered.  Strange bugs and slugs creep around and funny mushrooms grow on many surfaces.  Despite the appearance that there are a lot of people here (based on the full campground and parking lot), it remains quiet and uncrowded in the trees.  The routes are also unique, with more tree-slinging, odd traverses and ledges than I’m used to. 

Since my last post, we have done LOTS of climbing!  We have completed 40+ pitches of trad climbing and done a fair amount of bouldering.  Eric sent Gibbs’ Cave (V8) and The Bulb (V8) and tried lots of other hard classics.  Two days ago he went a scary V5 called Doubt, a V7 called Undertow, and two V8’s- Autobody and Hunt’s Arete.  What a day!  I have sent two V4’s- Easy in an Easy Chair and Trad Killer.  I was getting very close on a really tall slab called Phat Slab (V5) but took a bad fall and am too scared to try it again!  We are looking forward to some more bouldering in the next few days and some more sends.

Most of our focus has been on route climbing.  It is hard to ignore the Chief as it sits there in magnificence overlooking the campground.  One day we climbed St. Vitus’ dance on the Apron, which featured a very lovely crack on pitch 3.  Our biggest day of climbing yet took us up Rock On (5.10a) to the Squamish Buttress (5.10c), which took us all the way to the summit of the Chief!  The view from the top was incredible and the climbing was great.   We linked several pitches together, so the whole climb ended up being a total of 10 pitches. 

We had another good couple days of climbing on the “Squaw.”  On our first day there, we climbed Birds of Prey.  I led the first two pitches of awesome finger crack, and Eric led the burlier 5.10 pitches.  Unfortunately, after our first day climbing at the “Squaw” we left our guidebook at the base of our climb!  The next day we hiked back up hoping to find it but it was nowhere to be seen.  We figured that as long as we had hiked all the way up to the base of the wall, we might as well climb something.  We didn’t have our guidebook, so we guessed where the start of another climb, Jungle Warfare (5.10a) was.  Well, apparently we guessed wrong.  The first pitch was an awesome splitter in a right facing corner that went from fingers to tight hands to hands.  The second pitch was an exposed face climb that probably went at 5.11c/d if I had to guess.  After that we went up some hand cracks, finger cracks and some slab and before we knew it we were at the top!  I was psyched that we didn’t epic and get stuck up there.   

 We had another big day yesterday, climbing Peasant’s Route on the base of the Grand Wall.  It was really inspiring to look up at the Chief from the Grand Wall.  Peasant’s Route is a stout 5.10c and we really enjoyed all five pitches.  After we came down we hiked over to the Apron and practically ran up Diedre a very class 5.8 corner crack.  It is supposed to be six pitches, but we did it in good style and linked everything.  We ended up climbing it in three 200 foot pitches, stretching our rope as far as it would go. 

Eric has amazed me with his ability to climb anything and everything.  He sends boulder problems quickly, sport climbs like a beast, and doesn’t think twice about tying into the sharp end on any trad climb.  Where I would usually hesitate and wonder if I have the skills to make it up every pitch on a climb (for example, I’m not so good at wider cracks so I might not choose a climb that had a pitch of wide crack), Eric just guns it!  He has confidence and the skill to back it up.  It is good to see him continually pushing himself to new levels in gear climbing.

While it is great to see Eric excel, it sometimes leaves me exhausted!  I have been left huffing and puffing while following a few pitches in the last week.  My calves burn, my fingers and hands tire, and I have to leave my pride behind and pull on gear every once in a while.  I love climbing with Eric and knowing that I have a rope gun to get me up any climb we tackle!

I also really miss climbing with Chelsea.  Chelsea and I both have pretty specific strengths and weaknesses in our climbing.  It is always really fun choosing climbs and splitting pitches based on what we excel at.  If there is a slabby or sporty pitch, I’ll take it.  If there is a splitter crack, Chelsea will get the lead.  I definitely miss my PIC and can’t wait until she is climbing again!

One nice thing about being in a place so long is that you start to discover the locals’ secrets.  One thing we’ve learned about is “Happy Hour” at the rec center.  This has nothing to do with drinks, but rather the price of admission.  If you go Monday-Friday between 11:45 and 12:15 it only costs $2 to get in.  Once you’re in, you can swim, hot tub and shower!  What a deal. 

We haven’t been taking too many rest days because there is so much to climb, but when we do we have a great time.  Today we went up to Whistler to check out the site of the 2010 Winter Olympics. We saw lots of people mountain biking and ate some delicious ice cream.  We’ve also been swimming at lakes, and walking around and exploring.

There is a great community of climbers here (including some famous ones), which makes for a great vibe and a wonderful place to chill out.  It is very relaxed here and we sleep in late almost every day.  On the weekends, the parking lots overflow with people coming to hike to the top of the Chief.  For some reason I have started calling these people ‘tourists,’ even though they are almost all from BC. I get amused by the puzzled looks we get from the ‘tourists’ while cooking our breakfast out of the back of our car. 

Anyway, back to the climbing.  There is just so much of it, it’s hard not to get overwhelmed!  We are thinking about staying a little longer than we originally planned so we can do a few more of the things that we want (or we could try waking up before 10am).  The bouldering guidebook has over 2500 problems in it and even the select route guidebook has too much to choose from.  Eric would read me bedtime stories in the form of route descriptions (until we lost our book).  “Pitch 3, 5.10.  Start up the right facing corner and climb left to a tree.”  I fall asleep under the silent forest canopy dreaming of climbing.  When I wake up in the morning, the rock awaits :) 

Squamish

The Rockzilla comp!

We are currently on a rest day in Squamish after four awesome days of climbing here.  We left from Napa, California, after attending an awesome bouldering competition at Rockzilla.  I placed 4th for the women, and Eric placed 4th in men's in terms of points, but there was a three-way tie for 3rd, which put him on spot out of finals.  Finals were really intense!  

Giovanni Traversi on Men's Problem #3

After a nice sleep in the back of the car, we hit the road!  It was a beautiful drive and before we knew it, we were in Eugene, Oregon.  We met up with some great friends from Cal Poly, Ben and Chrissa (recently engaged!).  They lent us some inner tubes and we had a relaxing float down the river.  

After the nice cool off, we jumped back in the car and motored up to  Portland.  There we stopped at Rogue brewery for a good beer and then headed to VooDoo for some crazy doughnuts.  We were welcomed into our friend Casey's apartment with gracious hospitality, and got another good night of snoozin before we hit the road in the morning to head further North.  We made a quick stop in Seattle at REI and before we knew it we were crossing the border into Canada.

It was slightly stressful at first, trying to keep my speed at the right kilometers per hour while navigating through Vancouver.  At one point I headed the wrong way down a one way street, but crisis was averted and we made it to Squamish as it got dark.

We spent the night in the car and were able to find a sweet camp spot the following morning.  Then it was off to the forest in search of awesome boulders!  We were not disappointed by the awesome granite blocks that filled up the forest floor.  Everyone told me that Squamish grades were soft, so I was expecting to crush.  Well, it seems that I may be a bit out of shape, because not too much crushing has occured yet.

Nonetheless, we are having an awesome time getting on super classic problems.  We have also gotten on a bunch of awesome routes.  We took the Snake (5.9) up the Apron.  It was 5 pitches and we swapped leads up a fun corner.

We are looking forward to getting on some more long trad climbs in the days to come.  A good friend from my Planet Granite days, Sarah, showed up a few days after us and we have been enjoying her spirited and enthusiastic company, as well as the company of a Canadian named Brian.  Yesterday we all headed to Cheakamus for some sport climbing.

On our rest day, we headed to the farmers market and got some awesome deals on veggies.  At one stand, they let you fit as many bell peppers as you can into a plastic bag, and the bag costs $4.  We were able to fit 6!  We also headed to Alice Lake for a swim and to the Rec Center for a shower.  Squamish is BEAUTIFUL!  Really loving it!

This post is a little scatter-brained, but at least it provides an update :)  The bad news so far is that I blew out my trad climbing shoes on our second day here!  Noooo!  The one re-soler in town was going to charge me $60 to fix them (and that's Canadian dollars!), which is about 50%+ of the price of a brand new (full-priced) shoe.  Bummer.  Other than that, we are all smiles!