Weekend on the rocks...

The Vancouver heavens have opened up a deluge of Biblical proportions late on a tuesday evening and it seems about time to update the blog.

I spent the weekend in Squamish taking a course in traditional climbing. Squamish left a pretty nice impression on me. I've always liked climbing in the smoke bluffs, but the town shares that remote mystique that I guess I would apply to places like Canmore in Alberta. Surrounded on all sides by mountains, good hiking and great climbing it seems far from the port hustle of Vancouver although it isn't. I stayed in a nice, but pricey hostel, next to the highway for the weekend. The room was pleasant an empty most of the time, with amazing views of the Stawamus Chief from its patio.

Friday morning started early at the local starbucks where myself and another fellow named Peter met our teacher for the trad course, Craig. It rained lightly for most of the day, which didn't matter too much as we spent the better part of the day familiarizing ourselves with traditional gear (cams and nuts), and their proper placement in cracks underneath the Zombie roof.

When the sun came out in the afternoon, Craig set up a top-rope on a beautiful and fun 5.7 climbed called the Laughing Crack. I was hooked up with a rack of protection and made my way up the climb without much difficulty. The real challenge is looking at part of the crack and figuring out just what size of cam or nut you'll need to fit in properly. It definately will require a great deal more practice. You have to get used to climbing along with one hand and having the other able to go to your side to find gear without risking falling. It was great fun, especially given the climb itself was not too simple but ridiculous fun nonetheless. I found a picture of a trad climber going up the laughing crack pictured on the right.

For reading in the hostel I had Irshad Manji's "The Trouble with Islam Today", an excellent book that really requires a post of its own to be made later.

I bought a small booklet and pen to record the various knots and rules for my course on the second day. We trekked in to Ronin's Corner [sp] and set up another top-rope on a nice 5.6. The corner was where I first learned to set top-ropes on the VOC Longhike 2 years ago. I went up the pitch, set up and anchor and Craig showed me how to belay from the top. We turned the climb into a 2-pitch and it went well. In the afternoon we went over to Fern Gully and I had my first true trad climb on a gentle 5.5 or 5.4 that was basically a collection of big crags and verticle shelves thirty or forty feet up. I definately benefitted from having done sport before as the usual spookiness factor of climbing above an anchor wasn't too extreme. At the top, I learned the munter knot belay and Peter seconded my climb. We rapped down the pitch and spent the rest of the afternoon learning rope ascent and some rescue techniques.

All and all a great course. The investment of a trad rack is a bit daunting, especially at the pre-brushing-season-moment, atleast $700. But given the freedom it allows in terms of finding out climbing spots and going up mountain faces without the need for bolted routes.

On monday, Dave came up from rainy Vancouver. We had ambitious plans of going up Mount Brew, but that was scaled back to a climb of the backside of the Chief. The beginning was a forested stair-master of a climb that just went up and up through the forest next to Shannon Falls. We decided to climb the first peak. The whole climb was about 450 meters vertical, and near the top it steepened up to ladders up scalloped and rippled granite slopes. Dave and I got off the tracks and I, in the blowing wind and rain, tried my hand at a solo of a nice granite slab. A little slippery and spooky but fun. We soon convinced ourselves that we'd lost the route and returned back to the path. The last part of the climb was up onto the granite peak in the wind and rain with the help of chains at one point. We skittered to the top (to wet for photos), before we joined a bunch of other hikers heading down the peak. It was a reverse stair-master on the way down and we were soaked to the bone and cold when we made our way to the Brew Pub for lunch.

Weather wasn't perfect, but a damn good long-weekend nonetheless. Dave's off to Scandanavia and Eastern Europe tomorrow, watched a bit of Michael Palin's "Sahara" tonight. Signing off for now.